Day Three

I felt like I waited forever to be with her— really be with her. It was all I could think of this past almost year. Eat, sleep, her.

I was excited to meet her face to face. Here we were together, actually together

The journey had drained us both, but those last two days made every moment worth it.

Being near her was something I couldn’t quite put into words—an ache and a joy all at once.

She seemed distant—like she was carrying the weight of every hard moment that had led us here.

Her presence was empty, almost pained, and I could feel the strain in every action.

It was clear the road had been rough, and I was left wondering if she even wanted me, or if I was another thing she had to endure.

I kept trying to connect with her, in any way I could.

She seemed sad. It showed in her eyes—vacant, unfocused, like she was always somewhere far away.

I couldn't reach her.

I hadn’t always been part of her life, but in the time, I had— I’d felt the chaos, the heartbreak, the unraveling… the crying when she thought I was sleeping.

And still I loved her.

I didn’t know how to say the right thing, but I wanted to. I wanted to make her happy.

Maybe if she knew how much I cared, she’d feel like she mattered.

I hoped she could see how I clung to her, how much I watched her, admired her. She gave me everything. She brought me to life.

I tried to pull her out of the fog, tried to make her smile. But it was never enough.

She was only there physically.

When I wanted her attention, if she gave it to me— it was merely slivers of it—brief, distracted. Beside me and yet some how I’d felt closer to her before.

I hated to think she was humoring me only to keep me from fussing. I knew she was stressed, and I tried not to take it personally, even if it was easier said.

But today was different. We had somewhere to go, something to do. The two of us. Perhaps a change of scenery would lift her spirits. I thought that breaking up the routine might distract her from her own thoughts and worries that seemed to consume her.

A nice walk on a warm spring afternoon. I soaked it in. Not because of where we were, or the sounds around us, or the sun on my skin, but because of her. I couldn’t take my eyes off her.

Then she stopped abruptly looking around, searching. She seemed to find what she was looking for and we stepped inside a small building.

From what I could see it wasn’t where I expected this walk to lead us— a dim, dusty, dilapidated place with a caving roof.

The sun missed this place.

Suddenly, she broke apart—sobs spilling out, raw and desperate.

Her body trembled as she leaned back heavily against the wall, I thought she might slide down it for a moment and end up on the floor. Her face was flooded with despair.

I wished I could do something to help, but I was powerless.

I tried to speak—to say something that might soothe her—but all that came out were cries.

Her crying made me cry, and when I cried, she cried even harder. We were caught in a sorrow cycle.

“Don't,” she demanded, “not now.”

I wanted to stop, but her sadness was contagious, and I kept going for a moment.

Then she moved in a way that was her literally shaking off her emotions, she inhaled sharply and let out a quivering breath. She was suddenly robotic, as if she’d never cried at all.

“Let’s get this over with,” she sighed and walked down a long, shadowy hallway.

We rode the elevator down.

Her anxiety seeped into me, making my body restless.

I tried to catch her eye, searching for comfort.

Her tears had dried, and her face was stern. as if she was looking through me when she said flatly, “Quiet.”

The elevator doors opened.

I heard a voice I couldn’t see—calm but firm, with an edge that made the air feel colder—say, “Splendid, put it down here and take a seat there.”

She did as she was told.

Then she stepped out of my sight, and I was left alone.

I called out because the silence made me uneasy, and she returned.

I felt a rush of relief.

She had an older woman with her. Long black curls streaked thick with silver framed a face that was both beautiful and very worn by time.

Her eyes were a soft gray in color, but there was something else entirely—hard, guarded, yet strangely inviting.

She moved with effortless grace, every step measured and premeditated, as if the air around her was hers to command.

Tall and imposing, she towered over me, yet there was a hypnotic calm in her that held me still.

When she reached out and touched my forehead, her hands were cold as ice. I didn’t flinch. My eyes stayed locked on hers, I was unable to look away.

I was so still that exhaustion overwhelmed me; I hadn’t slept well the last two nights with the new living arrangement.

The older woman breathed in deeply as if she was inhaling all of the oxygen in the room. A terrible feeling washed over me—like an electric shock coursing briefly and terrifyingly through my body.

Her gaze was captivating, impossible to break.

