Chapter Text
［ＬＯＣＡＴＩＯＮ： ？？？］
［ＴＩＭＥ： ？？？］
Ren Kurusu opens his eyes to the sight of his old bedroom and thinks he must be dreaming.
And so, because it’s not real (because it can’t be real, not after he’d been permanently exiled from the house he’d grown to love and call home) he decides to explore. This, he reasons, is his last chance to see it one more time before the memories fade away and the details are forever lost to time's march.
He starts with a cursory glance around the room. All of his belongings are still here, from movie posters, to the full bookshelf and even his desk is still littered with complete and still being built Featherman figurines. Ren can’t help the brief stabbing sensation blooming in his chest when he’s forced to confront the reality that he’ll never see most of these things ever again.
After all, his father made it a point to destroy as much as he’d been able to before Ren managed to pack (hide it away somewhere safe so he couldn’t break the rest) for his departure. All that remains of his childhood treasury now are the still unopened Gray Pidgeon figure, a pathetic handful of books, some clothes and the remaining section of a particularly important poster Ren somehow salvaged from his father’s makeshift burn-pit.
That’s all he has to his name now, aside from the memories. Not even his old name truly belongs to him anymore. After everything was finally settled in the courts, Ren was forced to walk away with his mother’s name in order to appease his father’s desire to be as cut off from one another as they possibly could be.
With that somber thought burning a hole in the back of his mind, Ren turns to the door and then proceeds down the hallway. Their house had always been on the smaller side, but now it feels positively suffocating. Every step makes him feel more and more like he’s drowning, the air itself thick with an unknown weight that won’t let him take a deep enough breath. This hallway used to leave him with enough room to hold his arms out without his fingertips touching the walls, but now his shoulders are scraping against them as he trudges forwards.
After what feels like an eternity, Ren arrives in the living room.
It’s here that the scenery of his dream becomes more and more realistic. While his room had been a carbon copy of how he remembered it before everything happened, the living room conforms to the shape of how things had been after. Smashed windows, shattered television set, cracks along the walls from the impact of things thrown with the intent to hurt. Not even the carpeting had been spared his father’s wrath, with small holes burned from dropped cigarettes and stained patches from spilled alcohol (and blood).
It still smells faintly of metal and smoke.
The sight is, frankly speaking, too much for Ren to handle. Everything still feels too fresh, too raw. Which makes sense considering the fact it hasn’t even been two months since it all happened.
So, Ren does the same thing he’d been forced to do in the waking world: he leaves.
The front door is somehow still pristine, despite its surroundings looking like ground-zero for some suburban war. Ren reaches out, gripping the knob with one hand, dimly noting that his hands are unblemished, free from all of the scarring he knows his waking body carries. It’s then he also realizes his chest is currently free from the perpetual ache he’s grown so intimately used to. Ren briefly contemplates looking at his chest and neck in a mirror to see if his father’s handiwork really is absent, but he shrugs off the desire, chalking it up to an eccentricity of the dream itself and nothing more.
Ren eventually pushes open the door with ease, the hinges slightly squeaking just like he remembers. (His father always put off greasing them because his mother was, for some inexplicable reason, fond of the sound, which meant it stayed exactly as it was).
Beyond the door, however, is not the street he’s walked countless times. Instead, there is now another hallway with a midnight-blue rug covering the floor. The hallway stretching out before him, unlike the dream version of his house, is quite spacious. The walls and ceiling are so far separated that it makes Ren feel dwarfed by their sheer size. The weirdest part though, is that Ren doesn’t feel the least bit afraid. A far cry from the creeping anxiety the familiar sights of the place he’d spent the past seventeens years now evoked.
A soft, soothing light radiates from all around him, bathing everything in an azure haze. Ren can’t tell where it’s coming from, but it brightens the surroundings enough that seeing isn’t a concern. Step after careful step carries Ren forwards for reasons he can’t properly articulate. It’s not as if he feels any strong urge to go forwards; it’s more like... he simply has nowhere else to go, BUT forward.
An oddly fitting sentiment, all things considered.
And so, it’s not long before Ren reaches the end of the gargantuan hallway. Here, he finds a door that, like the hallway, he’s never seen before. It’s blueish silver, like liquid mercury mixed with the color of the sky, and decorated with impossibly intricate carvings along its entire surface. The handle, a heavy looking golden lever, almost seems to be pulsing with something Ren can feel echoing in his bones.
A small, almost imperceptible voice whispers in the back of Ren’s head when he reaches out to grasp it.
[...There will be no going back.]
