Into the Night

{New} Ch. 11 : Night at the Museum

Lily stepped in front of a display case and pulled out a stack of flash cards.

"We'll begin with the creatures you know as monsters. The official, politically correct, term is daemons. Their DNA is made up of a special-"

She tossed the cards into the air. There wasn't anything written on them...

"Yeah, let's skip to the interesting parts. Like the way male shapeshifters produce three times the testosterone of a human and get these shredded abs you can play pingpong on. "

Lily stepped forward to a pedestal with a large red button and pressed it. The display case shuddered before sliding open. A bulb flashed on to reveal a man and woman. They wore matching "Lily's grand tour" teeshirts and "Lily's grand tour" boxers.

"Take off your shirt!" Lily shouted to the display case, but it didn't look like they could hear. "Darn, one of these days he'll leave her for me."

She returned her attention to the tour.

"Alright," she began phoning it in. "There are many types of shapeshifters. If there's an animal you've ran over, more than likely they have a were-counterpart. Yada yada, exposition, yada yada. Are there any questions? "

She picked at something underneath her nail.

"I've recently discovered that my mother is the mother of all monsters and yesterday something almost killed me."

Lily looked up before flicking away a speck of dirt.

"I guess, that makes you my nephew? "

Calla nodded.

"Alright... Tom?"

"Calla."

"What kind of name is-- whatever. I don't care. What information are you looking?"

"Anything to do with werewolves, my mother, anything I should definitely know, and any information on monsters who have yet to be classified in this encyclopedia. I don't know what I am and I'd like that to change. "

Lily groaned and it echoed in the museum hall.

"I'm already exhausted from hearing you ask about it," she complained before returning her attention to the display case.

"This is the shapeshifter display. They came into existence when a sorceress, by the name of Circe, began turning men into pigs and other animals. One of the men she turned happened to have an abnormally high resistance to her magic. He murdered her thinking that it would save his crew, but instead it only destabilized the curse and passed it on to crew's children and so and so forth. "

She withdrew a laser pointer and directed it at the people.

"They turn into their animal forms during the full moon. However they can trigger a transformation at anytime. Contradictorily, this association with the lunar cycle has its origin with the sun. Her father was a sun god so her magic is linked with it's nature. The sun and the moon are direct opposites-- so when a human left with her curse, her magic, experiences a full moon it jumpstarts that metamorphosis like a knee being struck with a small hammer. "

She stopped to think of anything else important enough to mention.

"A silver bullet will kill them, but only because it's a bullet. The mineral has nothing to do with it. They regenerate at an alarming rate. Fun fact: A tribe in South America would perform a rite of passage where they tear off all the flesh on the young man and they have to regrow it without crying. Otherwise they stay a boy forever. "

She itched her head in thought.

"To stop that fast healing, you should cauterize the killing blow. Or as today's youth says, kill it with fire."

They came to the next attraction, a mural of a dark haired woman. She wore a cloak of feathers and deer hide. In her hands was a deformed creature swaddled in a bundle that matched her cloak. It had three sets of arms, three heads, and many twisted legs. She stared down at it with a love that only a mother could show.

"Among all monsters, there is no one more beloved than Lilith. She is their mother, my sister, our protector, and someday our savior. The legend goes as follows: She was the first human to come into creation. At one point, God's most beloved. She watched him create the fish in the sea, the birds in the sky, and the wolves in the forests. Watching him create a world started a flame in her-- she ached to be like her father.

She begged him for the gift of creation. He dismissed the idea at first, but reconsidered it. So he gave her two gifts, the power to conceive and a man to help. Unfortunately his love for her vanished with the arrival of his second creation. And with this loss of attention, she began to loathe the idea of her groom's existence. She refused to create a dialogue with him much less a child.

This angered the deity. After all, he only gave her what she wished for. Why wouldn't she accept his gift? With his unbridled wrath, he turned his gift into a curse. She wouldn't age, she wouldn't grow, she wouldn't bear a child from anyone, but Adam. Otherwise the creature would be ghastly and deformed.

Lilith didn't heed the warning given by God. Instead she caught the eye of one of the heavenly host. An angel by a forgotten name. Quickly she became pregnant and a short nine months later she gave birth in secrecy. God watched in disgust as she pulled a horror from her hips. And as she smiled at the first of our kind, he banished her from the Garden of Eden... "

Beep. Beep. Beep.

Tour guide Lily looked down to her wrist. She tapped her watch.

"Well it looks like it's our time here is up for now. If your mind stays here much longer you may fall in a coma..."

She began to wave at him.

"Goodbye, Calla. Try not to die."

"But I still don't know what I am-"

"Don't worry, I'm sure you'll be fine. Try to let your brain recover for few days before using this book again. Otherwise, coma. Not a pretty sight."

Calla tried to respond, but the museum had began to melt away once more and a migraine like never before began to spread. Through that blob of colors came the bright light of the rising sun and the sound of his phone's alarm. Drool had pooled around the spot of the bed his cheek rested on. The encyclopedia was next to the bed, wisps of smoke rising off it like an extinguished fire.