Lord of Mysteries: The Dream That Waits

The Weight of the Forgotten

Somewhere in the depths of Klein's mind, the weight of something lost pressed against the edges of his consciousness.

It was like an itch just beyond his reach—a phantom limb of memory that had been severed yet still bled.

The Name was gone.

But it was still there.

He knew it had existed. He knew he had heard it.

And that was the most unsettling part.

Most things, when forgotten, simply ceased to be. They left no trace, no void, no whisper of their absence.

This was different.

It was a void that refused to close.

Something had taken the Name, had claimed it, and now…

It remembered.

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The Strain of Recollection

Klein stood at the edge of the dimly lit room, staring into nothing, his thoughts an ever-tightening spiral.

Yeaia lay sprawled across a couch, their robes loose and half-draped over the furniture, one arm lazily resting over their forehead. They looked every bit as if they were recovering from a dream that had stretched too long, their body flickering in and out of solidity like a mirage on the horizon.

"You're still thinking about it, huh?"

Klein exhaled slowly.

"I can't afford not to."

Yeaia made a quiet, amused sound.

"That's the thing about you," they said, their mismatched eyes—one red, one silver—glistening with a strange light. "You think too much about things that don't want to be thought about."

Klein shot them a glance.

"You mean things that shouldn't be thought about."

Yeaia smirked, stretching out, their form distorting slightly before snapping back into place. "Same thing."

Klein let the silence linger.

Then, carefully, he asked, "You don't feel any different?"

Yeaia blinked at him. "Should I?"

Klein didn't answer immediately.

He was looking for something—a crack in the façade, an inconsistency, a detail that would give away the truth.

But Yeaia was as unreadable as always.

Almost too unreadable.

Was that a trick of their nature? Or was it something else entirely?

"You reacted when you heard the Name," Klein said finally. "Even though you forgot it immediately afterward."

Yeaia shrugged.

"I react to lots of things."

"You don't react to things like that."

A lazy grin. "I do when it's funny."

Klein sighed through his nose.

This was going nowhere.

But the feeling—the weight of that lost Name—hadn't disappeared.

It was there.

And something, somewhere, still carried it.

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The Shift in Reality

The candlelight dimmed.

Not from a draft. Not from time.

But as if the world itself had exhaled.

The shadows deepened, stretching unnaturally, writhing against the walls like silent specters.

Klein felt it before it happened.

A pulse.

A ripple in reality.

Something had moved.

No—something had been moved.

Yeaia sat up suddenly, no longer slouching, no longer playful.

Their eyes sharpened. Their form, which had flickered lazily before, solidified.

"Did you feel that?" Klein asked.

Yeaia didn't answer immediately.

For once, they were frowning.

A moment later, their head tilted slightly, as if listening to something just outside the range of human perception.

Then, with an exhale that was far too deliberate, they muttered, "Well… that's new."

Klein's pulse quickened.

"What changed?"

Yeaia turned to look at him fully, and for the first time since they had met, there was something in their mismatched gaze that looked like—

Concern.

"It remembers."

Klein's breath stilled.

"What?"

Yeaia's lips parted slightly, then closed.

They hesitated.

Then, finally, they said, "The Name. It remembers itself."

A shiver crawled up Klein's spine.

This wasn't how things worked.

Names were just labels, placeholders assigned by perception.

A Name could not remember itself.

Not unless—

Not unless it had become something else entirely.

Something that could act.

Something that could think.

Something that could want.

A name should not have a will.

But this one did.

And it was looking back.

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End of Chapter 42

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