Lillith

After several hours of talking, exploring my powers, and meeting my pact companion, whose human form is a pretty, dark-haired girl named Twila, the blue creature, who declines to introduce themself, offers to send me back to Earth. I accept gratefully, thankful for a chance to see my family again. Before they open a portal for me, they warn me that I will likely be targeted due to my magic, even with my concealment ability. Their warning makes me wonder if the truck was as accidental as I assumed at first.

The blue creature opens a portal for me and I take a deep breath and walk in. After an awful falling sensation, I see a bright light and feel myself come to a stop, then lightly land on the ground. The light grows almost blinding, then fades to sunshine. I flare my wings wide to balance myself, I’m still not used to the extra weight. I quickly realize how dangerous this is. After a bit of fumbling with my newly-learned shapeshifting, I manage to make myself look like a normal human, as far as I can tell. I use my morphing belt to make a light blue crop top, a pair of jeans, and some lace-up combat boots for myself, trying to think of what would look the most normal. I glance around nervously, hoping no one saw my wings or halo. It looks like the street is abandoned though, thankfully. I guess I landed on the outskirts of some smaller town, based on grass and cropland stretching out past the end of the buildings. It’s warm like springtime, which is the season it was when the truck almost hit me, and all the signs are in English as far as I can tell. Being able to understand languages, I assume will act as comprehension, not an actual shift in the letters, but I don’t know. I take a deep breath and summon Twila. She pops into existence next to me and bounces on her toes a few times.

“Wow, it’s so bright here!” She exclaims. “Also, it’s been forever and I’m so glad you’re back and you have no idea how much I’ve missed you!!” She throws her arms around me and I swallow. I vaguely know Twila, having briefly met her back on the other world. She feels familiar, like a sibling I never met, but I don’t remember her from my… my past life. How weird is that, to have lived before? I return her hug, then smile a bit shakily.

“Well, I’m back on Earth. I, I’d like to ask you some questions. Not quite yet, but, when I’m ready I guess?” I say, continuing our conversation from a few hours ago before I was portaled here. She nods happily, her voice bubbling over as she chats excitedly about how much she’s missed Earth. I pause and focus inside my head. I can feel the AI chip the blue creature promised was present. They also promised it was completely safe and would never turn against me. Since it’s not like I have much of a choice in the matter, I decide I may as well make use of it. I ask it to look for any information on my name and the names of my family, wondering what the world thinks of my death, if anything. It takes barely a few minutes before my AI informs me they have connected to the web and have found notices of my death, of my family posting about it on social media asking for support and prayers as they deal with my tragic passing, and several heartfelt tributes from friends. I look through them, scrolling almost mindlessly as I see myself represented over and over in pictures, video clips, and stories. I almost don’t recognize the girl spoken of. I save all of the posts to look at later. One in particular catches my eye and I can feel my lip curling. Chris. Of course he’s made a post about us. I decide that's more than enough and mentally shut the posts away. I’ll come look at them later, but I can’t deal with him right now.

After consulting with my AI, I determine where I am and how far away it is from my hometown. The AI, who is fine with me calling them KT, calculates it will take a few hours of flying for me to return to my hometown. After a discussion with Twila, who counsels me to remain invisible if I'm going to fly on Earth, I retreat to the middle of a field and make sure no one is around before morphing my wings out again and using my light magic to at least attempt to conceal myself. I’m not confident that I’m successful, so I try to fly high enough that I can’t be seen anyways. I have to stop and rest a few times before KT informs me that I am near my hometown.

I locate a small backroad that I’ve rarely seen any traffic on and land on the ground, looking around nervously as I hide my wings again. I still haven't decided what I’m going to do, but just to be safe, I change my features around, shading my hair and skin darker, and making my face a little rounder. I use a nearby car window as a mirror to ensure my face doesn’t look like it’s melting off or something. Once I’m fairly certain I won’t be recognized and also don’t look like something out of a horror movie, I start walking down the street. It’s not that far of a walk, but after using muscles I didn’t know I had, that I in fact didn’t have, prior to today, during my flight, I’m thoroughly exhausted. Still, it only takes a few more minutes before I reach my family’s house, mine before I moved into the dorms. I hover nervously just outside our front gate, suddenly unsure what to do. Do I go up and knock on the door? Do I turn back into myself and walk in? Do I pretend to be a friend of mine from school? I eventually decide I’m too much of a coward to do anything except hide and watch. I walk around to the back of the house carefully, remembering the ground-level window that usually stays open during the spring. There will be a screen on it, but years ago I poked a hole in one corner, allowing me to use my finger to remove the screen from the outside.