Glued to her eyes I watched them change—the soft gray fading to a rich copper hue like two shiny pennies.

They were all I could see, and then, I could see nothing at all.

Her hand remained on me, but everything blurred.

My vision was hazy and I blinked rapidly, but it made no difference—the world faded.

I begged for help, but only whimpers came out.

Her hand lifted and I heard movement.

I felt strange—I wasn’t just tired; I felt drained, completely depleted. I didn’t feel sleepy, I was weak. All I could manage was to close my eyes.

I heard muffled sounds and felt something touch me again. My stomach turned.

When I opened my eyes, everything had changed.

I was still in the same room, but in a different place than I had once been lying. I was now watching from across the room.

It was like I had been quietly shifted, moved without moving.

The room looked familiar, but the angle was all wrong. Everything felt smaller, clearer, more grounded.

I was standing. On my own.

I was me… but I wasn’t? How could that even make sense?

The way I moved didn’t feel like anything I knew. I felt balanced, steady, in control—like someone had handed me instructions I didn’t remember reading.

It was new and odd and somehow natural all at once.

And where I had been lying before… someone else, something else was there now.

“What is happening to me?” I asked out loud, panic rising in my throat.

I moved—without stumbling, without thought—before accidentally bumping into a young woman. She surprised me, but I was more focused on figuring out what was going on.

I pointed toward the spot I had just come from, still not understanding.

“I was… over there.”

The words left my mouth, but they didn’t make it make sense.

She didn’t answer. Instead, she smiled, and she moved across the room, her heels clicking softly—steady, rhythmic—like a metronome marking time.

As she walked, the space around her shifted almost imperceptibly.

From the floor, a beautiful carved table rose smoothly, its dark wood gleaming like polished obsidian.

Matching chairs grew beside it, elegant and ornate, twisting upward woven from living branches. They protruded from the ground hastily without causing damage to the floor— lithe and flexible bending into shape.

She approached the table and reached for a magnificent kettle with a mirrored finish. It appeared as if summoned from thin air. It heated up on its own, illuminated in a soft red glow.

She poured hot water into a uniquely painted porcelain cup.

The steam rose in thin, curling tendrils, filling the room with a subtle earthy scent—tea leaves steeping in the warmth.

In the background, a disturbing gurgling sound drifted over from the same spot where I once was. The unsettling noise was a stark contrast to the peaceful atmosphere that was coming to life before me.

The young woman’s movements were calm and purposeful, every gesture fluid and exact, like a ritual performed countless times.

I wondered who she was and where she had come from as I watched her watching me. Her eyes never left me, observing with a curious intensity.

She set the cup down gently, the soft thud almost too loud in the stillness as she settled into the carved chair like a shadow slipping into place.

I pointed toward the spot where I had been moments ago, still trying to make sense of it all.

“Please take a seat, my dear” the young woman said. Her voice was smooth and articulate, every syllable placed with care—like she was speaking on behalf of something larger than herself.

As she lifted her hand in a slow, elegant gesture, the empty chair beside the intricately carved table responded—not with a scrape or slide, but with movement that was alive. It stretched forward from the floor, roots twisting and rising as if the wood had sprouted and grown to receive me.

Its presence anchored, timeless—like it had always been waiting for me to arrive.

And even with all that happening so inexplicably I was still most in awe that she responded to what I said. That realization excited and intrigued me.

“Wait,” I blurted out, “you can understand me?”

She didn’t flinch. Just offered another smile and nodded, as if it had never occurred to her that I wouldn’t be heard.

The recognition cracked something open inside me. After screaming at the top of my lungs and not being heard, this felt like stepping into sunlight for the first time. Being understood was euphoric and owned me for a moment. I was overcome with relief.

She tilted her hand again, directing me toward the waiting seat. There was an ease to her control, like she wasn’t in the room, she was the room or in tandem with it.

I moved towards the seat, drawn to the place made just for me.

“What is happening to me?” I asked again. “Where am I? What is this? How did I end up here? What is this place? Where’s that old lady?” I couldn't stop. The words kept coming. “You really do know what I'm saying, don’t you?” But most importantly: "Where is my—”

She raised a hand— a soft but silent scold that instantly hushed me.

I approached the chair across from her feeling as if the space itself had beckoned me. I settled into and felt it conformed to my body— offering me perfect comfort.

