As the three entered, they found the dining room buzzing with laughter. Isolde—the main one laughing—leaned over her book in hushed hysteria.

Solace, on the other hand, was leaning over the chair with a smirk. As the door opened, they shifted their attention to it, expecting to see Sumi and Cassilyth come through. Instead, a figure with a medium-brown skin tone appeared.

Dreads of uneven lengths framed his face, partially covering his eyes, while the rest were being tied into two high ponytails on either side of his head.

Pots of food and a tub of ice cream floated past him and settled on the large wooden table, which was set for a formal dinner. It had everything one could hope for in a dinner—white plates, silverware, crystal-clear wine glasses, and neatly folded napkins.

The table featured a white floral centrepiece around which the pots were gathered. The figure waited next to the door, keeping it open for Cassilyth and Sumi.

Solace and Isolde glanced at each other briefly as Sumi and Cassilyth took seats parallel to theirs.

Ten sleek, black dining chairs with smooth, curved backs and slender legs sat around the table; two chairs were at either end of the table, and three were on each side. Feeling that all eyes were on him, Altha silently made his way to Cassilyth and Sumi—nearly stumbling during his retreat.

Cassilyth pulled out a chair between her and Sumi for Altha to sit; Sumi smiled at the gesture.

Once they were all properly settled, Isolde cleared her throat, looked directly at Altha, and said:

"No Cogni nor Ether Signatures? How strange. Tell me where did Sumi manage to dig you up from? Well, care to explain, Sumi?"

Sumi sighed and glanced at Altha, who was silently looking at the table. It was obvious he wasn't all too comfortable speaking yet, so she told them about the night prior—how they had met and the remembrance she'd gained from it.

"Where am I? Is this a dream?" Altha thought, "Be thankful self, your hopes actually panned out for once, show a bit of pride in yourself." Looking around the room he retreated to his thoughts again, "I will not deny that there is hope, but for us... I don't quite trust it." He responded to himself, thinking, "So no faith, is that it? You're free and yet still you restrain yourself, you shackle your freedoms and for what? Altha, the whole future lies in uncertainty; live immediately; simply surviving can only take you so far. These people are not a threat to you right now; you can ease your shoulders a bit."

Taking in a deep breath, Altha responded to himself, "Most people are afraid of the unknown, and in that regard, I have often found there is no greater outlier than myself."

His thought responded "Right... I forget sometimes that you solve problems by letting them devour you; just masked perfectionism if you ask me. I swear to think too much is a disease, and you are chronically ill." Looking around the room for possible escape plans should things go sour, he considered the window or sliding door.

Finishing her retelling of yesterday, Sumi glanced around at her friends, their expressions were mixed. Solace seemed deep in thought, his hand on his chin; Isolde was scribbling in an interesting-looking tome; and Cassilyth looked at Altha in fascination.

Altha stayed silent, looking down at the table, his eyes occasionally darting around the room, his expression unreadable.

Hesitantly, Sumi put her hand on his shoulder and faced the others as she said:

"I know you all have questions that need answers; I also know that this differs greatly from what you currently understand to be a trend among the Outer-Existials—and I will not claim that I am not weary of him myself. However, I will say this much: for the very little time I've known him, Altha has only ever been kind and helpful." Sumi stated.

"Indeed, for instance: he washed the dishes, held the door open for us, and even carried all this food here," Cassilyth added. "Plus, just look at him. He's too cute to be an Outer-Existial."

Solace turned his sights to Altha, looking him over as he pretended not to notice. "He does seem rather well mannered, very gentlemanly too. Isolde, what do you think?"

Isolde sighed and looked up from her tome momentarily. "He's dangerous to us and the city as far as I'm concerned, and until we can get some answers out of him, that's my verdict on the matter. Innocent seeming or not, let's remember that he came from the Outer." Her tone, indefferent.

Solace shrugged. "She's not wrong, and I 'm afraid I have to agree."

Sumi nodded. "I agree, and I know I cannot speak on his behalf, of course, as only he knows the full extent of what he is and what he's done. It is up to you at the end of the day to decide whether you trust me enough to give him a chance."

Cassilyth smiled and placed a hand on Altha's shoulder following Sumi's lead.

"Indeed, he is an odd one. I'm sure all of you have already noted his lack of an Ether Signature differentiating him from most of us Sequenced-Existances, but let us also take into account that he also lacks a Cogni Signature, which also separates him from the Outer-Existials as well. He is no Outer-Existial, just as much as he isn't a Sequenced-Existence, so perhaps… just perhaps, he is a new existence," she said, looking at Sumi.

