Chapter 2: Blast to the past

            I stand in the little wooded area where my sister had faded. Tears heaving their way to the ground in chunks of disbelief and sorrow. I don’t believe that all this time that I had spent with Lilith was fake nor can I believe that she was the product of my trauma. I fought back the grief, clinging to a hopeful outcome. She couldn’t possibly just be in my mind! Could her warmth, her smile, her personality all be something I created? I’ve never been that creative! Losing Lilith would mean losing all that I live for, so I simply cannot accept it. I have to do something that might change this. Anything. An idea crosses my mind, and if I wasn’t in a state of panic and hysteria then I would never consider it. I’m going to ask my mother. I’ll kick her into a state of soberness, if I must, but I am getting some answers. For the sack of my sanity, she owes me that much.      

            I begin to run, full speed, toward an explanation. The physical exhilaration is the only way to muffle the thoughts that swirl in a rhythmical fashion inside my head. They reflect against my skull and reenter into the question vortex, again and again. I concentrate on the air whipping against my face, the agonizing burning in my throat and legs, and the faint crunching of leaves underneath my ever-faster feet.  The once beautiful afternoon sky is now an ominous, looming presents that drags my emotions into a state of fear. However, the innocent, puffy cloud remains. It’s doesn’t retain the same degree of intensity that it did before. It has become spread against the sky, forming itself into an undiscernible shape. Although it isn’t the exact same, the mere fact that it’s there contains a form of hope that I can’t quite explain.

            I slow as I approach my house, looking out onto the unkempt yard. I instinctually glance over to the flower bed, not overly eager to have all my stored hope crushed. I stand, shock filling my already overfull heart. The poorly illustrated drawing stares up at me, urging me to come closer. I take a hesitant step toward the flower bed. The drawing is still there! This can mean she’s real! Even with the other-worldly activities that I’ve experience, if she’s real, I’ll be okay. As long as I have that one, undeniable fact then I can deal with the rest. Than there’s that small voice in my head that really pisses me off sometimes. Wait! What if all things Lilith related are in my head? Can this drawing also be fake? I kneel down to touch the dirt.

“Blaire, welcome home!” Lilith’s voice came to me. I stop suddenly and stand up.  I listen into myself thinking that I had created the sound. I concentrate inward, trying to grasp the sound and pull it into reality. I want her to come back, even if she really is just my imagination. “Didn’t you hear me? Blaire!” This time, I notice that I wasn’t imagining the noise. Thank God, she’s not in my head! I’m surprised that I even had that slightest bit of doubt. Take that, voice in my head! The sound carried itself from the doorstep. I turn my head sluggishly towards the door, hoping for a moment that maybe this is all just a horrible nightmare and I might wake up. The urge to run towards my baby sister, smoother in my arms and never let her go builds inside me. I desperately want to sit in the park with the wind in my hair and sun on my face.  This desire is immediately crushed by a contorted image imitating my sister. This is Lilith, however, it is not the Lilith that I have grown to love. She stands by the door gazing at me mockingly with her grotesque red eyes. She flicks her stringy black curls out of her boney face with a thin hand which contains fingers that are disproportionately long. She dances towards me carrying an uncharacteristic grin that shows too much teeth for comfort. Is this thing even human? This can’t be my sister. I would have to be crazy to believe my shy, compassionate sister could be this monster before me. 

            “What are you? What is happening?!” I ask in tears. Where is my sister?  I am frightened and desperate to escape from this confusion. “Please! I need to know!”