Without a hand the tea kettle rose from it’s place in the center of the table. It lingered mid-air before floating over to me. It tilted and a delicate stream poured into the cup before me. It prepared itself. It didn’t wait—it seemed eager, as though serving me was its only purpose.

I caught a flash of my reflection in the side of the kettle and startled and sprang up out of the chair.

For a moment, the confusion gave way to wonder. My body responded with an ease that felt enchanted. I jumped up and down—just to feel it. Kicked my legs. Spun in a full, breathless circle. And then I did it again because I could.

She watched, entertained. She didn’t speak, didn’t interrupt—she sat and let me enjoy my discovery.

When I finally stilled, she motioned her head towards my seat. The chair bent subtly—arching gently to cradle me and then folding back beneath me, scooping me up and settling me softly back at the table.

She hadn’t moved, yet she commanded the room. The way she sat was poetry—still, deliberate, like a monarch at rest.

Then her voice, low and composed, slipped into the silence like a eerie lullaby.

“Lilith.”

“Is that your name?” I asked. “What’s my name? Why do I feel so different?”

The questions spilled out like breath I’d been holding.

But most importantly: "Where is my..."

Again, the poised signal to stop, and I did.

She took a long sip of tea before answering, “Your mother?” She raised an eyebrow. Her tone was sullen, careless as she waved a hand toward the thing across the room—the withered, twitching form where I had once been.

I looked over at it, I was so confused.

Lilith didn’t bother hiding her disdain. She gave the creature a brief glance, then returned to her cup as if even acknowledging it was unpleasant.

“Mother?” I echoed. The word felt foreign but right.

“Yes—her. Where is she?” I asked, the urgency swelling in me again. I wasn’t ready for what I already sensed.

From the corner of the room, something shifted.

The stand—if you could call it that, a cradle possibly?—grew from the floor itself, twisting and stretching like old roots breaking through stone. It had always been there, at the edge of the room, but now it crept forward with slow purpose, claiming the center of the room as if demanding to be seen.

Laying within it was… my mother?

Or at least, that’s who Lilith had pointed to. That’s who she said it was.

And somehow, it made sense. But it made no sense at all.

The figure lying there was small, almost impossibly so—but aged. Wrinkled. Shriveled. A tiny, unnatural thing with skin like damp paper and eyes that darted without purpose. It let out a soft, gurgling moan, the kind of sound that made the hairs on my arm stand—half-cry, half-cough, all wrong.

I couldn’t move. I was rooted there—fitting, maybe, in a place where chairs grew from the floor and tables twisted out of wood like they were alive. But I wasn’t part of the magic. I was just… stuck. Staring. Some part of me understood what I was seeing, even if the rest of me refused to accept it.

I moved closer to investigate. The tiny thing looked like how I must have looked when I first arrived—making the same weak sounds—but something was off, freakish.

Lilith stood behind me. She stood close as if to reassure me she was there for me.

“How could that be her and…” I faltered, stunned.

Lilith and I stood close to the stand, its twisted legs rooted deep into the floor, shifting subtly to bring the infant like thing into sharper view. The tiny body writhed weakly gurgling—a sickly, shriveled thing that looked like an elderly person masquerading as a newborn.

Its skin hung loose, pale and mottled, veins blue and definitve beneath the surface. The mouth opened in desperate, uneven gasps, trying to form cries that barely escaped before diffusing into alarming wet whines. It was both revolting and heartbreakingly pitiful—a wretched shell of life struggling in vain.

Lilith’s eyes narrowed, a gleam of distaste curling at her lips as she regarded the pathetic creature. “That,” she said sharply, voice cold but tinged with a reluctant pity, “is your mother now."

Before I had time to react to her jarring announcement a mirror began to rise from the floor beside me—its frame twisting upward like living roots, thick and pulsing with life, carved with delicate, ancient patterns that seemed to breathe. The roots grew deep and strong, anchoring the mirror firmly as it revealed the figure inside.

There she was—my mother—standing right before me.

I stared, awestruck, as her face—so familiar, so remote yet close—mirrored my own. Our eyes locked, my eyes, and in that moment, everything shifted. I knew where my mother was. She was me, no, I was her?

