There in the cafeteria, an eighteen year old girl stood. Everyone was paying attention to her, but not in an appreciative or curious way. They were not looking at her because they found her attractive. They were looking because they found her funny looking. She was not exactly ugly. No. She was simply a walking contradiction of beauty. Her facial features looked wrong together. Her nose was unnecessarily large, dominating her face. Her lips were plump in a way that never seemed to fit her structure. Her eyes were thin, almost threadlike, so much so that people often wondered if she could see properly at all.
There were cackles. There were taunts.
"Hey, frog face, why don't you inhale the whole food with that big nose," a particularly handsome boy yelled from the corner. Laughter exploded instantly.
"Whale," another girl shouted, and the laughter that had begun to die down flared right back up again.
She was used to this. At least, she was supposed to be. That was what everyone assumed. But every time, without fail, her chest tightened and her vision blurred. Tears welled up no matter how hard she tried to hold them back.
She turned and ran.
She charged out of the cafeteria, through the halls, past lockers and classrooms, ignoring the echo of her footsteps. She pushed into the bathroom, stumbled into one of the stalls, and collapsed onto the cold tiled floor. Curled in on herself, she sobbed until her throat burned.
This had become routine. Crying had become routine. The world never allowed her to forget how physically unacceptable she was. Ugly. That was the word everyone used. Her schoolmates. Her classmates. Neighbors. Even her parents and siblings before they died in a fatal accident years ago, an accident she had not been part of because she was excluded from the family trip to Rosco's. Everyone except her uncle, the man she lived with now, whose late night visits came with whispered lies about her being beautiful and hands that lingered far too long in places that made her skin crawl.
Many times, she had considered killing herself. Last week, when she stood on the school roof, staring down and wondering how fast the fall would be. Days ago, when she tied a thick rope into a knot and tested its strength. She had thought about it. She had even acted on it. But pain always stopped her. The burn in her chest, the fear, the instinct to survive. She always cut the rope down before it could finish the job.
Now, she did not even have the strength for that. She just wanted the earth to open up and swallow her whole.
Her thoughts grew heavy. Too heavy. And somewhere between despair and exhaustion, she slipped into sleep.
She woke up with a sharp gasp, breathing hard. Everything was dark. For a moment, she did not know where she was. Then reality settled in. Night had fallen. She had overslept. Worse, she had overslept in one of the most inconvenient places in the school.
The toilet.
She winced as she tried to stand. Her body protested, her legs stiff, her back aching from the hard floor. Her backside throbbed with discomfort. She rubbed it lightly and began to move. No, not move. Limp. Carefully, she limped toward the door.
A quick glance around made her freeze.
This was the boys' restroom.
She sighed quietly.
"What bad luck," she muttered.
She opened the door slowly and slipped out, trying to be as silent as possible. She had barely taken three steps when a blinding light slammed into her face.
"Hey," a voice shouted from behind the light.
She raised her hands instinctively, shielding her eyes from the brightness before it burned her vision.
"What are you doing here," the voice demanded.
Her mind went blank. She did not know what to say. Panic bubbled up, and she did the only thing she ever did when cornered. She smiled. A wide, awkward smile stretched across her face.
"Get away," the man yelled.
But it was already too late.
Whatever he had seen in that brief moment had enraged him. The next thing she felt was a sharp, violent pain ripping through her body. Something pierced her. She barely registered the sound of her own scream before she collapsed onto the cold hallway floor.
Blood pooled beneath her, warm and spreading fast.
Her vision dimmed. The world grew quiet.
Footsteps moved away from her as the man muttered something under his breath, already heading off to deal with the security guard whose voice echoed faintly in the distance.
She was alone.
Her breaths became shallow. Each inhale burned. Her fingers twitched uselessly against the tile as darkness crept in from the edges of her sight.
That was when the air changed.
Warmth replaced the cold. A presence settled beside her, gentle and impossibly calm. She felt hands take hers. Soft. Steady. Unafraid.