Ren’s hand pauses, the fact that this is all just a dream momentarily forgotten.
[...If you proceed, there will be pain.]
The voice’s warning only makes Ren chuckle at the sheer absurdity of it.
It starts as a lighthearted sound that slowly devolves into bitter laughter. Visceral and uncontrolled, it drips with the faintest touch of insanity and desperation. Ren finds himself grateful that he’s alone because if anyone else heard him right now, they’d think he’s lost his damn mind. An assessment Ren wouldn’t be all that able to refute, honestly.
...Go back?
Go back to what?
A ruined home, full of nothing but agonizing memories? A town, populated by nothing but self-serving, backstabbing garbage? A life, that fell apart the moment difficulties too complex to explain in a single sentence cropped up?
No, there’s nothing behind him anymore. Any and everything that may have value rests ahead of him now, in a future that seems less and less certain by the day. Regardless, it’s an intense and deep feeling of spite that keeps him from just abandoning hope altogether these days. Spite for the home, the town and the life he once had. (Spite for the man who sired him.)
All of them tried to pull him down into a pit of despair that he’d unknowingly dug for himself. Yet, despite their best efforts, he’d crawled back out, even if he hadn’t emerged unscathed. They all wanted him to give up, to become the worthless wretch they’d all decided he was.
They already saw him as a heartless demon, his selfless nature forgotten and tossed by the wayside without a second thought.
They’d looked at him and saw nothing more than an object of entertainment and disdain, a temporary distraction from their own troubled lives. Nobody once cared to stop and wonder what would happen if one person, a very young one at that, was forced to shoulder the malice of an entire community. What would happen if that person was denied a place to belong, a bastion of safety where they could honestly believe nothing could hurt them.
The answer, as it turns out, is they’re left with nothing to lose.
Which is why Ren opens the mysterious door, his hand steady and his pulse even.
His palm tingles from the contact, the few seconds spent touching the handle enough to send a whole-body shiver rushing through him. Just like the spacious nature of the hallway, it isn’t inherently unpleasant, simply… alien to his senses.
The door silently swings open to reveal a small, nearly featureless room. It can’t be more than 20 or so square feet. With deep blue walls and flooring reminiscent of the hallway’s carpet. There is no visible light source, but the same azure glow continues to drench the space in an otherworldly pallor. In the middle of the otherwise empty room sits a strange man in an opulent, velvet armchair.
The seated man possesses all the features of a human male, but the proportions are all off in some way. His black pupils just a bit too large, his hooked nose too long and his pale limbs far thinner than Ren’s brain is willing to accept is believable for a bona fide human. There’s a beat of silence while Ren takes in the sight of the unknown man he now shares the small room with, his mouth unsure of which question should be allowed passage to the outside air first.
The man, however, has no such qualms about whether he should let Ren initiate conversation. He merely smiles, showcasing pearly white teeth that gleam far too brightly in the room’s dim light.
“Welcome, dear Guest, to the Velvet Room.”
Ren’s brain grows fuzzy for a moment, the man’s somewhat high pitched words wrapped in the same otherworldly feeling as everything else he’s seen since leaving the dream’s recreation of his old home. Thankfully, the feeling passes as quickly as it arrived and the man’s next words bring no further odd sensations.
“This place exists between mind and matter, dreams and reality. It is a place that few are given permission to enter, yet all eventually leave.”
Ren has absolutely no clue what this man is talking about. Velvet Room? A place between everything? He can only shake his head and sigh, more convinced than ever before that he’s finally just snapped and gone insane. Odds are he’s raving about all of this to some white coat wearing attendant in the psychiatric ward of a Tokyo hospital in the waking world right now.
The man seems to pick up on Ren’s confusion, his next words spoken slower and with a far softer tone.
“I can understand that you may be somewhat concerned with your present circumstances, unusual as they are. However, there is one thing above all others that I wish to make clear. I do not, nor will I ever, wish you any ill will.”
The man’s eyes lock onto Ren’s, the younger boy suddenly unable to tear his gaze away. Something lurks behind those dark eyes, something ancient and large enough to eclipse the sun. It whispers in the same voice Ren heard before opening the Velvet Room’s door, its words melodic in the same way a frozen lake speaks of ice without needing words.
It asks Ren to trust this man.
(...Easier said than done.)
Reflexively, Ren puts forth arguably the most cliché question anyone could come up with in this kind of situation.
“...Am I dreaming?”
The instant the words escape Ren’s lips, he knows without a shadow of a doubt that none of this can be real. Not if he’s able to speak again.
