Chapter 2
Lilith woke to pain.
Not the sting of steel, nor the bruised ache of bone, nor even fire gnawing at flesh. This was deeper — a crawling, invasive torment, as if her skull had been pried open and a swarm of knives sawed along her nerves, severing thought from thought.
A guttural sound clawed out of her throat. She clutched her head, nails raking her scalp as if pressure alone could hold her together.
Sand rasped her cheek. She rolled onto her side.
When she forced her eyes open, the world that greeted her was flat and wrong. The sky stretched gray and airless, the color of old ash smeared to the horizon. Heavy. Suffocating. A coffin lid pulled over the world.
Where the hell am I?
She pressed her palms into the earth — cracked clay that seemed to recoil from touch. Fissures sliced her skin when she pushed herself upright. For a moment she just sat hunched, shivering breaths scraping through her chest.
And then she felt it.
A pulse.
Her eyes widened. She pressed trembling fingers to her throat.
Thump-thump.
Thump-thump.
Air seared her lungs, thick and gritty, laced with dust that scoured her tongue. But it was air. She was breathing.
Alive.
"No…" The word cracked, half disbelieving. "No way."
Relief surged through her veins like warm poison — tangled, jagged, almost worse than dread.
Alive. Yes.
But where?
She staggered to her feet, boots crunching brittle earth. The desert sprawled endlessly, scarred by craters vast as wounds. No wind, no carrion crows, no echo but her own heartbeat.
And yet… she felt eyes. Watching. The silence wasn't silence at all — it was a predator holding breath in the grass.
Lilith's fear didn't break loose. It sharpened. Her instincts clicked in like a blade sliding into its sheath — controlled, measured.
That's when she saw her.
A figure knelt in the dust, head bowed, black hair spilling forward like a funeral veil. Too still. Too delicate. A strange bloom in this graveyard earth.
Lilith moved closer.
The girl stirred. Lifted her face.
Her eyes glowed — molten gold, light alive beneath flesh. Wrong. Unnatural.
"You can see me?" she whispered, voice husked with disuse, frayed like a moth's wing.
Lilith froze. "…Yes. You're alive too?"
The girl tilted her head, something almost insect-like in the motion. Her lips trembled as if struggling to remember how to shape words. "Alive?" A hollow laugh slipped through. "I don't think I ever was."
Lilith's gut tightened. What the hell does that mean?
A new voice cracked the silence.
"Is this some kind of cult initiation, or what?"
Lilith spun.
Another figure cut across the wasteland. Tall. Lean. Silver hair cropped sharp as glass. Storm-gray eyes that measured everything like weapons to be disarmed.
And the markings—
Symbols crawled up her throat, faintly glowing, shifting like living circuitry. Not ink. Not scars. A timer, bleeding numbers down her skin.
Lilith's breath hitched.
The girl stopped a few paces away, arms crossed, hostility drawn tight in her stance. "You two look like shit."
Lilith's jaw tensed. "We weren't expecting company."
Silver-hair's gaze flicked to the golden-eyed girl. "Who are you?"
The girl's fingers dug into her arms, clutching herself like she might fall apart. "I… I don't know. My name's gone."
"Bullshit." The word snapped like a whip.
"I said I don't know!" Panic trembled in her voice, brittle and raw, and for a moment her golden eyes burned too bright, flickering like fire through cracked glass.
Lilith ignored their clash. Her attention was locked on that timer, digits racing down the silver-haired girl's throat. Too fast. Like a noose tightening.
"You have one too?" Lilith asked quietly.
The girl stiffened. "…What?"
Her denial faltered when her eyes dropped — the countdown already biting toward zero.
Before she could speak again, the earth shuddered.
A vibration rippled outward, low and immense, thrumming through Lilith's boots. The sky warped, splintering like glass under a hammer.
All three looked up.
A colossal board bled into existence above them, suspended in violet fire. Six squares divided its surface, humming with cruel energy. Three were already filled.
Three faces. Theirs.
And beneath them, the words carved themselves in jagged strokes of light:
PLAYER 1
PLAYER 2
PLAYER 3: LILITH VALE
Her full name. Blazing across the heavens. The name only the dead should know.
Lilith's chest tightened.
The silver-haired girl swore under her breath. "What the fuck is this?!"
A whisper slid back through Lilith's mind. The red-eyed man's voice:
Play. Win. Live again. Lose… you disappear.
Lilith's jaw clenched. Her voice came steady, steel-edged. "We're not dead. But we're not alive either."
The two stared at her.
"We're in a game," she said. "Ten levels. One chance. That's the deal."
"Insane," silver-hair spat. But the word shook. "I was… crossing the street. Then headlights. Then nothing."
"Exactly." Lilith's nod was sharp, merciless. "None of us were meant to wake here."
The golden-eyed girl whispered, fragile as cracked porcelain. "If we lose… do we go back to being dead?"
Lilith's gaze hardened. "No. We vanish."
The silence pressed close, funereal.
Silver-hair finally pointed up. "Then where are the others? Six panels. Only three filled."
"The board won't start the game until it has every piece," Lilith answered. Her eyes never left the glowing sky.
The girl's timer hit 00:00:00.
Her gray eyes widened, horror flooding them. She staggered back, gasping.
Lilith caught her wrist, grip iron. "What's happening—"
A sound split the air. Metal shearing through bone. A scream so vast the sky itself seemed to wail.
The desert convulsed. Fissures yawned wide.
The heavens ripped open.
Three black pods plummeted like meteors, trailing fire and static, slamming into the wasteland with thunderous impact. Shockwaves hurled sand into the air like walls.
Above, the board glitched, violet light stuttering. The three blank panels began to load.
Lilith narrowed her eyes, pulse drumming hard as war.
Death had been an ending. This was something hungrier.