Lilith was uncomfortable. Something was holding her down on her bed, something hard and strong. She opened her eyes, and found herself in a place unknown to her, with no memory of how she’d gotten there. She was lying down on a hard stretcher being held vertically, in a dark room, its walls cracked and humid, dirty and moldy, possibly abandoned or in ruins even. There was no light other than a tiny lightbulb hanging from the ceiling that somehow managed to blind her, she saw no doors or windows either.
A metallic smell wafted towards her nose, that the girl of only nine years of age instantly recognized, to her own surprise. The entire place stank of blood. The only sound in the room was a constant dripping of some kind of liquid, that Lilith hoped was just water. All her senses seemed to be violently hitting her at once, each more intense than the last. The light pierced her eyes and stunned her brain, the vibrations caused by the dripping shook her eardrums, and the smell. The stench, that only got stronger by the second, made her feel very odd, a strange sensation she couldn’t quite explain.
Another sound interrupted the pseudo silence all of a sudden, heels on a hard floor. Steps, someone was approaching. From the darkness emerged a tall and thin woman, with pale skin that almost seemed a sickly yellow, red spotted, white hair neatly tied up, a disfigured face with some remnants of beauty, as if she’d been really pretty in other times; and eyes of a glistening, disturbing purple. Lilith wanted to scream, cry, and even beg for help, but any sound she could have made vanished from her throat when the woman smiled, her eyes showing how much she enjoyed the girl’s despair.
She slowly approached Lilith, visibly savoring the moment. She raised her hand, which was just as pale as her skin, almost spectral looking; and gently placed it against the child’s chest, exactly where her heart was.
Lilith gasped for air, her breath shortened for a second, then it and her heartbeat suddenly and greatly sped up. She didn’t know if that woman was doing something to her, and it didn’t really matter. She was trembling like a leaf amidst a tornado. Her head started burning up, and her vision got blurry. The burning sensation quickly spread throughout her body, it felt as if her very skin was boiling. She opened her mouth to scream, but the woman placed her index finger on her own lips, and no air left the girl. The pain in her head began throbbing and getting more intense and a noise, like some kind of liquid bursting out was heard, followed by the guttural noise of bones cracking and breaking. Lilith started seeing red as her skull tore skin and scalp apart when it burst out of her head, and the rest of her bones began to do the same, changing her body’s shape.
The woman stepped aside and Lilith’s bindings gave out, dropping her on the hard ground. Her body folded in half and the girl witnessed her hands grow longer and thicker, her finger bones breaking out of her skin, widening and sharpening into claws almost as large as her hands, then turning a reflective, metallic gray. Her mouth, still silently screeching in agony, dislocated and her jaw unhinged with a hollow sound, her teeth then sharpened and thickened, piercing skin and muscle in her cheeks, shredding the girl’s lower face almost entirely. Her ribs sharpened and expanded outwards, suddenly becoming hot enough to completely melt her torso’s skin and pop out, then the entire rib cage melded together, forming a painful exoskeleton. The bones in her jaw kept extending forward, conjoining with her skull, which had continued to grow out to create a triangular metallic bone mask wrapped around her head. Bright red fur grew from below said mask and into a crimson mane that reached her back, which at the same time grew longer and straightened out along with her spine, rendering Lilith unable to stand on her hind legs. Instead, her limbs twisted and thickened, turning into the symmetrical legs of a quadruped animal, ending in those giant claws that seemed sharp enough to slice solid diamond with ease. Her skin, almost entirely torn apart, charred and barely serving as a remnant of the girl, revealed under itself a large build of pitch black muscles, none other than what Lilith’s had become. Lastly, the little bit of humanity remaining was gone when her whole head stretched and enlarged itself, and her mouth became a snout. It was then that her vocal cords finally reacted, and out of Lilith came an inhuman roar that resonated in the room, along with the lone spectator’s insane laughter.
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Lilith woke up amidst her own screams.
Once again she was in an unknown place, this time a normal looking room in a normal looking house. But her location wasn’t her biggest priority at the time. She looked at her shaking hands, checked her arms, legs and felt around her head. There was nothing, no trace of the monster she’d become. “A dream. It was a nightmare, just a nightmare,” she thought out loud, gasping for air as she tried to calm down.
Someone knocked on the door, and a man Lilith didn’t recognize peeked in slowly. “You’re awake,” he said, his voice filled with concern. “¿Can I come in?” The girl hesitated for a moment, but managed to nod, and the man walked in, carrying a platter with a breakfast that made Lilith’s stomach growl. She hadn’t noticed how hungry she was until then.
“I found you last night, passed out in the middle of the street. You must have been having a terrible nightmare, you wouldn’t stop squirming and asking for help.” Lilith nodded again, she already wanted to forget that dream, but it was burnt into her mind, repeating over and over again. “Whatever happened can wait, for now you should have some breakfast, and we can talk afterwards.” The man then turned around and started walking towards the door, but the girl stopped him by shyly tugging on his sleeve.
“Thank you,” she muttered. Her eyes moved to his hand, which had a bandage wrapped around it.
“You’re welcome,” he said, then noticed the girl’s gaze. “Oh, I cut myself a while ago. I’m not very good with a knife” He explained, looking away embarrassed. “It's nothing.”
For some reason not even she knew, Lilith suddenly gripped the man’s hand, and squeezed it with a force impossible to reach for a child. The man gasped in pain, and a single drop of blood appeared from under the bandage. Its smell, even if insignificant, managed to reach her nose. Her vision turned red, and she finally realized what that sensation was, that need that she’d felt so intensely both in the dream and now.
Hunger.
In an instant, she’d jumped over the man, whose arm was ripped clean off. He tried to scream, but was thrown to the ground, and all the air left his lungs when Lilith landed on his chest. The starving girl’s jaw unhinged, and her hands dug into her victim’s rib cage with such strength that they tore his heart out, and it didn’t take long for it to be consumed.
Mere moments later, the only trace of the man’s existence was a bloodstain on the wooden floor.
Lilith observed what she’d done, the lack of remains of the man who’d tried to look after her, that she devoured, and couldn’t hold back her tears. A sudden burning sensation all over her eyes and cheeks surprised her, and she saw her tears drop on the ground and melt whatever they touched.
Her crying turned into a pointless begging for help to the air itself. After all, ¿who could save her, if the monster haunting her… was herself?