Leon screamed. He didn't stop until he had nothing left — until his throat gave out.
He coughed, trying to breathe. Then, he pulled her closer and pressed his face against her hair.
"I'm sorry."
The world darkened, Leon felt the environment shift.
[Wake up, Leonar! Your Nightmare is over.]
[Prepare for appraisal.]
Leon found himself in a space between—
No.
He found himself nowhere. Just floating in a black expanse that went on and on in every direction.
He couldn't feel his body. He tried moving his hand. There was no hand to move.
'Where am I? What...'
No voice either.
Leon felt uneasy.
He couldn't see, hear, talk, feel. He had no control. So he just waited, because that was all he could do. With each passing second, his chest grew heavier.
The only fresh memories he had were Aurelia's corpse leaning against him.
His sins were growing cold on his hands. And he couldn't help but embrace them.
He pictured it in different ways. How he could've avoided it. How he could've talked to her.
How he could have beaten his First Nightmare instead of just surviving it.
[ቹክፕጎፕሃ ዐቻ ነጎክፏ፱ረልዪጎፕሃ... Prepare for your Fate.]
The Spell suddenly spoke out.
'My...fate? What happened to the Appraisal? My Aspect?'
He had just finished his First Nightmare...so where were his rewards?
[Knowledge-bearer, your Fate lies further than you can comprehend. You will be a ፏⶴዐነፕ to yourself.]
'What the fuck? What's that language?'
[Stranger of the Universe, prepare for your fate.]
Runes appeared before him.
Aspect Ghost: (Unnamed)
Description: [A remnant of will born from unrealized futures. You remember what he cannot, see what he is not meant to know, and wait.
Though bound to his soul, you are still free.]
'What? Aspect Ghost?'
Leon grew restless.
'He? Who the fuck is he!?'
Second.
Second.
More time passed. Leon was still in the black void for what felt like hours.
Hours? No, it felt like days.
'Did I... die?'
No. If he had, the Spell wouldn't be talking to him.
Second after second, he kept counting so he wouldn't lose track of time.
Or his sanity.
And then, everything turned bright.
After what felt like an eternity, he finally opened his eyes.
An armored ceiling of a police station hung above him. It felt familiar, unlike the cold sensation he felt in the void.
'I'm back!'
He looked down at himself, and strangely enough, he wasn't wearing rags, or looked malnourished.
He was wearing a simple hoodie, just like the one he had back on Earth.
His hands looked fine, pale and full of life.
"Congratulations on surviving your First Nightmare, Sleeper Leonar."
He looked up.
On a cheap plastic chair placed beside his bed, he saw a woman with short raven black hair and icy blue eyes.
Leon smiled.
'I made it out...'
"Jet—" His voice was cut off by someone else.
"I'm back..."
Leon froze.
To his right, a few steps ahead, sat...Leon?
'Huh?'
To be more precise, it looked like the version of himself he had arrived in.
Covered in rags for clothes, arms that looked pale. A body that looked like it hadn't eaten in days.
"That's right. Welcome back to the waking world." Jet continued.
Leon's hands — the one strapped down in restraints — shook.
"I killed her..." he said in a low tone.
And before Leon — the real him — could speak again, runes appeared. More of them this time.
Name: Aspect Ghost (Unnamed)
Description: [A remnant of will born from unrealized futures. You remember what he cannot, see what he is not meant to know, and wait.]
Will: Unpossessed
Vessel: Leonar
Leon's eyes widened.
'Vessel? What the fuck is it saying? I'm my own...vessel?'
His ears began ringing. The world suddenly felt far away from his reach.
His thoughts slowly drifted away.
'Aspect Ghost...Vessel...'
He looked up at the fake Leonar once again, who was talking to Jet.
'He's... He's the one... He's the he mentioned in my...'
He gritted his teeth, the description surfacing in his mind. As if the Spell had decided he wasn't even a person anymore.
"Well then, how about you go shower. You reek of nightmare."
Jet's words cut through his thoughts. And the fake Leonar, didn't look at him once. Neither did Jet.
It was almost like they couldn't see him — not even feel his presence.
***
The fake Leonar stood near a mirror after his shower.