Isolde shot Altha a few glances alternating between him and her book as Sumi cleared her throat to speak:

"As Cassilyth ever so eloquently put it, 'Perhaps he is a new existence,' which is precisely why I have called all of you here today. I would like all of us to work with Altha to figure out what he is and what that might mean for the Spire and Existence as a whole—that is if Altha agrees."

Sumi's gaze shifted to Altha. Feeling their eyes lying flatly on him, Altha glanced around the table while Solace and Isolde listened intently.

"I… uhh, I wish I could help, but I don't really know what I am either," Altha said quietly.

"You don't know? What do you mean?" Solace asked.

Altha looked up slightly and spoke in Solace's direction:

A case of content theft: this narrative is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

"My mother was a Nephilim, and my father was a Tarnished," he said quietly. "I was professed to die at birth but by some omen, I survived."

Cassilyth shivered and closed her eyes at the utterance as the idea sewed across her mind a seed of knowledge. Her grasp grew weaker on Altha's shoulder before suddenly growing firmer.

"Unlikely," Isolde said, "putting aside how rare Nephilim are, they can only successfully reproduce with other Nephilim or stellar beings. Otherwise, they are only born if an angelic being were to procreate with a human. So your story isn't adding up there buddy. Care to backtrack?"

A faint smile adorned Solace's face as he asked "A Nephilim, you say? An extremely rare bunch, those are. Forgive me for asking, but could you show us your wings?"

"In here?" Altha asked, his voice louder than before—nearly breaking on the question.

Solace looked at the others and said:

"Well, it's not every day that one encounters a Nephilim, now is it? And I am quite the ever-so-curious chap."

Gently tightening her grip on his shoulder, Cassilyth said:

"You don't have to if you're not comfortable, though." She came closer and whispered in his ear, "Solace is just trying to give you a chance to change Isolde's mind about you, no matter how slight that may be."

Altha remained quiet for a bit, thinking; then, silently, he stood up—and, apparating out of thin air, a lengthy, ghostly wing of black and white light with jagged reptilian tendrils of an ethereal nature stretched far enough to eclipse Cassilyth and Sumi.

The wing was on his right side and housed three small shadowy eyes with ghostly white iris.

What should have been a reflective surface of prismatic crystal was, instead, a phantasmal shadow.

From the ceiling hung multiple textured glass orbs, varying in height and emitting a warm glow that threw the wing's shadow on the floor. The group of friends seemed to pause at the sight of it.

"Weird, right? I know… I've seen my mother's wings before, and they were altogether drastically different from mine. My father had bat-like wings."

Looking at her hand briefly Sumi reached out to touch it only to find her hand passing through. Cassilyth followed in her lead but the result remained the same.

Letting the wing vanish, Altha slowly sat back down and, in an indifferent tone, said, "But as you can see, I struggled to inherit either of their appearances or even their Aspects. Those, of which I did inherit have proved… defective."

"You don't seem all that torn up about it," Cassilyth said, placing a hand on his shoulder.

"Well, as the years dragged on, I lost the will to care. By the time I was eight, I had already lost interest. I wish I could help youc£iser but I'm afraid I'm just as in the dark as all of you."

"What about the Spatial-Fract you came out of? Surely you must know something about that," Cassilyth stated as she leaned in closer to establish eye contact with Altha.

"It was the first time I'd done it. It was my only escape," Altha said, looking away.

"Escape?" Sumi asked.

Altha turned to her and answered:

"I was stuck somewhere I assumed to be the Outer; I wasn't sure for a while and thought maybe I was dead—or worse—but that theory quickly died after the first horde of Outer-Existials appeared."

They all exchanged looks; then, Sumi asked:

"And how long were you there for?"

"About a year or so… or maybe a few months—hard to keep track of time in a realm estranged from the concept," Altha replied.

Hesitantly he turned to Sumi, fiddling with his thumbs and bowing his head, as he quietly said:

"Weary from the hell of having to survive each day, I thought up a plan of escape. I travelled far to find a region where the barrier between the Outer and the Living Multiverse was thinnest, and I led an Outer-Existial there. But, fearing I could not defeat it alone, I lured you there and put you in harm's way. I'm truly sorry."

