Free Web NovelChapter 29: Chapter 29: You Who Endured
Chapter 29: You Who Endured
—CELIA—
But just when I thought the entries could not possibly hurt any more than this, another page caught my attention.
And what was written there was far more painful than any other entry I had read so far.
The handwriting itself looked different.
As though every word had been written by someone already standing at the edge of collapse.
My fingers trembled slightly as I continued reading.
"The stars are lonely tonight..."
The moment I read that first sentence, something inside my chest tightened painfully.
"And I realized that no matter how hard I try, I will eventually be replaced."
I swallowed hard.
"And when I thought being unloved was something I could endure, I ended up longing for love anyway."
"I have done terrible things I can never take back."
My brows furrowed immediately.
Terrible things?
What terrible things, Aria?
Why are your memories so unclear?
Why do I only remember fragments whenever I try to recall your past?
My breathing slowly became uneven.
Because despite possessing this body...
Despite inheriting scattered memories...
There were still empty spaces and missing pieces.
Like someone had ripped entire parts of Aria’s life away before I arrived here.
And almost as though the journal itself heard my thoughts, the answer came immediately on the next lines.
"It is terrible to live."
My breath caught.
"I no longer wish to live."
The room suddenly felt suffocating.
"I no longer wish to inconvenience others with my selfish desires. I hope father’s beloved daughter will soon take my place..."
The words blurred and my vision shook violently.
"That way...I may rest peacefully."
A tear slipped down my cheek.
Then another and another.
"So goodbye...I hope I am not hated too much."
My lips trembled.
No.
No no no...
My fingers clutched the journal so tightly the pages crumpled slightly beneath my hands.
And suddenly, everything crashed into me at once.
This world...
This place...
These people...
They were real.
They were not simply fictional beings trapped inside some silly romance novel my sister casually wrote while eating snacks and complaining about deadlines.
Aria was real.
She lived.
She suffered.
She cried herself to sleep inside this enormous room while everyone misunderstood her.
And in the end...
She died alone.
My breathing became shallow.
Could it be...
Was that truly the moment I arrived here?
The exact second she took her last breath?
The thought struck so hard my chest ached.
I lowered my head slowly while tears continued falling helplessly onto the pages of the diary.
Droplets stained the elegant handwriting one after another, blurring the ink slightly beneath my trembling hands.
"Aria..." I whispered brokenly.
The name itself suddenly felt unbearably heavy.
It was no longer a fictional character anymore.
But a real person.
A real girl.
How lonely were you?
How long did you quietly endure all of this alone?
How much pain did you carry inside your chest before finally deciding you no longer wished to wake up the next day?
My breathing shook softly as I stared at the tear-stained pages before me.
And slowly, I thought back to the original novel again.
Aria Valen, the villainess.
The cruel noble lady people were supposed to dislike.
The woman who bullied the heroine out of jealousy.
The woman abandoned by everyone before eventually meeting a tragic end as punishment for her actions.
That was how the story described her.
She was someone created solely to stand in the heroine’s way until she was no longer needed.
I remembered reading those Chapters casually before.
I remembered feeling annoyed at her scenes.
I remembered thinking she was making everything worse for herself.
But now...
Now that I had seen this...
Now that I had read her own words written with trembling hands and tear-stained pages...
How was I supposed to hate her?
How could anyone hate her?
Every cruel thing she did suddenly looked less like malice and more like desperation. freeweɓnovel.cøm
A desperate child reaching out in the ugliest ways possible because nobody ever taught her how to ask for love properly.
A girl who watched her father choose another family while pretending gifts and wealth could replace affection.
A girl who clung to a man not because she wished to ruin him...
...but because he was probably the first person who ever made her feel seen.
And even then, he slowly pulled away from her too.
My chest tightened so painfully I could barely breathe.
"She was trying so hard..." I whispered shakily to myself.
And in the end...
She still believed the world would become happier once she was gone.
My vision blurred completely again.
Because suddenly, I realized something even more painful.
Aria did not truly want power.
She did not even want revenge.
She simply wanted someone to choose her first.
That was all she ever wanted.
Something so painfully simple.
And somehow...
That loneliness reached me completely as another woman sitting alone in the same room she once cried in.
I could almost feel the lingering sadness buried between these walls.
The silence she must have endured every night.
The quiet ache of pretending to be difficult and arrogant because showing vulnerability only made people leave faster.
I pressed trembling fingers against my mouth as sobs slowly escaped my throat before I could stop them.
Because suddenly, the line between myself and Aria no longer felt clear anymore.
Was I truly just Celia?
Or had I slowly become something else too?
I remembered Sebastian’s confused expression lately.
The way Ezekiel reacted toward me.
The way Duke Valen constantly looked guilty whenever he saw me.
The way Matthias watched me.
Even the servants.
Everyone around me carried pieces of a past I still did not fully understand.
And the worst part?
The novel itself no longer made sense.
If this world truly came from my sister’s story...
Then why were these things missing?
Why were Aria’s feelings barely explored?
Why did the novel reduce her into nothing more than a hateful obstacle standing in the heroine’s way?
Why did nobody see this suffering?
Was the story revised?
Changed?
Rewritten somehow?
Or...
Was this world never truly identical to the novel in the first place?
"I don’t understand..." I whispered shakily.
My chest hurt so badly.
It genuinely hurt.
It felt like grief itself had wrapped around my ribs and squeezed mercilessly.
And then suddenly, something changed.
The mana inside the room pulsed violently.
The crystal lights overhead flickered.
The air around me grew colder.
I froze.
A sharp pain suddenly exploded inside my chest so violently that I gasped aloud.
My fingers slipped from the diary as I doubled over instinctively.
"Ah—!"
My entire body trembled from emotions hitting me all at once.
Feelings so overwhelming they did not feel like mine.
Loneliness.
Despair.
Yearning.
The desperate ache of wanting someone to love you sincerely.
My breathing became erratic.
And all at once, emotions I had never experienced before crashed into me like a flood breaking through shattered walls.
I saw flashes.
A younger Aria standing alone in a ballroom while nobles whispered behind fans.
A child waiting endlessly beside a window for her father to come visit.
A teenage girl forcing smiles while servants compared her to another daughter she had never even met yet.
Sebastian turning colder toward her little by little.
The unbearable fear of being abandoned.
Replaced.
Forgotten.
I clutched my chest harder as tears streamed uncontrollably down my face.
"It hurts..." I whispered weakly.
Oh god.
It hurts so much.
And then finally..
I understood.
These emotions had always existed inside this body.
Hidden.
Buried.
Waiting.
And now that I had read the truth...
The original Aria’s feelings had finally reached me completely.
Raw and unbearable.
I curled against the bed while trying desperately to breathe properly through the crushing ache consuming my chest.
And for the first time since arriving in this world...
I no longer knew where Celia ended...
And where Aria began.