Leon had spent that time experimenting. Figuring out some... unfortunate things.
No matter what he touched, he didn't touch it. His hand phased through everything. His whole body did. He was a ghost in the most literal sense.
No matter how loud he screamed, the fake couldn't hear him.
'Why? Why is this happening to me?'
He couldn't take it anymore. He tried running outside the police station. As soon as his feet crossed the threshold, he snapped back to the fake's side like a rubber band.
Leon fell to his knees.
'I'm stuck...'
It finally dawned on him.
He was attached to the fake Leonar's soul. An Aspect Ghost. Tethered.
And the novel — he remembered it. All of it. He could write it down word for word. More than two thousand chapters, every line.
He remembered everything.
He looked up at the fake, who was still drying his hair with a towel, unaware of his presence.
Leon gritted his teeth, shot up, and swung at him.
His fist passed straight through.
"Give me my body back!"
Useless. The scream went nowhere.
Tears ran down his face. His breathing grew rapid. He clutched his chest, then his head.
'Oh god...Fuck...'
He slammed his head against the floor — and felt nothing, no impact, though at least he didn't phase through it.
The runes appeared again.
Will: 1% possessed.
Leon's breath stopped.
'1%? What?'
He looked up at fake Leonar, and tried touching him again. But the counter didn't move.
Leon got to his feet.
Maybe there was still a way.
Fake Leonar was busy admiring himself in the mirror, while Leon's reflection was nowhere to be seen.
He wiped the tears off his face, and steadied his breathing.
'I can't give up. Not yet.'
He got another chance when he came to this world. He couldn't waste it.
So what if the Spell took his body away? He still had his mind.
He would find a way.
He would.
He...
Leon lowered his gaze. Would he really make it anywhere like this—
Will: 3% possessed.
He gasped, and looked at fake Leonar again, who was busy looking at the air.
And suddenly... he could feel something had changed. Something in his presence had... shifted.
He felt more present somehow.
Fake Leon suddenly frowned.
Something felt... off.
He shifted slightly, paused. Then, he glanced over his shoulders.
'Does he...'
The fake's hand slowed just for a second, like he was distracted by something, or rather, by the lack of it.
Leon's eyes sharpened.
'...Again.'
Leon clenched his fist.
'Don't show weakness. Don't falter. He can't know.'
He took in a deep breath, and raised his voice in a controlled tone.
"Finally."
The fake turned around. Leon kept his face still and tried his best to look like he hadn't just been crying on the floor.
'Okay. He can see you...'
"Surprised? Well, I doubt it considering your flaw."
He had no idea what the fake's flaw was.
'...Shit?'
The fake stared at him for a long moment before reaching over and turning the shower off.
"You are?"
"Your Aspect Ghost, I guess?"
'I guess? Who says I guess? Fuck!'
But the fake looked amused instead of suspicious.
"So what is this Aspect Ghost thing? I've never heard about it in the n—"
Fake Leonar frowned.
Leon stood very still, trying his best not to make even the tiniest movement.
'Did he figure it out?'
Leon knew very well how well Keen Insight worked. So he couldn't slip up even the slightest.
With some luck, he still had his own version of Keen Insight.
So what was fake Leonar frowning for?
'If he had figured it out, he wouldn't be frowning. He would pretend just like me. So it has to be something important. The memory from Aurelia? No... Then—'
He smiled.
"The Veil of Forgotten Truths, quite a nasty attribute."
The fake clicked his tongue and went back to staring at nothing.
'Yes! Fuck you, you fake piece of shit!'
"Are you the version of me that remembers the future?"
"Yes." Leon kept his smile steady. "I guess I'm the part that knows."
"And the limitations?"
Leon stayed quiet for a moment.
There were no limitations.
He could tell him every single line of the novel. From Sunny drinking coffee to the Vile Thieving Bird.
'No. I must stay in control.'
This was the only power he had. He wasn't giving it away.
"I just tried to tell you about the Second Nightmare, but I can't."
The fake sighed. "And?"
"Cheap gruel, three pieces of advice from Jet..."
He paused.
"I guess I can only tell you events that are soon to happen, nothing too far in the future. There might be other limitations."