The realization hit like a wave, all at once. I didn’t know how or why, but somehow her eyes were mine, her motions, her body…

Words caught in my throat. Overwhelmed, I collapsed to the floor and wept.

“My dear, calm yourself,” Lilith said. She reached out and pulled me up, steadying my trembling form.

“Your mother has traded me your youth,” she stated softly, her fingers brushing my cheek tenderly. “But you are better than ever, I assure you, my dear. I have given your soul a new home. Oh, how I cherish new souls.”

Her touch was everything I had yearned for—reassuring and consoling. I leaned into it.

Then, beside us, a couch unfurled—growing slowly from the floor. It sprouted from the ground itself, soft cushions blooming like petals. Lilith guided me there, her hands holding mine as we were received by something that seemed motivated to ease me.

The couch took us in like a warm embrace — not inviting, exactly, but inevitable. The kind of comfort that swallows you whole. I sank into it before I realized I had.

Lilith turned toward me, her gaze meeting mine — calm, steady, close. Her eyes caught the low light and shimmered, copper-bright. Penny-colored. Beautiful. Alive.

But I knew those eyes.

They hadn’t always been that way.

I remembered them once dull and gray, like coins covered in ash, forgotten and buried. And I remembered the moment they changed. I had been lying there, on that altar— that so called cradle, still in the body I’d arrived in. She was standing over me, hand on my head. I was entranced as the gray began to burn away. The copper pushed through. Youth returning to something that had long lost its essence.

At the same time, something drained out of me. Silently. Helplessly. Like being pulled underwater while the surface remained motionless.

That feeling — it had been terrifying. Hollowing. But the sight of her as it occured… it was breathtaking. Somehow, in all that wrongness, it was still lovely to witness something come alive. Even as it drained the life from me.

Now, seated so close to her, I knew. The copper in her eyes had been mine.

Lilith’s bright eyes pierced through the darkness with adorning passion—cozy like the heat of a fire you gather near, warm and fierce all at once.

There was no need to say much—her touch said it all. I felt the chaos and tension leave my body as I exhaled.

She seemed to understand the fear stirring within me, the silent pieces falling into place too fast.

With a tilt of her head and the faintest smile, she offered an unspoken promise: stay with me, and I will help you make sense of it all.

I found myself leaning into her presence, comforted despite the storm of thoughts swirling inside me.

“In the first six days,” Lilith began, her voice collected and composed, “your soul remains whole. Intact. Everything you’ve carried across lifetimes — all that wisdom — lingers close enough to touch and keep. That is the window of opportunity.”

She tucked a curl behind my ear with a gentleness that felt both practiced and possessive, like soothing a frightened creature she already claimed. I leaned into it without realizing — drawn by the new feeling of being seen, touched, cared for.

“An infant’s body,” she continued, “isn’t simply incomplete. It’s useless. A brilliant soul trapped inside a shell — unable to move, unable to speak, unable to wield its own light. Even if the youth hadn’t been traded to me —” she glanced in its direction and shuddered. “Even if nothing was taken, it would still have been a waste, everything you have imprisoned within something without a single self preservation instinct."

As if called, the cradle shifted. Its roots coiled and bent, pulling itself slowly into fuller view. The surface tilted slightly, catching the light— the shriveled form in a spotlight of eerie clarity. No sound came from it now, but the silent stillness was worse.

“And if I left you in that,” she said as if she couldn't imagine, “you would of shriveled to nothing."

The cradle with the tiny beast pulled it into the corner. The roots carried it back, creepily, crawling away like an injured spider.

She continued, "Even with your youth and in the perfect scenario where your mother loved you and kept you, it still would be an abomination. A phenomenon confined to dull by time, drained by the seventh day. All that clarity, that enlightenment… lost. Alive, yes — but asleep. Unaware. Not you.”

Her eyes met mine, and something unspoken settled between us.

“I didn’t want that for you.”

Her fingertips traced slowly down my arm before resting on my knee — soft and steady, like petting a wounded animal she had saved. But hadn't she? Hadn't she freed me? Yes, she had. She hugged me. I let her. I wanted her to.

She lifted my chin with quiet command, inspecting me as if I were a rare thing finally hers.

The room seemed to hold its breath. Everything moved at her will — even me.

