Re-establishing one's soul into a body is not an easy task.
Even though the souls inside Collectives had ingrained the process throughout themselves from incessant repetition of reincarnation in order to keep their souls from overloading on information, it was still a process was gradual. It took time, and if a soul simply forced itself into a mortal shell, the body would seize uncontrollably, unable to accept the replacement to it's original inhabitant so quickly.
On a fundamental level, the souls needed to be shaped to fit the body, not the other way around. At least, for those of the Collective, that is.
Soren didn't really have the time to re-shape his soul after coalescing into his radiant, blurry figure of light.
He was going to have to force it.
"Ahhh, damn it all."
He immediately contracted, stretched, and molded his essence into a formless cloud of light. This was the first step. It's easier to mold one's soul from scratch, than to change that which has been established on such a primordial level.
As he did so, he let his gaseous spirit body be taken in by the remnant pull of mortality he had felt as his body was clinging to life.
"Thankfully it hasn't been more than 10 minutes since I passed on, my brain shouldn't be too fried... right?" He asked to nobody but himself. "Ah, who am I kidding? I'm probably gonna be stuck in this thing while it dies of the shock from having it's soul all mismatched again."
Oh well.
Being a vegetable was preferrable to seizing to death. If the latter happened, he'd end up back in that.. "corrupted" Collective. But if the former did, at least he could hold out hope that someone figures out what's going on.
"Well, with whatever's going on there being the alternative... I'm happy with these chances."
And with that, he dove back into his old body, through the core of the dying star, where the laws of physics are spit on and laughed at by forces only those of the highest order can comprehend, across vast nebulas and through alien, barren planets. He shot through space at such a speed that light would not even dare claim to be it's equal. All while still enjoying the view with the attitude of a princeling, on a vacation he didn't ask to be on.
"If only we could just hang out among the stars like this.. haa..." He let out a slight sigh as he watched a black hole shoot by, it's gamma rays bursting into space, illuminating the celestial bodies approaching it's gaping maw in a spiral with destructive light.
With lazy yawn, he said to himself, "Welp, might as well get to work.. don't wanna cripple myself if I don't have to."
As he shot through space, he began to shape his soul to the best of his ability. Remembering everything he could of his previous life as a human. Every touching moment, every win, every failure, everyone he loved, everyone he hated. Every defining moment and aspect of his soul.
Not Soren's soul.
But Jare's soul, the twenty-six year old baby face, that died unexpectedly, through unknown circumstances.
That circumstance, in fact, was Soren's soul being cleansed of excess information, thus leading him to waste no more time in his repulsive meat-pocket, and promptly shedding it.
All in one moment, one instant, he traveled an unknown, unfathomable distance at speeds that tossed out the very concept.
Straight back into Jare's body. His eyes shot open suddenly.
'Something is wrong here..'
Soren looked around above him, wondering how his body had been discovered so quickly.
'Didn't I shed this thing in a place people wouldn't find it?'
He obviously expected the body to be found eventually, but within 10 minutes? He had chosen a place where he was sure that nobody would be around for at least a couple of weeks. He didn't want the chap's family to realize he was a vessel for a Collective soul, after all. Best to let it rot a bit so it's hard to tell what did him in.
'First off, I'm not braindead. That's a miracle in it's own..'
'But still, why am I in this situation...'
As Soren looked down from where he was hanging, 'or would it be up? Who cares', he noticed a horrid reflection staring back at him.
His freshly dead-yet-revived body was in the midst of being dipped into a pool of liquid mercury, and there were very nasty looking runes carved all over his skin.