Fake Leonar took a deep breath.
"This makes it complicated, less certain."
"Well." Leon shrugged. "At least even if I can't tell you the future, I can still tell you what to do."
The fake smiled slightly. "I guess you can."
Leon grimaced on the inside.
'Wait till I wipe that smile off your face.'
"Can you see our runes?" The fake asked.
Leon shook his head.
"I see. Can you possess me?"
Leon hummed, pretending to think about it.
'If I could, I would've done it already!'
"Relax your body."
He tried everything. Passing through him. Stilling his mind. Willing the percentage up.
Nothing.
"Can't," Leon said, in a tone that suggested mild disappointment rather than desperation.
"That is unfortunate, I guess we can experiment later, we're already running late."
***
"Am I forgetting something?"
Leon stood beside him, staring at the mirror,
"I don't think so, although I have two questions."
"They are?"
"First, your hair color. Our memories are quite similar, only mine has extra details. But as we heard Jet say, it turned silver during the nightmare. Sounds awfully similar to Nephis's nightmare."
"Nephis?"
He couldn't help but smile inwardly. "Ah don't worry. You'll meet her soon... try not to antagonize her."
The fake nodded. "And the other?"
"Why don't I have a reflection?"
Stupid question. He knew it.
Fake Leonar raised an eyebrow and looked back at the mirror.
"Well...you're called Aspect Ghost, so."
"Yeah, I suppose." He looked at the empty space where his reflection should've been. "What do we even call me?"
"I don't know, you want to name yourself perhaps? Something other than Leon preferably?"
He stared at the fake in silence.
Not only had this person stolen his body, now he was stealing his name.
'Don't. Don't. Don't.'
He held the tears in. His head ached. There was something stuck in his throat that he couldn't swallow past.
"Noah..."
"Noah sounds nice."
***
Noah.
A plain and boring name.
The patriarch of the flood narrative in Genesis.
God tells him to build an ark, and he does, as he watches the world he knew get swallowed, from the inside of some small boat, drifting, with no land in sight.
He didn't fight it. He just... waited.
That felt similar.
Leon was gone. The name, the body, the reflection in the mirror — gone.
What was left wasn't a person. It was a remnant. A ghost stitched to someone else's soul, watching his own life happen without him.
Noah.
He didn't know why it came to him.
'Who am I?'
Was he not Leon anymore?
If he was, who was the person sitting in front of him, ravishing against the cheap gruel.
Noah stared at the food.
He wasn't hungry. But he still wanted to eat something. He missed the feeling of chewing, the feeling of tasting something.
That was his face.
His hands. His voice, his laugh, the way he tilted his head when he was thinking. Every small, unremarkable thing that made up a person — stolen.
And the worst part.
Leon didn't even know what he had taken from him.
He walked around in Noah's skin like he'd been born in it. Like it had always been his. Like there was never anyone else standing in that body before him.
Noah watched him, unable to say anything.
What was there to say.
Noah stared at the food until it blurred.
He wasn't hungry.
He missed being hungry.
He watched him eat.
Watched him chew, swallow, grimace at the cheap gruel.
Noah used to do all of that.
Now he just watched.
He watched as his fake... As his counterpart just listened to Jet.
Leon stared at Jet while his breath stopped abruptly. The spoon shook as he gripped it tighter.
"Leonar?" Jet called out to him.
Noah knew why. The First Nightmare had been both of theirs. He'd lived it too.
The only reason he wasn't shaking was because he couldn't afford to. Who knew what Leon could do to him if he became suspicious. If he seemed weak enough to dismiss.
'Is this what it would feel like to be Sunny's shadow?'
***
"Mind you, I'm not some lofty Legacy. Pfft! I'm from the outskirts. I've never even received combat training. All that training and he only got an "excellent"? What did he do during the Nightmare, pick his nose the whole time?"
Sunny was busy ranting to Caster.
A small smile tugged at Noah's lips.
He thought about how simple it used to be. Reading about this. Watching it from the outside like it was entertainment.
"This guy..." Leon muttered under his breath.
"It's all true, Leon."
Leon's eyes widened slightly. "He actually killed a tyrant — no wait, his aspect is divine?"