“Do you know what lives inside you?” Lilith asked. As she spoke like a song, melodious and pleasant. She rested her hand gently over my chest — not forceful but reaffirming.

“You hold more than memory. It's magnitude. A deep, radiant current of knowledge — vast and cosmic, the kind of power that should never be silenced.”

Her eyes drifted toward the corner. The cradle tilting slightly, almost reverently, exposing the shriveled infant to the light like some sacred warning.

“And yet that’s where you would’ve stayed.” Her tone didn’t rise, but it sharpened. “Even if the youth had remained, the mind would’ve emptied by day seven. You would have lost everything that makes you extraordinary.”

She paused, swallowing disgust.

“And for what?” she continued. “To start over? To spend years relearning how to hold your head up, how to walk, to speak, to suffer through awkward adolescence as if that’s some noble journey?”

A faint smile lifted the corners of her mouth. “It’s laughable. Why go through the motions and never reach the greatness you already obtain? To fumble such clumsy rituals when you could already be here — divine.”

Rising like smoke drawn upward by some unseen force, she looked down at me with a faint smile — serene, proud, certain.

“And whether you realize it or not,” she said, her voice unnervingly flat, “…you’ve been rescued.”

I had in fact realized that. Instantly. Undoubtedly.

The cradle began to move.

Not all at once — it twisted from its place with a slow, unsettling movement, roots curling and threading across the floor like dark veins pulled by an unseen will. It slithered responding to something unspoken. As it crept forward, the rest of the room dimmed — not like the lights were going out, but like the world itself was receding.

Walls, ceiling, edges — they all sank into shadow, until only the cradle and Lilith remained, illuminated beneath a wash of dim, amber light. It felt theatrical. Intentional. As if the room understood exactly what mattered now.

Inside the cradle, the infant stirred.

Its limbs twitched as though straining to recall how to move. A garbled noise bubbled in its throat — not a cry, not even quite alive, just a sound of something confused by its own existence. The skin looked waxy, mottled. Not newborn-soft, but thinning, spoiled. It didn’t reach for anything. It simply wriggled, as if trying to climb out of itself.

Lilith circled it.

She moved as though was floating. The only proof of contact was the slow, mesmerizing click of her heels against the stone, each one a heartbeat that echoed through the room. And it made sense — that pulse — because she was the heart. The strange rhythm belonged to her. She didn’t just move through the space; she animated it. Brought it into being. Everything shifted because she willed it to — and the cradle, the shadows, even time itself, responded.

“That rapidly expiring receptacle she’s left to rot in is like a deep, narrow pit she dug herself—dark, cramped, and crumbling at the edges. A withered hollow, worn thin by neglect and selfish choices. It’s a forgotten grave she sealed shut, a tomb she built with her own careless hands. This is the path she chose, the ruin she deserves to wane within—while you, you, my dear, were given a chance to thrive.”

Lilith’s eyes narrowed as she regarded the thing before her. The mother’s soul, trapped inside this decaying, worn-out vessel — a body drained of all youth and vitality.

“Even if this body had been fresh — soft, new, untouched — it wouldn’t have mattered. By the seventh day, the soul’s vast epiphanies, the depth of its understanding, the weight of lifetimes carried, would be swallowed whole by an endless, suffocating silence. Every insight erased, every memory vanished, replaced with nothing but the dull repetition of reflexes and the slow crawl of infant confusion. A cruel and senseless fate — all that grandeur reduced to drooling and soiling its own throne,” she finished allowing me to absorb it all.

For three days, I tried everything to make my mother love me. I thought she was just sad — grieving something unspoken. But I was wrong. She wasn’t brokenhearted. She was already letting go.

She’d decided long before to give me away. That’s why she never reached for me. Never looked at me like I was hers.

She did what she was supposed to — fed me, kept me alive — but there was no affection in it, no tenderness.

Because the truth was simple: she never intended to keep me. She never intended to love me.

But Lilith… Lilith chose me.

She could’ve left me in that withering body — let me rot in agony while my mother walked away untouched.

But she didn’t.

She let my mother suffer the fate that was meant for me. And she moved me — my soul — into a body that worked. One that could hold on to what mattered.

She gave me a chance to stay whole.

To keep the beautiful thing inside me — untouched, still mine.