"You have suffered enough," a woman's voice said.
She forced her eyes open.
Standing before her was a woman unlike anything she had ever seen. Her beauty was overwhelming, but not sharp or cruel. It was soft. Comforting. Her hair flowed like liquid amethyst, her eyes glowing a deep, knowing red. There was power in her presence, but it did not press down. It lifted.
"Who are you," she whispered weakly.
The woman smiled, not mockingly, but with warmth.
"I am Lilith."
Tears slipped down her cheeks. "my name is clarisa...I'm ugly," she said. "Everyone says so."
Lilith crouched beside her, squeezing her hands gently.
"You were never ugly," she said. "You were unfinished. You were taught to hate yourself by people who feared what you could become."
"But I'm scared," she whispered.
"So was I," Lilith replied softly. "I was cast out for choosing myself. I became a queen because I refused to kneel."
She leaned closer.
"Let me help you stand."
Their fingers intertwined.
Power surged through her body, not violently, but like warmth flooding frozen limbs. Pain faded. Her bones shifted, her skin smoothed, her face reshaped itself not into something artificial, but into what it had always wanted to be. Her hair spilled down her back in rich purple waves. Her reflection, briefly visible in the glossy tile, stole her breath.
She was beautiful.
She was alive.
"Now stand up Clarissa, you are beautiful understand that" Lilith said
The girl nodded, tears streaming freely now, but for the first time, they were not born from shame.
She stood.
Not suddenly. Not dramatically. She simply rose to her feet as though the blood on the floor had never been there to begin with. Her posture was straight, composed, calm. The hallway lights flickered weakly above her, casting shadows that bent toward her instead of away. Her purple hair settled down her back like it belonged there, as if it had always been that color. Her breathing was steady. Her hands were no longer shaking.
Footsteps echoed through the corridor.
Slow. Careless. Familiar. Like her uncle's when he came for his late night visits to her room
The man came into view, wiping his hands on his jacket as if cleaning off something trivial. His face twisted when he saw her standing there. Confusion flickered across his expression, followed by irritation.
"You should be dead," he said.
She looked at him. Really looked at him. And for the first time in her life, fear did not rise in her chest.
"You always said I was beautiful," she replied quietly, it was her uncle after all.
His smile crept in, crooked and wrong. His eyes shifted, dull and glazed, like something else was looking through them. Behind him, the air thickened, and a shape began to form. A pale, hunched figure clung to his back like a parasite. Its skin was grey and stretched too tight, its eyes sunken and hungry. It leaned close to his ear, whispering things only he could hear.
The obsessive grey lady spirit.
Lilith's presence stirred inside her, warm and steady. Not angry. Not vengeful. Just firm.
"That thing does not own you," she said, her voice calm as she took a single step forward.
The grey spirit hissed, tightening its grip around the man's shoulders, forcing his arms to raise the weapon he still held. He lunged.
She caught his wrist effortlessly.
There was no struggle. No spectacle. She twisted gently, just enough. Bone snapped with a dull sound. The weapon fell to the floor. He screamed, but the sound cut off as she placed her other hand against his chest. Purple light pulsed once.
The grey spirit shrieked.
It was torn free, dragged out screaming as if peeled from his soul. It thrashed, clawed, begged, but Lilith's will was absolute. The spirit dissolved into nothing, erased without ceremony.
The man collapsed to his knees, gasping, his eyes clearing for just a second. Recognition flashed there. Regret followed.
She did not hesitate.
"You look beautiful now" he said and for the first time she could hear the sincerity in his voice.
Her hand pressed against his forehead. Light flared softly. When she pulled away, he fell forward, lifeless before he hit the ground.
She stood there for a moment, looking down at him. There was no satisfaction on her face. Only release.
Sirens wailed faintly in the distance.
She turned and walked away, her steps unhurried, blood drying behind her as the night swallowed the hallway whole.
Somewhere deep within, Lilith's voice whispered, proud and gentle.
"You are no longer small."
And for the first time, she believed it.