"Just stay close to him," Noah said. "He's going to end up being one of the strongest."
The smile faded.
'He is the main character after all. A divine shadow...'
Leon went in to defend Sunny, while Noah just...watched.
The most worrying part, however, was the fact that this world wasn't entirely accurate to the novel.
The Fourth Special Directive, was the only clue he has so far.
Other than that, was Leon. Rather, the body he had possessed.
Noah was certain Leon was him, a transmigrant, not someone native to this world. So who had he been before? A random stranger?
Noah narrowed his eyes. He remembered the way Nephis looked at Leon, the way she decided to make conversation.
That, was not Nephis. Nothing like her personality as a Sleeper.
'Calm down.'
He couldn't let the canon diverge. Without the canon, his knowledge was useless. But could he really influence anything in his current form?
He looked at his runes again.
Will: 3% possessed.
'If this goes to 100, will Leon disappear?'
He looked back at the cheerful young man beside Sunny. Not a hint of fear in his eyes.
Would he be willing to kill someone again, for the sake of his goals?
Noah stared at him for a moment.
'Why do I care? That's my body.'
Besides, Noah wasn't anything like that before. He wasn't so...social.
That was when Noah's eyes fell on a peculiar young girl standing in the corner. Her hair was golden, while her eyes looked lifeless, and blue.
'Cassie...'
The most horrendous character in the story.
He remembered how Cassie saw the Sin of Solace during Sunny's Third Nightmare.
If Cassie were to become friends with Leon, she would definitely see through him. And then—
'NO. I can't let her get close...'
But if Leon figured out how useful Cassie was before Noah mentioned it, he'd trust him less. He'd become a liability.
Noah let out a soft breath.
"Leon."
"Keep an eye on her."
Leon frowned. "Why?"
Noah didn't answer immediately.
"...Some people don't look dangerous until it's too late. People like her remember who stood close, it's even better if she chooses you."
***
The strength test was humbling.
Seven.
Noah had to turn away. Not out of sympathy, but out of the possibility that he would start laughing.
Somewhere in the boys' dorm, Sunny did not have that problem. He rolled off his bed, clutching his stomach.
Noah watched Leon's expression stay completely flat.
'He is going to be insufferable about this later.'
Nephis hit sixteen without using her Aspect. Caster hit twenty-one.
'Speed. What a waste on someone like him.'
The sparring began, and Leon watched Nephis tear through Sleeper after Sleeper, while Noah watched Leon watch her. The way his eyes moved. The small adjustments happening somewhere behind them.
'Don't.'
But of course.
Leon stepped onto the mat smiling.
He almost had her. For a few exchanges, he genuinely almost had her.
But his body simply couldn't keep up with what his mind was asking it to do. The gap between understanding and execution.
Nephis drove a strike into his face, and Leon was thrown out the mat.
Noah followed him out the dojo.
"That was uneventful," Noah said.
Leon slammed his door.
He then watched Leon trap himself inside a room for several days. Meditating, swinging in the air, just so he could have a rematch.
'This...moron...'
All the while, Noah was stuck inside a room again, with nothing to do.
Day one was fine.
Noah sat in the corner of the room and watched Leon swing at nothing. Watched him grunt, reset, swing again. The same motion, repeated until his arms shook.
It was almost admirable.
Almost.
By day two, Noah had counted every crack in the ceiling. Forty-three.
He'd also memorized the exact pattern of Leon's breathing during meditation, and began predicting when he would break form.
He was right every time.
By day three, he started talking to himself.
'This is fine. This is completely fine.'
Leon swung.
Noah watched.
He could leave, technically. He'd tested it once — wandered down the hallway, and poked his head into Sunny's room.
Sunny looked gloomy, while Gloomy looked gloomy. What a pair!
He stayed there for about four minutes before the distance from Leon started pulling at him like a fishhook through the chest.
It wasn't painful. It just felt deeply, profoundly wrong.
Leon swung.
Noah watched.
By day four, he started copying Leon's movements. Just to do something. Just to feel like his arms existed. He mirrored the form, the footwork, the resetting.
It helped, for about an hour.
Everything just became worse.