Meanwhile, the man’s cheshire grin widens.
“In a manner of speaking, yes. Although, as my description of this place implies, that does not change the fact that this is still very much real. With this in mind, allow me to introduce myself. My name is Igor, and I am the master of this place.”
Ren files that information away for safekeeping in the back of his mind. Next on the docket now that he knows a few of the ‘whats’ is to find out some of the ‘whys’. On the off chance he even remembers any of this after he wakes up, it’ll make for a halfway decent distraction to keep his mind from wandering to other things.
For the time being, however, the nagging weight of the social expectations Ren’s had etched into him by society pushes him to return Igor’s introduction. Because even though this is still just a dream, it doesn’t excuse him from being rude.
“My name is Ren Am-"
Ren catches himself, the practiced flow of syllables cut off by the memory of how they now longer belong to him.
"...My name is Ren Kurusu. It’s… nice to meet you, Igor.”
If Igor’s smile was wide before, it evolves into something positively gargantuan at Ren’s reciprocation. There’s even a fraction of a second where Ren could swear Igor’s lips somehow pull past the silhouette of his face, extending out into the open air in a way that defies all logic.
But then Ren blinks and everything is normal again.
“I’m sure you have a great many more questions you wish to ask of me, but I’m afraid that this is neither the time nor the place for such discussion.”
Igor sweeps his arms out wide, his gloved fingertips splayed as he gestures to the narrow confines of their shared locale.
“I have come to you, dear Guest, with a request for one such a you, one who Struggles Against Fate. A request that will have the potential to alter not only the course of your own destiny, but that of humanity as a whole.”
Ren can’t stop himself from looking more than a little skeptical. It’s one thing for a dream to try and convince him it’s real, and another for it to ask him to save the world. This all feels so textbook predictable that he just stops taking it seriously altogether. After all, it hasn’t devolved into a nightmare yet, so there shouldn’t be any harm in just playing along until he finally wakes up, right?
“Okay, what exactly is it that you want from me?”
Ren’s apparent willingness, no matter how fictitious it may be, makes Igor’s eyes light up.
“So, you are not opposed to the idea of cooperating?”
“Well, it’s not like I have anything to lose by hearing you out, at the very least.”
There’s a creak from the chair as Igor shifts, his legs crossing themselves over one another.
“How very pragmatic of you.”
Igor snaps his fingers and the room’s walls fall away, revealing a sprawling, obsidian emptiness stretching out farther than Ren can hope to see in all directions. A cold wind blows across his skin, causing it to erupt in goosebumps. Thankfully, the floor remains in place so there’s no fear of falling down into the spontaneously summoned abyss.
“What you see surrounding you now is but a small fraction of a world that closely mirrors your own. Think of it as a place where dreams live, a realm that humans visit whilst they sleep.”
Igor casts his gaze around, finally taking his eyes of Ren for the first time since he’d first entered the room.
“It… did not always appear as the austere void you see before you. It once carried all of humanity's hopes, their dreams and their faith in one another. Those thoughts and feelings shaped it into a mishmash of different things, but all of them were equally beautiful in their own way.”
Suddenly, another sound joins the frigid wind's howling. Something akin to the roar of a feral beast made of bones and hate. A vague silhouette forms off in the distance behind Igor, a mass of squirming limbs and red lights swirling impossibly fast. It falls still the moment Ren looks its way, the lights all pulsing in time with his own heartbeat. And then, without warning, the shape lets out another howl that actually shakes Ren’s eyes in their sockets. It rushes towards them, the unknown distance between them seemingly meaningless as Ren’s whole body screams at him to RUN.
Igor swiftly snaps his fingers once more and the Velvet Room’s walls instantly reappear.
“Now, however, it has been invaded by something and is slowly rotting away from within. A fact that holds dire repercussions for the waking world. For if the world representing humans’ hopes and dreams succumbs to it, the humans that gave rise to them will soon follow.”
Ren’s fight or flight response is still dumping adrenaline into his veins and his breath is heavy. Igor patiently waits for Ren to calm down again, his eyes aching from the sight of the horrible shape still burned into them. Eventually, he’s able to speak again without feeling like he’ll puke from sheer terror.
“W-what do you mean? If humans created all of that, can’t they just do it again?”
Igor shakes his head.
“I’m afraid that it isn’t nearly that simple. For, as you yourself have seen, there is more going on than the mere disappearance of this world’s contents. The reality of the matter is that the one responsible is corrupting it, infecting everything so that any and all who come into contact with it are twisted beyond recognition. Their desires distorted to the point where they can only be considered monsters by those that still retain their senses.”
