CHAPTER 01 — THE ONE WHO WALKS

 THROUGH NONEXISTENCE
PART 1
There is an invisible barrier, a boundary that no one can see or measure, a limit that no one crosses and no one even questions anymore, because it has become a silent certainty. It is made neither of matter, nor energy, nor even light, and yet it is more solid than any wall. This barrier separates the reality from which authors come—the tangible, imperfect, living world—from fictional reality, the place where stories are born, where imagined worlds, heroes, and tragedies come into existence.
Between these two realities, there should be nothing.
Absolutely nothing.
But this nothing exists.
And within that nothing, someone walks.
She leaves no footprints behind. No sound follows her steps. The void does not crack beneath her passage, because the void does not acknowledge her existence. Yet she keeps moving, again and again, as if the simple act of continuing were a law older than all others.
She has no destination, no place of arrival, not even the certainty that an end exists on the path she follows.
She simply walks.
Because stopping would mean admitting that she is nothing.
Her name is Nerya.
Nerya does not exist.
Not in the way beings of the real world exist, and not even in the way characters in stories exist. She was not born from a breath, nor from a fully formed idea.
She is the author's daughter, and yet she cannot live in his world.
She can see the reality from which he comes. She watches it without ever being able to touch it, like observing a star too distant to reach. She sees the hands that write, the thoughts that stir, the emotions that give birth to stories.
But she remains on the other side, imprisoned within nonexistence.
So she walks.
She walks between what is real and what has not yet become real. She walks along a path with no ground, no sky, and no horizon.
She does not know where she is going, nor why the path stretches endlessly before her. She does not remember a beginning, and she does not even dare imagine an end.
Time has no hold here.
And yet, sometimes, she feels something resembling it—a gentle form of melancholy, a sadness that does not hurt, but never truly disappears.
Sometimes, she hears voices.
Distant screams. Heated conversations. Bursts of laughter. Muffled sobs.
They are beings from other dimensions, worlds in formation, universes awakening.
They exist completely.
They speak, fight, love, and hate, unaware that they are being watched. They move through their own stories with the certainty that they are real.
Because, to them, they are.
Nerya sees them.
Nerya hears them.
But none of them can see her.
Sometimes, she stops at the edge of these newborn realities. She watches heroes being born through suffering, monsters emerging from despair, entire worlds shaped by a single decision.
She would like to tell them something.
To warn them.
To encourage them.
To explain that they are not alone.
But her voice does not exist enough to cross the barrier. Her words dissolve before they can even become sound.
So she smiles.
A simple smile.
Almost childlike.
Because despite everything, she finds it beautiful.
She finds it alive.
Even broken worlds, even tragic stories, even doomed destinies carry within them a certain form of light.
They exist because someone, somewhere, believed in them.
And sometimes, that belief is enough to justify all the suffering.
Nerya continues walking until she reaches a place where nonexistence itself seems to vibrate, as if the void were holding its breath.
Here lies the Nexus of Ideas.
A place where nothing has yet been fixed, where anything is possible.
Fragments of stories float like unstable stars. Formless concepts collide, merge, or disappear. This is where manga, novels, cartoons, and comic books are born.
Every story, without exception, passes through this place before becoming real in someone's eyes.
The beings born here are still fragile.
Some already shout their names, convinced they are immortal.
Others tremble, unable to understand what they are.
Many fade away before they are ever told.
Nerya watches them with infinite attention.
Sometimes, she sits with her legs dangling into the void and observes them like a child watching a world she will never be able to enter.
And sometimes, she laughs.
A quiet laugh.
Almost shy.
Because some ideas are absurd.
Because some stories are magnificent.
Because despite her loneliness, she is not completely empty.
Then the silence returns.
The Nexus grows still.
The ideas either solidify or disappear.
And Nerya rises once more.
She casts one final glance toward those worlds yet to be born, toward those lives that will be loved, hated, forgotten.
Then she resumes her walk.
Always between reality and nonexistence.
Always unable to interfere.
Always present, yet never acknowledged.
Without knowing it, without intending to, she is becoming the first crack.
Because one day, that invisible barrier will tremble.
A story will cross the forbidden threshold.
An heir will appear.
A multiverse will open.
And all stories, all lives, all destinies will unconsciously remember this endless path.
Because everything begins here.
With Nerya.
The one who walks through nonexistence.