'I used to get sore,' he thought. 'My shoulders used to burn. I used to hate it.'
He would give anything to hate it again.
Leon sat down to meditate.
Noah stared at the wall.
The wall stared back.
Day five arrived. Noah had stopped tracking the hours. Time moved differently when you had no hunger to measure it by, no fatigue, no need to sleep. It just... continued.
He tried thinking about the novel. Ran through arcs in his head, plotted contingencies, rehearsed conversations he'd have with Leon.
He got through about twenty minutes of that before his mind went completely blank.
He sat on the floor.
He wasn't sure how long he sat there.
'Is this what dying feels like?'
Day six, Leon finally spoke.
Not to Noah, but to himself. Something about Nephis' footwork, or her sword-style.
Noah answered anyway.
Full sentences and detailed analysis. Broke down everything he remembered about her fighting style from the novel, chapter by chapter, with footnotes.
Leon didn't hear a single word.
Noah finished talking and sat back down.
'Cool,' he thought. 'Great conversation.'
By day seven, he had started narrating Leon's movements like a sports commentator. Quietly at first, then louder, then at full volume just to hear a voice, even if it was his own, even if no one else could.
"And he swings — oh, terrible form, the elbow's too high, truly embarrassing —"
Leon reset.
"— he tries again, perhaps this time he won't look like he's swatting flies —"
Leon swung.
"— and he doesn't. Shocking. My condolences."
He paused, tired of the useless commentating.
Noah looked at his hands.
Looked through his hands.
The wall was visible through his palm. It always was. He'd just gotten good at not looking.
'I need to get out of this room.'
Nothing outside was better. The hallway, the dojo or Sunny's complaints to his own shadow wouldn't fill whatever this was that had hollowed out behind his ribs.
But if he watched Leon swing that arm one more time, in that room, in that silence—
Leon swung.
Noah closed his eyes.
'Breathe. You need to be stronger than this.'
He then began thinking, like he always did.
About his life before being shot by some random guy named Tefa.
How comfortable it was. Go to work, go back home, fill the void in your heart with fiction.
And now he was a fucking ghos—
Noah's eyes snapped open.
'Wait...'
He was shot by a guy named... Tefa...
Tefa...
Te Fa — Fa Te
Noah's mouth gaped open.
'...Fate.'
Noah clenched his fists.
'Fate... Dameon of Fate, Weaver...'
Had the Weaver brought him here? Was his original world connected to the dream realm? Had it been getting pulled in?
He looked at Leon.
'Has he realized?'
Of course not. Leon wouldn't even know who Weaver is.
'Is this world connected to the novel? If so...am I also inside a story right now?'
The dawning realization that he could also be some character in a story, where people are reading about him.
Judging him.
He gritted his teeth.
'No. I can't jump to conclusions. I need to...I need to get my body back first.'
He steadied his breathing and stood up.
And continued watching.
***
Leon eventually fought with Nephis again, almost winning.
Almost.
Then came Cassie.
He watched Leon sit across from her in the cafeteria, watched him say if 'you're walking beside me, I won't let you slow you down', watched Cassie smile like some moron. Believe Leon like a fool.
'What is this goddamn soap opera...'
Don't get attached, Noah thought — and he wasn't sure if he meant it for her or for himself.
What followed was weeks of training. Leon circling Cassie in a dark dojo, teaching her to hear better. Sunny was dragged in against his will, grumbling.
'Poor guy... always enslaved by someone.'
Noah watched from the corner.
He had a lot of time to watch, these days.
After Cassie left each night, Leon and Sunny sparred until they were both on the floor. Leon was winning on skill. But Sunny was already adapting.
Cassie and Sunny were stronger than canon, now. Though, it was laughable compared to the threats they would be facing.
Noah's hands — that he couldn't feel — had curled into fists.
He had noticed himself growing more erratic lately. Less patient. More anxious about every little thing.
The room at night was very quiet.
Leon slept.
Noah did not.
He couldn't.
He was forced to watch the fake version of himself drift into a comfortable sleep, while he just fucking watched.
***
The morning of the solstice, Leon woke up cheerful.
Sunny looked like he wanted to commit a crime.
