"You... you can see me?" Kel stammered, his voice trembling with a mixture of shock and disbelief. He had grown so accustomed to being invisible, to moving around like a shadow, a specter, a figment of his own fractured imagination, that the idea of someone actually perceiving him was almost too much to bear.

The girl smiled, her eyes twinkling with a mixture of amusement. "Shit! Of course I can see you, silly," she said, her voice a melody, a siren song that called to him from across the vast expanse of imaginationland. "I wouldn't be talking to you if I couldn't, now would I?"

Kel blinked, his mind reeling with the implications of her words. If she could see him, if she could interact with him, then maybe... just maybe... he wasn't as alone as he had thought. Maybe there was still hope, still a chance for him to wake up from this nightmare, to find a way back to the land of fucking being-alive and the girl he loved more than life itself.

"But, who... who are you?" he asked, his voice a whisper, a prayer, a plea for understanding in a world that had ceased to make any sense.

The girl's smile widened, her eyes sparkling with a mischief that was both enticing and unnerving. "Oh, I've been called many things over many millennia," she said, her tone casual, almost flippant. "Muse, guardian, fucking death --" she said that last one with a nose crinkle, "--guide, trickster, friend, foe... the list goes on and on, man."

"What?" Kel frowned, his brow furrowing in confusion.

"Whoever the fuck I am is inconsequential," she said, her voice a riddle, a koan, a puzzle that demanded to be solved. "I have been so many things, so many ideas, so many people. Labels are for the living--those fucktards, and we, my dear Kelechi James Ezeh, are beyond such petty concerns."

And with that, she vanished, disappearing into thin air as if she had never been there at all. Kel blinked, his mind struggling to process what had just happened, to make sense of a world that had suddenly become so much stranger than he could ever have imagined.

But before he could even begin to formulate a coherent thought, he felt a sudden lurch, a dizzying sensation of movement and displacement that sent him hurtling through space and time. And then, just as suddenly as it had begun, it was over, and Kel found himself standing on the roof of the hostel, the vast expanse of the night sky stretching out above him like a canvas of stars and infinity.

And there, standing before him like a figure from a dream, was no longer the brown eyed girl, but an old man, his face lined with the wisdom of ages and his eyes twinkling with the same mischief that had danced in the eyes of the girl. Kel's heart pounded, his ghostly form trembling with a mixture of fear and exhilaration, as he realized that he was in the presence of something truly extraordinary, something that defied all the laws of nature and reason and everything he had ever believed about the world.

"What's happening?" he asked, his voice a trembling whisper that seemed to echo across the vastness of the cosmos. "What are you? ...God? Buddha? Grandpa?"

The old man laughed at the question until the last option hit him like a ton of bricks, wiping the grin off his face instantaneously. "Grandpa? Are you fucking kidding me?"

"I'm sorry, I —I ...I don't kno—"

"I—I—I ..." the man stammered mockingly, "What are you, a fucking ignition?"

Kel eyed the man and asked, "Are you even supposed to be cussing like this?"

"Shut the fuck up!" the man spat—literally. "What are you the fucking cuss police or something? Holy fucking shit, you are a pain in the testicles!" He shook his head in exasperation.

After a deep exhale, the old man appeared to regain his composure. "Let's get one thing straight, kid. I'm not God, or Buddha, or your dear old grandpappy come back from the great beyond."

Kel blinked, his mind struggling to keep up with the rapid-fire words of this strange and enigmatic being. "Then... then what are you?" he asked, his voice a trembling whisper that seemed to hang in the air like a question mark.

The old man grinned. "In this current millennium, they call me The Custodian," he said, his voice a rumble that seemed to shake the very foundations of reality. "I answer only to The Artificers, the makers of everything, the weavers of the tapestry of fucking existence itself. Time, reality, mind, will, the living and the non-living - all of it falls under their purview, and by extension, mine."

Kel's eyes widened, his ghostly form trembling with a mixture of awe and trepidation. "But... but what does that mean?" he asked, his voice a quavering whisper that seemed to echo across the vastness of the night sky. "Are they gods? Some kind of divine beings?"

The Custodian laughed, a sound that was at once mirthful and melancholic. "Oh, my dear boy," he said, his voice a sigh that seemed to carry the weight of ages. "The Artificers are not mere fucking religious constructs, not some petty cunty deities dreamed up by the fevered imaginings of mortal minds. They are something else entirely, something that exists beyond the bounds of your limited understanding. They are the fabric of reality itself, the warp and weft of the universe. The very essence of existence type shit."

"So, wait," Kel said, his brow furrowed in confusion. "If there's no heaven or hell, no afterlife as we know it, then what's the point? What happens when we die?"

The Custodian smiled, his eyes twinkling. "Oh, my dear boy," he said, "There is an afterlife, a place beyond the veil of mortality where the souls of the departed find their final rest after judgement. We just call it something different."

Kel's mind threatened to explode, trying to reconcile the fact of his own death with the revelation of this strange realm that lay beyond the bounds of earthly existence. "But... but if there's an afterlife," he said, his voice a trembling whisper that seemed to hang in the air like a question mark, "—then why am I here? Why haven't I moved on, like all the other souls?"

"That, my boy, is the white elephant in the fucking room."

Kel leaned forward, his ghostly form trembling with anticipation. "What do you mean?"

The Custodian took a deep breath, "Every mortal being," he began, "—is born with a thread, a strand of fate that sings the tune of their past and future, their every action and decision, their every triumph and tragedy. Kinda like strings on a guitar type shit. These threads are the tapestry of existence itself, the warp and weft of the grand design, and it is my duty, as The Custodian, to monitor them, to ensure that they remain in harmony with the will of The Artificers."

Kel's eyes widened, "But... but what does that have to do with me?"

The Custodian's smile turned melancholic, and for a moment, "You, Kelechi," he said, "are an anomaly, born without a thread, a soul that exists outside the tapestry of fate itself. A fucking cosmic mistake."

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