World of Alvarra: Rise of the Vampire Lord

Chapter 27: Ren

"Nice to finally meet you face to face," the teenager said. "I'm glad you chose that chair, it would have been bad if you had chosen the other. Care for a drink? It's no remshola, but I think it's still pretty good." He then brought out two glass cups from nothing and a red can. He then poured a black bubbling liquid from the red can into the cups and passed one over to Van.

Van stared at the strange liquid, unsure of what it was. He looked up and saw that the person in front of him seemed to be enjoying the drink very much. As he watched, he noticed that the chair that the teenager was sitting on had changed, and was now a very comfy-looking chair that floated in the air.

"Pah! Yes! That's the good stuff! As a memory, I can't really take the initiative to enjoy things like this without being in an area like the one we are in now." he said wiping his mouth. "By the way, you can call me Ren, I would prefer you to call me Van, but I think that name is taken," Ren said with a smirk.

Van looked down to the book and noticed that many of the names in the book had V or A in the names, mostly both, and had similar variations of his own name. He looked up at the Ren. "Are you a past life of mine?"

Ren rolled his eyes. "Perceptive, aren't you?"

Van glared.

Ren raised his hands in immediate defeat. "Right, right, sorry... that was rude of me." he righted himself a bit. "Yes, I am a past life of yours," he said with more seriousness.

"What did you mean that it was a good thing that I sat in this chair as opposed to the other?" Van asked.

Ren nodded. "In here, things are more a matter of perspective and will. By choosing the chair that clearly had more authority you choose to put yourself above whoever you called. If you had chosen the other chair... things might have been messier as many of your less scrupulous past lives would have demanded an audience with you. You could still refuse, of course, but it would have been more difficult."

Van felt glad he dodged the figurative bullet by choosing the right chair. He sat back as he thought, he had so many questions, but he didn't know which ones to ask or if he even should. Like that, time passed, and Ren seemed more than content to wait it out as he enjoyed his drink and whipped up a panel and played something on it.

Finally, Van couldn't help but ask. "Why... why all the past lives. Why me. Why was it my soul that was shattered and broken."

Ren paused from his game, looking up at Van with a serious expression. "I'm not sure I can explain that, both because I don't think I should, and because I both do not have all the information or the right to say. Just know that your last life was... difficult and it broke something in you. As for why you, there was no reason, it happened completely by chance. You were just reborn too quickly and your soul didn't have the time to heal. Just bad luck."

Van couldn't believe what he heard. "Bad luck? Just Bad Luck!? I grew up in a weird world with weird rules, not feeling like a fit in, and then I was raped, and then I was forced to have sex again, like it was normal, which was fucked up, and fucked me up in the head a little more! Even as I tried to play it off-I-I-." tears started to form around his eyes. He rubbed them away violently, angry at himself for letting his mask slip.

"If you're still afraid of those nightmares, don't worry, after you leave and your soul realm is completed. Your nightmares, alongside your trauma, would be gone." Ren said impassively.

Van stared at Ren in shock at that. "...Gone? What do you mean, Just gone?" he asked, unsure if he heard him right.

"I mean gone... is that a problem?" Ren said, uncaring of Van's feelings.