            Lilith’s lips stretch horrifying past the limits of the normal human capacity. “Ok then. Let me both tell and show you who and what I am,” her tone jumps up and down excitedly. Her vile voice slid its way down my spine sending chills along with it. “Once upon a time, a long, long time ago, humans and demons lived together in peace. On the eve of hallows, they would sing and dance together around the burning fire” As she talks she leans upward to kiss my right cheek. I hesitantly let her and instantly regret it. A crippling pain sears my cheek, making me woozy. It spreads downward to my feet until I can no long feel the ground I stand on. I cram my eyes shut preparing to faint. I expect a cruel ground to pull me closer into a tight and inescapable embrace, carrying me into the dark world which this demon comes from. I astoundingly did not die, nor did I fall. I stood upright and steady but my perspective seems slightly altered from a moment ago. Instead of seeing from my eyes, I see from Lilith’s, for a single moment, before being transported into some other worldly place. It is the strangest feeling to see from someone else’s perceptive, looking at myself as other’s see me. In the faint flash that I saw myself, I notice that my expression isn’t mirroring how I feeling. I look angry instead of the soft sorrow that I perceive.

I look around disheveled. I can’t tell where I am.  I’m not in the suburbs of Kansas, that’s for damn sure. I see an astonishing ancient forest engulfing me. Trees raise from the earth and reach endlessly into the amber sky leaving the idea of expanding outward as a mere afterthought. The enormously expansive trees dwarfs the grass, although, it nearly reaches up to my lower thigh. The sun that sets over this dazzling forest brings back the faintest memories of the wooded area behind the ice cream shop. That enchanted forest which came from the wildest of fairytales stands before me but I can do little other than gawk, mouth hanging wide.

I stand here for a moment absorbing the fading sunlight and watching the fireflies come luminously alive. I have no sense of urgency or panic as the glorious sun raps its warm arms around me. The pleasure of listening to the crickets chirping and the trees gently swaying among the woodland slowly dulls as I wonder where I am. I’m obviously lost, however, I don’t feel lost. It feels more akin to taking a peaceful stroll before bed. The last thing I remember is that dreadful kiss on the cheek and grueling pain that followed.

 In the back of my mind, I feel a nudge as if I have the answers, and I just need to remember them. It feels like knowing an answer, but being unable to utter it outright, leaving it stuck in the back of your mind to feaster until finally, you google it.  I’m terrified to force myself to think hard enough to open the vault of explanations. Don’t get me wrong, I desperately want to know what is happening but I know this nudge is foreign to my mind. This is something that Lilith has planted inside of me and I don’t know if I should trust it. The Lilith that stood before me was not my adorable sister who I vowed to protect. If I trust that thing, I may end up dead or in an eternal hell.  If Lilith tries to kill me, then she isn’t Lilith anymore. The voice in my head is back to make obscure suggestions again. Without Lilith, what is life worth? No. I can’t think that way! For the time being, I decide that I will trust what Lilith has to show me. With so much that has happened to me today, it is only right to continuing to move forward at this moment. I give in and let the nudge take hold of my conscious and lead me to some form of answer.  

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An annoying clarity comes to me. It tugs my mind in various directions which I didn’t wish to think. It first starts with the facts. Lilith is not my real little sister, instead she is a demon who used her abilities to warp me into believing I had a little sister. At least I know that the memories I share with her are real, even if they are forged out of lies. The Lilith I know may still be around but just not as I remember. It than gives me an understanding of what exactly she has the power to do. Her ability gives her the power to obscure a person’s view. She can makes me see what others don’t and vice versa. This is the power she uses now to convey her past to me. That kiss on the cheek wasn’t the slightest bit innocent. It is the way to transfer her influence to me. It’s hard to wrap my mind around the idea of being in her head. She has spent the last seven years in my life and she has done so with a reason. The reason wasn’t evidently laid in front of me like much of the other information so I can only speculate at this point, but I feel that she is about to show me.

It begins to take me through my times spent with Lilith to show how Lilith had influenced my life. The first flashback I am shown is the time when I was 11. I stood in the playground as my 11 year old self, playing in the sand as I did every day at recess. Lilith is beside me humming softly as she made sand angels with her tiny arms. The eyes of all the children stare at me as I talk loudly to Lilith about the upcoming weekend. No one else could see Lilith so it appeared as though I was having a conversation with myself. They whisper among themselves, “She’s crazy. She must get it from her mom! Don’t go near her!” I never had many friends in school and this was the reason. Lilith intentionally pushed them away from me so I would remain alone. She made it where I was an outcast who was labeled as insane. I cringe, hurt because of all the loving memories with Lilith at that playground were meant to keep me alone. This flash back takes my fond memory and throws it back at me now vacant of love.  The first piece of my hope to save my Lilith falls and crumbles at my feet.

