Souls

In the cabin deep in the woods, Cain stood before an electric stove, apparent doubt in his eyes.

"Hey... how do you turn this thing on?"

"You seriously don't know how to turn on a stove?"

The young man's expression showed complete skepticism at what he'd just heard.

How was it possible that a grown man who'd lived over nine hundred lives couldn't operate a simple stove?

"Well, whenever I reincarnate into a new life, some of my memories get lost. Usually it's just small, insignificant fragments, though this can vary depending on which body I've reincarnated into."

"Oh, by the way, this isn't actually my body. It belongs to someone else."

"Wait, what? You're just telling me this now? So who the hell am I talking to then?"

"I didn't really consider it important, but now that you ask, let me check whose body this is."

How the fuck is that not important? And he hadn't even bothered to check before now?

Edward was becoming convinced something was genuinely wrong with this man's head.

Cain staggered backward, nearly falling over, but quickly regained his balance.

"What was that?" the young man asked.

"Whenever information floods my brain all at once, it causes a minor shock. Normally it's not serious, but sometimes the influx is so massive it takes me days to recover."

"Sometimes the remaining information comes in pieces too."

"I see."

The young man wondered how big an information dump had to be to affect someone who'd gone through this process hundreds of times.

"Alright, the owner of this body was a man named Alexander Naranjo. Seems he was a teacher at a private school. Stayed single until he met a woman at the institution where he taught. Their relationship lasted two years until she left him because he turned out to be gay and had fallen in love with another man."

"Ha! The guy definitely had no luck with love." Edward couldn't help but laugh. "First his girlfriend leaves him for another man, then he turns out to be gay and gets dumped again? That's some next-level bad romance karma!"

"Yes. What I can't determine is what this man was doing in these woods. The information doesn't show any suicide or similar event. Doesn't even show how he died."

Cain's expression was dead serious, contrary to Edward's expectations.

Guess he doesn't appreciate jokes...

"And that's bad?"

"Yes, very. It might be related to the General. Though there could still be missing memory fragments."

"The General? What could the General have to do with this?"

"Hmm, let me give you an example. Do you know about quantum computers?"

"I've heard of them, but never seen one in person."

"Look, normal computers work with patterns of zeros and ones. They analyze these digits one by one - that's how they function."

"For a normal computer to find a specific word among thousands of books would take ages. But not for a quantum computer."

"Quantum computers analyze all the zeros and ones simultaneously. They process all information instantly. So if you asked one to find a word among thousands of books, it would do it as fast as you can snap your fingers. Understand?"

"Yeah, I get it. But what does this have to do with the General and your body's original owner?"

"Well, essentially the General could have done the same thing."

"You see, there's a place located in a region that simultaneously exists and doesn't exist called the Hallway of Wanderers. There, all souls that ever were and ever will be wander for eternity - some in their own personal hells filled with what torments them, others in their own paradises with what brings them peace and happiness."

"My difference is reincarnation. Because I do this, my soul doesn't remain wandering there forever. Instead, for an indeterminate period, it travels from that place into a new body."

"Now, the General can access this place with an object called the Progenitor's Memories. What it does is open a gateway to that space and compile all information from the souls wandering there - mine included, though only for a period after I die."

"For a brief moment, the General possesses all this souls' information simultaneously, without needing to search one by one among the infinite souls there. If he tried that, he might get trapped there forever too."

"He can't delete them or create new ones - only modify them. Which is what I suspect he did to me. I think he may have selected my soul and forcibly transplanted it into this body, though I don't know his reasons."

"..." Edward's brain had stopped processing at the quantum computers part.