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I reach the window and easily remove the screen. Luckily for me, I didn’t grow much after I turned 14 and I still fit through the window. I quickly check, but no one is inside my old bedroom. I slip through, replacing the screen behind me. The desk is still under the window where I may or may not have put it for exactly this purpose. I don’t trust my invisibility power enough to keep me hidden, but shapeshifting is coming more and more naturally every time I use it. It only takes me envisioning what I want to become and focusing until it feels right. I think carefully before gently shaking my cat, Daffodil’s, food dish, which has stayed in my old bedroom. She comes prancing in like she always used to, and I murmur an apology as I shove her into my closet with her litter box and food and water dishes, then hold her form in my head and shapeshift into a perfect replica. Once in cat form, I walk around the bedroom a few times, getting used to the feel of my new body, then meander into the rest of the house. My parents and sister are home, crying, going through tasks in a haze, seemingly at a loss for what to do.

I stay for only a few hours before the stillness gets to me. My family is obviously in mourning, and even as a cat, I can feel the hole that my ‘death’ has left. I decide that I’ll rejoin Earth as myself, rejoin my family. Back in my room, I shift into a human form and let Daffodil free from the closet before sneaking back outside. I make it halfway across town, walking slowly, lost in my thoughts. I need to figure out how to announce to everyone that I’m still alive. Preferably without telling them about my powers. As I’m pondering this, I see a U-Haul truck come careening at me, swerving from side to side before riding up onto the sidewalk I’m walking on. I dive to the side just in time, landing in someone’s flower garden as the truck continues forward before disappearing around a corner with a screech. I stand shakily and brush myself off. An older woman comes rushing down the front walk and clutches at my arm.

“Oh dear, oh dear, that truck almost hit you! Are you alright?” She asks, looking concerned. I nod.

“I’m okay, just frightened.” She clucks and looks me over, then shakes a fist in the direction the truck went.

“Such reckless drivers, I can’t understand.” She pats my elbow and asks again if I’m alright, if I want to come in for a bit. I assure her I’m fine and continue walking down the street. After a bit of pondering, I decide I want to return to the scene of my ‘death.’ By car, it’s only half an hour from home, so I imagine I could make the trip in an hour. KT confirms that and gives me directions as I find a hiding place and morph out my wings before flying up into the clouds.

I land on the empty walking trail near the conservatory and return to a normal human form. I wander the campus for a while, the buildings seeming bare and empty since it’s a Saturday, without the usual press of students walking the halls. I’m not sure where I was intending to go, but I soon find myself standing in front of the empty art building. The locks are all electronic, and I wonder if KT could hack into them. I barely have to think about it before KT responds affirmatively. Once the door in front of me is unlocked, I slip inside and wander until I find my favorite project. It’s a drawing in pencil of a young girl with wings, her hands chained to the ground as the rest of her body strains to fly away. For the first time, I see myself in that picture. I had loved it since my classmate first put it up, but I never let myself see the resemblance. I had felt trapped perhaps, but I always managed to drown it out with activities, not letting myself strain against the bindings. Now I could see the appeal of having those chains broken, going to explore the world and other planets… But I don’t want it enough to leave my family. To never see my sister again? I can’t imagine it. I exit the art building and decide to go to the cafeteria. I still have my wallet and phone, so I can swipe my meal card. I settle down to eat an orange I grabbed when the sirens start going off. I freeze, looking around at everyone else who is also in some state of panic. I check the blaring alarm on my phone, the emergency alert system alerting everyone around me.

'Active shooter on campus. Evacuate if possible. If not safe to do so, find a safe place to hide behind sturdy objects.’

I look around, trying to figure out where to go, where we can escape to. A mass of people presses toward the doors of the cafeteria, pushing and shoving in their panic. Once outside, I run to the dorms with a group of students, wanting the comfort of the locked doors between me and whatever is happening. Halfway there, I hear gunshots in front of us and we all freeze.

I look around, trying to think, then tell everyone to follow me as I start running back toward the art building. We can get in with KT, and the shooter won’t be able to follow. We make it inside, and no one questions me on how I unlocked the doors. We pause, speaking only in whispers as we try to figure out what to do. One guy says he thinks we’ll be safest here, and the others seem to agree, so we huddle in a classroom next to the vending machines. We crouch, silencing our phones, our panting breaths ragged in the sudden quiet. My heartbeat won’t slow and I can’t help wondering if we should have kept running, running far, far away from here. We slowly quiet, straining to hear any noise that would signal the end of the situation, anything that would tell us we are safe again. But still the siren drones on outside, the piercing screech muffled slightly inside our room. Two of the boys push a lectern against the door, intended to slow anyone who tries to come in that way. The external door is still locked, and now there’s nothing to do but wait.

The waiting is nearly unbearable.

I don’t know how long we’re in here, but my heartbeat has started to slow when I hear the external door being pounded on. We all back away, crowding against the internal door, hoping against hope it’s a rescuer when the external one bursts open with a bang. We frantically pull the lectern away from the other door, but it’s too late.

Bang.