Chapter 16: Chapter 14: The Truth That Should Not Be
The Spiral City was silent.
Klein and Yeaia stood where the house had once been, but there was no trace of it left—only absence.
Not ruins. Not rubble.
Just nothing.
Yeaia exhaled shakily. They ran a hand through their black-and-white hair, eyes darting around as if trying to make sense of what had just happened.
"That place shouldn't exist." Their voice was quieter than usual.
Klein narrowed his eyes.
"But it did."
Yeaia let out a bitter laugh.
"No, Klein. It didn't. That's the problem."
Klein crossed his arms, waiting.
Yeaia hesitated. Then, finally, they spoke.
"I don't have a past."
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Something That Shouldn't Exist
"I mean that literally," Yeaia continued, their voice oddly flat. "I wasn't born. I wasn't raised. I wasn't anything before I became what I am now."
Klein didn't react outwardly, but inwardly, he was already piecing together the implications.
"You weren't… created normally," he stated.
Yeaia snorted.
"That's a nice way to put it. I wasn't created at all."
Klein frowned.
"Then what are you?"
Yeaia sighed.
"Something that should have never existed."
They turned away, looking up at the twisting, endless sky of the Spiral.
"I don't have childhood memories because there was no childhood. I don't have a family because there was no one to give birth to me. One day, I was just… there."
They glanced at Klein.
"And the first thing I remember?" Their mismatched eyes darkened.
"Was realizing that everyone else thought I had always been there."
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A Phantom Among Reality
Klein's mind sharpened.
"You mean—"
"I mean it was forced into reality." Yeaia interrupted. "I mean one day I appeared, and the world just decided I had always been there. People knew me. They called me by a name I never chose. They had memories of me that never actually happened."
Klein remained silent.
He knew of beings that could overwrite history. The Visionary Pathway specialized in fabricating existence.
But what Yeaia was describing—
"You're saying someone inserted you into reality itself?"
Yeaia gave a dry, humorless smile.
"That's my best guess. But the worst part?" Their voice lowered.
"I don't know who did it."
Klein's fingers twitched.
That was the truly terrifying part.
Yeaia wasn't a product of natural birth, nor a ritual. They were an artificial insertion into the fabric of the world—yet no one remembered doing it.
Not even themselves.
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The Name That Was Given
Klein considered the implications.
"Your name—Yeaia Nolas. Did you choose it?"
Yeaia shook their head.
"No. It was already mine when I became aware. Everyone around me already knew it. It was given to me by—"
They hesitated.
Then, finally—
"By whatever created me."
A flicker of unease crossed their face.
"But that house? That… thing pretending to be a mother?"
They clenched their fists.
"That wasn't part of the story I remember."
Klein narrowed his eyes.
"Then it wasn't just a fake memory. It was something trying to rewrite you again."
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A Pathway That Wasn't Meant to Exist
Yeaia exhaled sharply.
"Klein. You asked me what I am?"
They lifted their hand.
A faint, shimmering distortion rippled around their fingers.
"I think I'm something that was written into existence."
They looked him in the eye.
"But I also think…I wasn't supposed to be."
Klein felt something stir in the depths of the Gray Fog.
An understanding.
A connection.
Like something had tried to do the same to him once.
Like the world had once written him into a role he did not belong to.
He frowned.
"And your Pathway?"
Yeaia let out a small, tired smile.
"What else would it be?"
They gestured at the Spiral City around them.
"I'm the Fool Who Was Never Supposed to Be."
Klein's breath stilled.
Because he understood.
The Pathway of the Forgotten Dreamer wasn't just about daydreams, laziness, or procrastination.
It was about existing in the spaces between reality and fiction.
It was about being something that wasn't supposed to exist—yet somehow did.
And Yeaia—
Was proof of that.
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End of Chapter 14
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