Cassie, accurately, called Leon a nightmare creature in disguise.
Noah smiled despite himself. He wore it so perfectly by now.
Then, Cassie said 'that's my ability — I receive visions', and the smile faded.
He looked at her quiet face across the table. Her steady, pale hands.
'...You'll find out soon', Noah thought. 'What those visions cost.'
Leon set his spoon down. "Oh right, you guys don't know."
Noah looked up.
Sunny and Cassie looked at Leon with matching expressions of confusion. Noah moved closer without thinking — an old habit — leaning in whenever something shifted in the room's atmosphere.
"It's my flaw," Leon said. "I don't feel fear."
Silence.
Sunny dropped his spoon.
Cassie went very still.
Noah went very still.
I don't feel fear.
He replayed the weeks behind that sentence without meaning to.
Leon shrugging, when Noah said uncertainty means death outside the white alloyed building.
Leon's entire attitude changing. Him being able to talk to almost anyone, without a trace of the social anxiety he had in the past.
Leon not putting much thought into Noah's existence.
I don't feel fear.
'That's not a flaw,' Noah thought. 'That's...something far worse...'
All this time he had assumed Leon's recklessness was personality.
Arrogance.
Pride.
He thought that this was proof that the person who stole his life wasn't him at all.
And that it was fine to take it back.
But it wasn't that.
Leon didn't walk toward dangerous things because he was brave.
'You're not brave,' Noah thought, watching Leon pick his spoon back up and continue eating with complete indifference. 'You're just broken.'
***
Leon climbed into his sleeping pod, ready to enter the Dream Realm.
As soon as Leon closed his eyes...
Everything faded to black.
Noah looked around, and there was no ceiling or pod anymore.
He knew this place.
'No.'
He knew it immediately.
Noah was back in the void he was in, after the First Nightmare.
The same, dull, dark void with nothing.
His body was gone again.
Counting seconds so he wouldn't lose his mind.
'No. No no no no—'
He tried to breathe.
There was no breath to take. There was no chest to fill. No throat to tighten, no lungs to claw at. Just the wanting of it.
His hands.
He looked at his hands.
He couldn't see them.
Not because they were gone — he didn't know if they were gone — but because there was nothing here to see them against. No light. No contrast. No surface to cast a shadow on.
'I can't—'
He reached for something to hold onto and found nothing.
Second.
The counting had arrived by instinct, the same way it had the first time. The miserable stupid reflex of a person trying to stay sane in a black room with no walls.
Second.
He hated it. He hated that he was doing it again. Hated that it was the only thing he had, this pathetic, metronomic proof that time was still passing — that he was still here, still conscious, still something—
Second.
'I'm not going to lose it. I'm not going to lose it. I have been here before and I survived it before and I know it ends, I know it ends, Leon is in the Dream Realm and I am attached to his soul and this is temporary this is—'
How long had it been the first time?
Days. It had felt like days.
He had been alone then too. Just the rune. Just his name, floating in the dark.
Aspect Ghost: Noah
He made a sound that had no sound.
A scream that went nowhere because there was no air to carry it, no throat to shape it, no walls to echo back off of. Just the intention of it. Just the wanting to scream.
He was shaking.
He thought he was shaking. He couldn't confirm it.
'Stop. Stop it. You know what this is. You know where you're going. The Dream Realm. Leon is there. You are going to open your eyes and he will be there and you will not be alone in this—'
The dark didn't move.
Second.
Second.
'Okay,' he thought, very quietly. 'Okay. You are Noah. You named yourself that. You chose it. It is yours. You are Noah.'
Second.
Second.
Second.
'FUUUUCK. WHY IS IT TAKING SO LONG?'
And eventually—
Light.
Coral beneath him. Dark water in every direction. A sky with nothing in it.
The Forgotten Shore.
He stayed very still for a moment. Just breathing — not that he could, but the idea of it — until his shaking stopped.
'You're back, Noah...You're not in the void anymore...'
He looked up.
Leon was standing at the edge of the rock, soaking wet, looking out at the horizon like he owned it.
Noah just stood up, moved to stand beside him, and looked at the sea.
He hated Leon for stealing his body. But at least he wasn't alone anymore now.