Ren gulps, his skin only now beginning to warm up again after being exposed to the harsh atmosphere of this ‘Otherworld’. He licks his lips, finding them suddenly bone dry.
“And it will not stop there. Eventually, if it isn’t halted, it will infect every single human and create a world populated by nothing except the very worst of what humanity can produce. A world, that I’m sure you can imagine, that would be doomed to destroy itself.”
There’s a beat of silence between them. Ren trying to wrap his mind around this veritable avalanche of information and Igor merely waiting for his guest to speak.
“The thing that’s doing all of this… What is it? Was it that… that THING we just saw?”
Igor sighs, his eyes closing momentarily.
“In order to answer that, I’m afraid I must ask you a question of my own. Do you believe God created humans?”
Ren’s expression instantly sours, pulse now roaring in his ears and hands involuntarily clenching into fists, his fear momentarily forgotten.
“...There is no God.”
Igor’s eyes snap back open, his dark pupils full of understanding and even a tinge of sympathy.
“Quite the resolute approach to an otherwise divisive subject. Yes, Gods, as humans see them, did not create humanity, nor do they exist. However, there are things that closely resemble them. Fragments of those same hopes and dreams that humanity once poured into this world. They bind to one another, growing over time in order to become that which their creators wished for them to be.”
Ren’s head spins at Igor’s waxing explanation. He’s followed the man's words up to a certain point, but now he’s not so sure where this talk is going anymore. Igor, however, continues unbidden.
“You see, dear Guest, humans were not created by Gods of any sort. Humans are the ones who have created Gods to believe in. And, it is one of these Gods, effectively a newborn one at that, that currently stands poised to consume everything.”
Ren shakes his head, trying in vain to reorient himself into something remotely resembling a sane person's mindset. When that fails, he merely opts to continue playing along and finding out as much as he can about this increasingly bizarre dream before he finally wakes up.
“...So, you’re trying to tell me that… the thing that’s basically swallowing up everyone’s dreams is something that humans made? Wait, but based on what you just said that would mean-”
Igor cuts him off with the flourish of a gloved hand.
“How very astute of you. Yes, it means that humanity as a whole has wished for such a God to be born.”
Ren can only shake his head and laugh at the absurdity of it all.
“What, so everyone just wants to die all of a sudden? That’s ridiculous!”
“Surely you’ve seen your own share of ‘ridiculous’ things in your life thus far, have you not? Is it truly so hard to believe that humanity, in some way, shape or form desires an end such as this?”
Ren’s mouth opens, a retort balanced on the tip of his tongue. But then he remembers the last few days leading up to the departure from his hometown. The way nobody would even bother listening to him, to his side of the story. How no matter what he said or did, they’d all made up their minds and no amount of proof would dissuade them.
How he’d been terrified that he’d somehow become the last sane human on the entire face of the earth overnight.
Igor gives him a knowing expression, mouth refusing to twist into anything other than his absurdist grin.
“I can see that at least a piece of you is willing to accept the possibility.”
A ringing sound suddenly echoes throughout the Velvet Room, filling Ren’s head with a stabbing pain akin to a knife blooming inside his skull. Igor, on the other hand, is wholly unaffected by it. Or, perhaps, he can’t even hear it in the first place.
“My dear Guest, it would seem that this particular visit has come to an end.”
Ren struggles to respond, the ringing and his suffering only growing more and more intense with every passing second. All he manages to accomplish is falling forwards onto his knees, head cradled in his now sweat slicked hands. Igor makes no move to stand or assist Ren in any way, but his manic grin finally falls away to reveal something closer to a wistful smirk.
“Worry not, for we will meet again now that I have ascertained your willingness to assist me in the trials ahead. A word of warning, dear Guest. The next time we see each other will be after you’ve encountered your first piece of the waking world’s infection. And, this room itself will have changed to better suit you when that time comes.”
Ren can barely make out Igor’s words anymore. His eyes are screwed shut, his teeth grit and his very blood screaming out for relief from this incessant agony. It’s only when Igor’s next words finally fade away into silence that Ren’s consciousness blessedly follows.
“I wish you the best of luck, Struggler.”
Ren Kurusu opens his eyes to the sight of his bedroom in cafe Leblanc and the blaring of his phone’s alarm, and knows that he is finally awake.
［ＬＯＣＡＴＩＯＮ： ＣＡＦＥ＿ＬＥＢＬＡＮＣ］
［ＴＩＭＥ： ０５２０］