Turning red, Sumi looked away and said:

"No harm done—I was just doing my job." Gently lifting his head, they locked eyes. "I'm just glad I could help. In my occupation, we often see people die; I'm glad I could at least save someone."

Altha averted his gaze and quietly said:

"Thank you, again. I meant to fight that entity with you, but a horde of weaker Outers appeared, and I ended up having to hold them off for a while. Again, I hope you can find it in your heart to forgive me."

She gently squeezed his shoulder.

"No, seriously, it's fine. There is nothing to apologize for; you did what you had to do to survive. I might have done the same if our roles were reversed," she replied.

"Extraordinary..." Solace stated flatly. "To think someone could actually survive passing through a Spatial-Fract. It's never been done before—or at least, it's never been heard of. You must be a rather high Existence, yes?"

"Existence?" he uttered in quiet confusion.

"And done!" Isolde said as she finished writing in her tome and gracefully tore a page out of the book. Imbuing the page with Ether, the runes on its surface began to glow with a pale blue light.

The symbols rearranged into words in a flash, and then she slid the paper to Sumi and said:

"Well, it's hard to determine much at all—most of his attributes are obscured somehow—but I can at the very least say that he is, in fact, not an Astral."

Sumi picked up the piece of paper and read aloud:

  General Status:

Name/s: Altha, Noctorin

Surname: Valkeriel

Age: 16

Gender: Male

Height: 5.5 feet

Weight: 48.5 kg

  Meaning:

Dream Name: ???

Runic Name: ---

Insignial Name: ---

True Name: ---

Existence Status:

Existence Sequence: ???

Existence Category: ???

  Energy Status:

Energy Output: ???

Energy Input: ???

Energy Signature: Grey (???)

Energy Type: Psyche

Energy Quality: Einer

Energy Quantity: ???

Conversion Rate: ???

Overall: ???

  Astral Status: Selected

Remembrance(s): ---

Inner-Existial(s): ---

Spire Sequence: ---

  Essence Status:

Soul: ---

Genius: ---

Psyche Factor: ???

  Aspect Status:

Unbound: Exception (???)

Deific: Congnisance, Clairvoyance

Divine: Esper

Primary: ---

Auxiliary: ---

Minor: Fate, Prisma

"Psyche? What kind of energy is that?" Sumi asked.

Altha shrugged.

"Forget the Energy Status—are you seeing what I'm seeing from his Aspects? What kind of Aspect rank is 'Unbound'" Solace asked.

Cassilyth remained silent the whole time, quietly observing. Seeing Altha twiddle his thumbs under the table, she smiled and then said aloud for all to hear:

"Okay, everyone, I think that's about enough talking for tonight. Some of us are hungry and need our beauty sleep. I'm sure Altha is tired as well at this point, so I say we all eat and then think all of this over as we return to our own homes. Sleep will do us all well after a long day, and just because tomorrow's a Saturday doesn't mean I want to stay up all night with you hooligans."

"Hooligans? Of all the words in the world, and yet you choose that one?" Solace said, "Also, you still owe me an explanation for earlier today. Why didn't you tell me we had a döppelganger problem?"

"What!? You knew?" Sumi asked, her voice cracking as she did.

She put her index finger to her lips and said "Shhhh," shushing them, "that will have to wait for another day."

Solace looked at her, confused, and said:

"Is this because I woke you up in the afterno— I mean, in the morning?"

"Döppelgangers?" Altha whispered to himself.

She sighed and plated herself some food; everyone else followed her lead. Once the dinner had concluded, everyone went their separate ways.

On her way out Isolde grabbed Altha's wrist gently and placed a folded piece of paper in his hand then joined her brother outside. The two in a flash disappeared into the storm.

Cassilyth remained, seemingly having decided to sleep over.

"Well time to get to cleaning then. Do you mind lending a hand Cassie?" Sumi asked as she gathered all the plates and headed to the kitchen.

Cassilyth sighed and gathered all the pots, "Altha my hands are kind of full. Could you bring that tub of ice cream with you once you're done?"

Altha nodded and Cassilyth smiled as she walked away.

Unfolding the piece of paper Altha read:

"Döppelganger: Shapeshifting mind readers found throughout the living multiverse and thought to have once been normal humanoids who had been altered by the Outer's Influence."

He smiled and neatly folded the piece of paper, putting it away. Grabbing the half empty tub of ice cream, he headed to the kitchen.

They all cleaned up before everyone retreated to bed for the night. Altha was shown to a guest room where he could sleep.