July 24th, 1988

The girl reappeared right in front of a wooden door which led her into an apartment filled with an enormous amount of paper stacks, medicinal books and files. On the desk laid an array of peaches with thin threads sewn into their skin. At the end of the room, beside a large window lending sight from the eleventh floor onto the city, sat, in a chair next to a cradle, a woman of about twenty years, breastfeeding a baby.

Closing the door behind herself, the young girl walked over the floor bare-footed, still clothed in her simple linen dress. For a second, the woman looked completely shocked by the sudden intrusion, but then she slowly placed the baby in the cradle and turned to her guest.

“Hey little, who’re you?” she asked. The child consumed the chaos in the room with her gaze, finally resting upon a name tag on a medical scrub reading Stella Cadente.

“Stella?” she asked calmly, and now that she had arrived at the cradle, she beheld the baby inside it, who was at most a few weeks old. She wore a wristband spelling out the word Teresa in blocky letters.

“Yes, I am Stella. And you? Can I help you somehow? Are you lost?”

“No, I am right where I need to be.”

For the first time she looked directly into Stella’s eyes, who smiled at her as she internally tried to figure out what in the world was going on. It should not have been possible to open the door from the outside. In addition, the girl looked terribly unhealthy; as if she hadn’t slept in weeks.

“What do you need to do here, then?” Stella figured she’d just earn her trust first and then call a hospital.

“The newborn,” the child said. “Where did you get it?”

Stella pointed to her belly. “It’s from here.”

“What do you intend to do with it?”

“With Teresa? I don’t intend to do anything with her.”

The child looked at her suspiciously. “Nothing?”

Stella nodded. “I never wanted a child. Her father did. He can’t stop talking about how he’s gonna raise her.”

The girl looked into a corner of the room and seemed as if she was trying to remember something. “He had a plan?”

Stella seemed surprised. “Yes, actually. He did.”

“He had a plan to change the world.”

“How do you know that? But yes. He wanted to change the world. A bit of an idealist. But now he’s almost 40, and realized he’ll never be able to do it. So that idiot thought he’d just raise a child who could.” She laughed. “So now his plan is to make Teresa do the dirty work for him. He says he’s gonna teach her everything she needs to know. I think it’s kinda sweet, actually. This big ditz. We had a relationship, and when I got pregnant, I just decided to carry his child for him.”

“You judge this to be an adequate reason to produce offspring? To use it as a means to a selfish end?”

Stella shrugged. “It’s as adequate a reason as any. Do you disagree?”

“I do not disagree or agree in any capacity whatsoever. I merely sympathize with this child. In fact, it eases my mind for what I am about to do. You physicians like this concept called informed consent, do you not? Certainly, if I were to inform her of the entire situation, she ought to consent.”

Stella started to feel nervous. “The point of informed consent is to ask for informed consent. It is unrelated to what you think another person should consent to.”

The child ignored her words. “I don’t see that person you made her for. Where is he?”

Stella raised her index finger and pointed to the sky. “He is going to watch over her.”

“To summarize; You carried that thing, seeing no use for it yourself.”

Stella opened her mouth, perplexed. “I suppose you could phrase it that way,” she conceded.

“You did it as a courtesy to him.”

She nodded. “But now, please tell me why you came here. To be honest with you, it’s a little weird for a small girl to walk into someone else’s home and not introduce herself.”

Even though she said that, she was by now well aware of the fact that this wasn’t merely a ‘small girl.’ In fact, Stella had an ominous feeling that she was dangerous. Correspondingly, the gaze of the child darkened. “I appeared here simply by means of wanting to.”

“Okay…” Stella murmured, unsure on what else to say. Her body became tense.

Without premeditation, a crystal clear icicle appeared in the child’s hand. It was twice as long as she was herself. Aiming at the baby’s head, she wound up.

In the same moment, she was ripped from her feet as Stella kicked her in the stomach, immediately positioning herself between the girl and Teresa.

“Get out!” she screamed at the child as it was slowly rising up again.

“Don’t defy. I just conversed with Teresa. She’s a hazard to me. Dodge.”

Stella shook her head, panicky trying to find a way out. Should she take Teresa and run out? Or try to overwhelm the child?

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“Why not? Strictly speaking, any hazard to me might as well be considered a hazard to you, or any other being for that matter.” The child seemed to fall deep in thought. “How to persuade a human in this circumstance, I wonder…? Try this: Pray find another courtesy to that man, Stella Cadente. You did your best producing this tiny creature, it was a good effort. A generous sacrifice, speaking to your great character. Regrettably, however, it was a failure. Do not resign to anguish, however, for I shall make it right.”

Stella didn’t move a muscle. The words of that child sounded fake and untrue, but had a gravity that made it obvious that should Stella try to fight her, she’d die.

The child looked at her, mildly annoyed. “You will not dodge? I do not require your death.”

Stella screamed for help. Though it was unlikely, it was still possible for others to hear her. That said, Stella wasn’t sure anyone existed that could actually help her against this monstrosity.

“Why do you cling? You yourself said you had no use for it.”

“What in the world are you?”

The creature seemed irritated by the fact that her attempts to convince Stella weren’t fruitful. “Killing full grown specimens is strenuous. I’d rather you don’t complicate the issue. Maybe I should make this easier for myself. On what day were you born again?”

Stella just stared at her, her eyes filled with anger and tears.