It was a kindness. A mercy. A gift. I see it now. All of it. And I wanted — no, needed — to prove I was worthy of it. To show her that she was right to choose me. I valued the gift she gave; I would never waste it.

I would do anything — anything at all — just to make her proud.

“What can I do?” I asked without hesitation.

The words slipped out from that place in me that needed to be useful. I wanted to please her — to offer something back. Anything she asked, I would’ve done. At least, I thought I would.

Lilith moved with certainty— like each step had already been decided.

She turned toward the far side of the room, and the air seemed to shift with her.

The light dimmed just slightly and the corners stretched. The walls rose taller and seemed to pull back into shadow, like the room itself was leaning away from what was about to be shown.

The cradle at the center began to stir.

Its base shifted — thin, root-like limbs moving forward with sharp, insistent force, part slither, part spider crawl, legs and serpentine bodies intertwining in a dark, relentless rhythm.

Before, when the room rearranged itself, I barely noticed a sound —walls, furniture, air all moved like breath: silent, seamless, obedient.

But this was different.

The roots tore into the stone floor with a wet, grinding crack, loud and aggresive and meant to be heard.

A crawling vigor, assertive, dragged the cradle into place. As the damage spread, the floor responded — smoothing itself around the intrusion, sealing back up behind the roots like the room accepted it, approved of it. Together, they prepared the stage.

Around me, the walls leaned back, falling away into shadow, leaving nothing but the cradle — spotlit and waiting.

The cradle tilted slowly, lifting the thing inside and holding it up, casting a pale, unforgiving light that revealed every sickening detail.

I choked back a whimper.

Its face was creased and worn like an old person’s, pale and fragile, skin stretched tight like thin parchment. Its eyes barely fluttered open, and it made no cry — only a indistinct, uneven breath, like air caught in water.

Pathetic. Sad. It stirred something in me. That could’ve been me — collapsed inside a body too fragile to carry what I was, breathing slow and small until there was nothing left. Drifting into nothingness.

I was so deep in thought, I didn’t realize I’d stepped back — not until I bumped into her.

Lilith was already there. Her arms came around me without hesitation, one hand brushing gently up and down my arm, the other resting at my back like she'd known I’d fall into her.

Everything around us went still. Not silent — just suspended, like the moment was holding its breath. In her arms, I felt small. Protected.

The thought taunted me — that could’ve been me. That limp little thing in the cradle. That was what my mother was willing to leave behind. Where I would have been left to fade, unnoticed, unloved, unfinished.

My downward spiral was interrupted by Lilith’s voice sweet, near-whispered,

as soft as if she were telling me a secret.

“You want to show me your gratitude, don’t you, my dear?”

She drew back just enough to look at me.

“Put it out of its misery,” Lilith said.

Her voice carried no edge. No force. Not a demand—an invitation, the answer to my question. A way to prove that I understood what she had given me.

What I could do for her.

Lilith’s voice was soft and matter-of-fact, as if fulfilling a promise made long ago. “I promised mercy. I always keep my word. Nothing should have to exist like this — not even her, even if she might have allowed it for you.”

With a trace of restrained repulsion, she went on, “You’re giving it freedom — from its torment.”

I wanted to please her, but fear clenched my chest. How could I possibly do this? I turned away, hoping to escape the impossible.

But the cradle wasn’t done. It stalked after me— present and demanding. It dominated the space with sharp, insistent movements, hostile in its command.

No matter how I tried to pull away, it closed in—forcing me to face it.

Then, unexpectedly, it tilted forward, thrusting the grotesque infant right into my face—closer than it ever had been before, as if daring me to look.

The room tightened around us. The walls leaned in, the air thickened, and the light focused like a spotlight again—everything zeroing in on that helpless, pitiful thing.

There was nowhere left to turn, to look.

I turned to Lilith, standing still, and then the roots began to crawl toward her—majestic limbs weaving together, raising her up like a living throne. They lifted her slowly onto a pedestal, where she sat above everything. Waiting, viewing, as if this was the moment I had to prove my loyalty.

Without warning the ground beside the cradle shifted again. Roots twisted and braided into sharp zigzags, cracking open a circular platform. The branches parted to reveal a gleaming knife—razor-sharp, silent, and impossibly exquisite.