As Ren stared at the being before him, his mind struggled to keep up.
It never held a single shape. One moment it shimmered like fractured light, the next it collapsed into a hollow void. Eyes appeared and vanished. Mouths formed where mouths shouldn't exist. Angles twisted into shapes his brain refused to understand. Every fraction of a second, it became something else—human, monster, object, concept—then nothing at all.
It had no fixed form.
It was everything.
It was nothing.
Ren stood there, dazed, trying to understand where he was—what he was looking at—when the voice came again.
"You exist," it said.
The sound didn't come from one direction. It came from everywhere. From the space around him. From inside his head.
"And now, your actions will be weighed."
Ren flinched. His heart raced as he spun around, searching for the source of the voice.
There was no one.
He strained his senses, pushing his sight as far as it could go, but the darkness stretched endlessly in all directions. Swallowing hard, he spoke into the void.
"Um… who are you?" His voice felt small. "Where am I? Am I dead? And what do you mean… weighed?"
The answer came from behind him.
The voice sounded wrong—like many voices layered on top of each other. Male and female. Young and old. Calm, irritated, amused, bored. All speaking as one.
"I am a ROB," it said. "I have slept for longer than you can comprehend. When I awoke, I found a dying soul."
A pause. Almost thoughtful.
"And to cure my boredom, I decided to judge you."
Ren turned.
The being shifted again—this time resembling something pulled straight from a nightmare. A mass of writhing forms like a creature from the Cthulhu Mythos… then it became a young girl. Then a tree. Then an animal. Then a burning sun.
It changed every millisecond.
His head spun.
This felt unreal. Dreamlike. The last thing he remembered was sitting in a taxi, playing Balatro on his phone—and now he was standing before a being straight out of a novel or anime.
A ROB.
An actual ROB.
Ren laughed weakly under his breath. "So… I really died, huh."
The ground suddenly rumbled.
Before he could react, the darkness beneath his feet shifted. A massive scale emerged from the void, replacing the floor entirely. Ren found himself standing at its center. Below it was nothing—pure blackness, deep and endless. An abyss.
"Yes," the ROB said calmly. "You died."
The scale creaked.
"I will now judge your karma. Karma is the sum of your decisions—the choices you made throughout your life. Your actions. Your intentions. Your connections with others. All of it accumulates as karma. Good… or bad."
Ren clenched his fists.
"If your karma is good, you will be rewarded," the ROB continued. "If it is bad, you will be punished."
Before Ren could ask anything, a strange sensation gripped him. Something deep inside his chest pulled. Instinctively, he tried to resist—but it was useless.
White and black energy flowed out of him, twisting together before separating and floating to opposite ends of the scale.
Ren stared. That's… mine?
The orbs weren't large. But they weren't small either.
The scale tipped.
One second toward white.
The next toward black.
His breath hitched.
Fear crept in when it leaned toward black. Doubt gnawed at him—Did I mess up that badly? Relief followed when it tipped back toward white. His emotions surged with every movement, like the scale was playing with him.
Slowly, agonizingly, it began to settle.
Neutral.
The ROB observed in silence before speaking.
"Neutral," it said. "How dull. I was expecting something more decisive."
Ren let out a shaky breath. Relief washed over him—he wasn't bad. But doubt lingered.
Was I ever good enough?
His thoughts drifted without him realizing it.
His mother—always waking up early, always tired, doing everything she could to support him and his little sister. Cooking. Working. Smiling even when she was exhausted.
His little sister—bright-eyed, stubborn, dreaming of becoming a doctor after seeing him sick once. The way she laughed. The way she clung to his arm.
I'll miss those smiles, he thought. Those moments.
He swallowed. Will they be okay without me?
The ROB spoke again.
"Now, for your outcome," it said. "You may choose."
The void shifted.
"First: reincarnate on Earth, retaining your memories."
Ren stiffened.
"Second: reincarnate in a random world—fiction, myth, game, or story—while keeping your memories."
A pause.
"Be warned. That world could be merciful… or cruel. Cthulhu Mythos. Attack on Titan. Warhammer 40K. Alice in Borderland. Lord of the Mysteries. Anything is possible."
The scale vanished, leaving Ren alone with his thoughts.
Two choices.
One safe.
One unknown.
And for the first time since he died, Ren felt truly afraid.