That image fades away and morphs into a different point of my life. The day Molly, my first friend, and I stopped talking to each other. I was a freshman in high school. Molly was the only person at my school who seemed to even take notice of me; the rest of the students would avoid me. The day I met her, I sat alone at lunch eating whatever I could scavenge for the insufficient supply of food from my house as I did every day. A frail girl approached me timidly with a basket of food in her shaky hands. She sat down avoiding eye contact and didn’t say a word to me. She simply pushed the food toward me and offered me a sincere smile which spread its warm indefinitely into its surroundings. I sat awestruck by her outright kindness. “Thank you!” I said pushing back overwhelming emotions.

“You’re welcome,” Molly said as she moved to leave. Such a kind girl to notice my hardships and reach out a hand toward me in friendship. I felt I should offer her something in return but I had nothing to give. Nothing except my friendship. Even if she doesn’t want it, I still must offer it to her.

“If you want to sit and eat with me you can! My name is Blair, by the way.” Her shy smile turned dazzling as she nodded. From that moment forward, we were great friends. We spent many days together chatting happily and playing at the park until late at night. Most days Lilith would join us. I couldn’t leave her alone with our mother so she would follow and sit quietly in the corner, drawing or humming softly. She was always in the background until one day, she insisted on being pushed on the swing set. I couldn’t say no to her so I did it and Molly simply looked at me with concern. After that day, Molly no longer talked to me. She would avoid eye contact as I passed. I always wondered why Molly suddenly became so distant and now I know the reason. She couldn’t see Lilith and must have thought I had gone crazy.       

The second piece of hope to save my Lilith drops to the ground. There was something swelling up inside of me that I had never felt before. It is intense and dark with a hint of malicious intent. It is a feeling I can only assume is hatred. I’m astonished at the feeling’s presence because I don’t hate things, not even my drunkard mother who has both physically and mentally injured me. What surprises me the most is who this feeling is directed toward; My sister, whose warmth and compassion has kept me whole, is now someone that I hate. Lilith may have hurt me by keeping me secluded but I still don’t know the why. She may have an incredibly important reason to do so. I can’t hate her yet. Not yet.

As though in answer to my thoughts, my surroundings transform yet again. I look around me to realize that I am back in the enchanted forest again. However, being here no longer feelings peaceful. Instead there is an urging presence pushing me forward. The sky has grown dark and mysterious but not hostile. I can understand now why the trees are so eager to touch it. The overwhelming beauty twirls colorfully behind the full moon enticing me upward.

I feel the nudge in the back of my mind again and I began to follow it. I’m angry at Lilith and curious to find her reasoning for all of this. I want to see her again and talk to her like I always do. The nudge leads me toward an opening in the trees where I see the faint light of a bonfire. The frigid air became slightly more obvious as I came into the warmth of the fire. The chills fade as I see the environment that I have walked into. There are creatures with horns and pointed teeth around the fire, talking and sipping blood colored liquids from glass cups.  The creatures all varied in size, shape, and color but despite the differences, they all have stunningly beautiful red eyes. They all seem to have both human and animal characteristics. None of them notice me as I glide pass with wide eyes. I spot a medium sized, slimy creature with gills. It has a scale like texture that glimmers like oil on water in the firelight. I giggle outwardly because it reminds me of a fish! Demon or not, it isn’t scary. It’s more comical than anything, like a poorly done horror film monster. Nothing about this gathering appears sinister to me. It’s like a party where people gather to eat, talk, and have fun. Why was I brought here? To see a weird kind of Halloween party? It doesn’t seem to answer my questions.

Answers began coming to me in the same way they did before. I come to understand where I am. Just as there were flashbacks into my past, this is a flashback into Lilith’s past. She wants me to feel and experience what has seen and done in order to find a response to the question I hold. I slowly sense the context of the situation.