I don't remember how far I ran. I only remember that when I stopped, my heart wasn't beating to a biological rhythm anymore. It was beating to a name.
"Lilith…"
This wasn't a name the child had spoken, nor one I'd ever heard anyone utter. But as I touched my sleeve, the word suddenly formed in my mind—as if carved there long ago, just waiting for this moment for me to recall it.
When I reached the village, the sky was ash-grey, a somber color blanketing everything. There was no bell from the Fire Temple. No children playing in the yards. The heavy oak gate hung ajar, a haunting emptiness, as if no one dared to close it completely, fearing what might suddenly appear from outside.
"You saw it, then?"
An old voice, dry as crumbled charcoal, spoke from behind me. I turned. It was the village elder, standing there, gaunt and hollow-eyed. His gaze wasn't asking to know—but asking to confirm. He didn't need an answer from me. He knew. They all knew.
"It has a human form, doesn't it?"
"...Yes." I tried to steady my voice, but my throat remained parched.
"And it didn't kill you?"
"No."
A heavy silence descended. Then he spoke, very slowly, each word seemingly hammered into the air:
"That is when it's most dangerous."
He paused, his weary eyes sweeping over me, as if I had just brought back an unforeseeable calamity.
"When the Thing-Called-Child starts to resemble a human… then it will cease to be a monster. And then, we will no longer have a reason to kill it."
I wanted to retort, to say that child wasn't frightening, wasn't what they thought. But my throat seized, no sound escaping. I remembered the child Lilith's eyes. Not the eyes of something that would destroy the world. But the eyes of someone who had never been asked: 'Are you okay?'
"It has stepped out of the quarantine zone," the elder said, his voice no longer an interrogation but a cold statement. "You brought it back."
I didn't reply. There was no need to. Because I knew I had done it—not by word or deed, but by a single glance. A glance that had awakened the forbidden.
>>>>>>>>>>
I didn't sleep.
In the cold stone chamber, I stood, more awake than ever. Father once said:
"When you dream, the things within you will surface."
"Not memories. But nature."
"You are not allowed to have a nature."
But last night, I dreamed. And now, I had a name, a strange handkerchief, and a new idea of my own nature.
I stood before the towering cliff face, at the edge of the quarantine forest. The wind blew fiercely, far stronger than usual, howling like a giant creature trying to push me back, preventing me from crossing the invisible boundary. In my hand was still the blue handkerchief. Its smell of damp earth and dried blood was not unpleasant. For some reason… I couldn't throw it away. I had once discarded useless parts of my body, unnecessary sensations, shapeless fragments of memory. But I couldn't discard this; it clung to me like a part of myself.
I tucked the handkerchief into my breast, where no heart beat. Then I stepped out of the quarantine zone, crossing the invisible boundary that had held me captive for twelve years. The earth beneath my feet changed color. With just one step, the grass beneath my bare soles turned black, immediately withering. Leaves on the lower branches shriveled and crumbled even before I touched them. A trail of decay stretched behind my every step, like a shadow of death.
I didn't try to do it. I didn't command it. It was just a reaction. A reaction of existence.
Father once said:
"You are not a calamity. You are a starting point."
"The problem is… people fear what has no form."
I didn't understand him. "Form"? I always had a form. I had hands, feet, a head. Until Isha looked at me. She didn't look at me like a mistake, a nothingness. She looked at me like a person. And that was when I began to understand.
If I truly had a form… did I then have the right to exist? The right to live a life uncursed by emptiness?
I took another step. For the first time, the sky was no longer silent. A deep rumble emanated from the leaden clouds, like the ragged breath of a giant creature that had just awakened.