The child shrugged. In a split second, she flicked the icicle forward, piercing through Stella’s stomach. She screamed, but the girl kept going, pulling the ice upwards through her body, until the bloodied, red tip exited between her shoulder and neck.

Stella coughed out a mouthful of blood, then collapsed.

It is quite tragic. At this point, that small girl could have won the war. All she needed to do was be quick with offing Teresa.

But that girl’s unique properties made her ignorant of the concept of hurry. Instead, a certain vanity prompted her to take things slowly, with deliberation.

When she wanted to move closer to the cradle to end Teresa, she felt a wet and faint touch on her ankle. Looking down, she saw Stella’s bloody hand trying to hold her back.

The girl kneeled down to Stella. The young mother’s brown eyes, nested in her pain-wrinkled face, expressed a pitiful plea.

Laying the icicle beside her, the girl softly stroked Stella’s hair. “You see? This is exactly what I mean. Ending full grown beings is exhausting. They are full of history. It’s saddening.”

And now, it was too late. Because, you see, someone was on their way to defend Teresa, alarmed by Stella Cadente’s previous cry for help. A defence-mechanism placed there as a wise precaution, dedicated to Teresa’s well-being.

While the child was rising back up and materializing a new icicle, suddenly she heard strong blustering against the door, and two kicks later, it sprang open, and Wisdom jumped inside.

“Oh my god!” she shouted. “Did nobody ever teach you manners?”

The girl made an angry grimace. “What is this pathetic thing doing here?” She shook her head. “Always, always, matters like this. Hindering my advancement every step of the way. Fair well. I may be able to absolve myself of two impediments at once.”

“You are so angry at me. Why’s that?” Wisdom wondered.

“For it is you that ultimately sealed me.”

“I have no idea what you are talking about. I did no such thing, my dear.”

The girl materialized two shorter icicles and dashed towards Wisdom, lunging once, aiming at her head, then at her chest. Wisdom dodged both by rolling backwards; the child, however, didn’t subside, jumped forward immediately, connecting two short strikes to Wisdom’s arm and her belly. Blood started leaking from the shallow cuts. With the child’s next attack, Wisdom managed to grab both icicles and kick her back.

“Stop fighting,” Wisdom shouted. “Don’t you see what you are doing?”

“What am I doing?”

She materialized a new icicle, made a gigantic leap forward, connecting her feet to Wisdom’s shoulders, knocking her to the ground, now standing directly above her head. She raised her arms, then stabbed downwards at her face. Even though Wisdom did not attempt to dodge, cutting through the cheek, the girl missed the head, the tip of the icicle shattering on the ground. Confused, the child raised the icicle again, materialized a longer shard, and lunged downwards once more. Other side, another grazing cut in the cheek, but no direct hit.

Irritated, the child asked: “Why can I not kill you?”

Wisdom looked up at her from the ground shrugging while the girl still had her feet on her shoulders. “I think it’s because you don’t actually want to kill me.”

Annoyed, the child dematerialized in a flash of light. A second later she came back, looking slightly different; her hair was a bit more rugged, and her hands weren’t wet any more.

“Where are you?” she asked anxiously. “I can’t locate you.”

“Ah, you wanted to get rid of me as a baby?”

The child nodded.

“Yeah, sorry. Such a thing won’t work with me.”

Wisdom got up again and took the girl’s hand, who halted for a moment. Something wasn’t right here. She concentrated until it dawned on her.

“How is that possible?” She pulled her eyebrows together in confusion, walking a few steps back. “You are a component of one of my constructions. ... Is that beast responsible for this?”

“Are you talking about your mother? Well, you’re not wrong.”

“She pillaged a section of my void and hatched you therein?”

“That’s my understanding of it.”

The girl made a few steps up and down the room, forming new icicles. She got more and more agitated, her fists clenching around the ice, melting through it. Finally, with an angry shout, she launched both of them into the ground, where they shattered into a thousand pieces.

“That damn witch! Despicable, disgusting vile creature! I cannot damage you for it might ruin my construction that I require it to set myself free!”

She hammered her fist into the wall, with enough force to not only cause a dent in it, but also leave bloody marks from tearing parts of her skin.

“Let’s just settle on me taking care of myself as to not getting damaged to save your precious machinery, and you not causing any more mischief,” Wisdom proposed, shaking her head and pointing at the bled-out woman on the ground. “This is not okay.”

The girl discontentedly bit her lower lip.

“How can she always be one step ahead of me? Whichever I endeavour, the result is my defeat.”

“Don’t ask me. She’s kinda scary, isn’t she.”

“Why do you undertake her labour? Are you unaware of the consequences shall she prevail?”

Wisdom shrugged. “She just asked me for a favour, nothing more. And to be completely honest with you; when it’s about keeping little babies from being slaughtered, few reasons would make me refuse a request.”

The child spat on the ground. Wisdom stemmed her arms on her sides. “So, what’s your plan with this mess now?”

“What am I supposed to do with it?” the girl asked. She spoke a bit louder because Teresa had started to cry.

“Well, you probably understand that I won’t let you hurt the baby, and you yourself said you aren’t going to harm me. But this poor woman on the ground has nothing to do with all of this. So?”

“… So?”

“Fix her up?”

The child let her gaze wander over the bloodless body. “But she has perished.”

“I know. So, how long would it take you to mend her?”

She frowned. “Being damaged to this extent? … Approximately one hundred hours.”

“Then get to it. She didn’t deserve this. I will stay here and make sure you do it right.”

“… Fine.”