Anachronistic: Endless Masquerade

22 | Lost in Thought

- 22 - 

The discovery of an extra book among her father's belongings didn't strike Lilith all at once; it was slow and measured. The shadow of doubt crept across her mind the way the dark creeps across the Earthly plane each night. At first full bright, then the light fades, and before she realized it was pitch black.

        The morning had started out unassuming. Lilith woke to the sound of knocking for the second time in a row. Instead of Pandora, this time it was a young security officer. Not the mountain of a man Lilith had met the night before, but a fresh faced boy who introduced himself as Stanley. Apparently, Pandora had requested someone escort Lilith to the dinning hall in her absence and he had been assigned.

        That ruins my plan to skip breakfast.

        Lilith didn't exactly need to eat, but she did need to appear human. Each trip outside the room was one more opportunity to drop her mask, but skipping meals would be just as suspect. Without much of a choice, Lilith graciously accepted the man's offer and followed him off to breakfast.

        By the time she returned, Pandora was already back, seated at the writing desk filling a notebook. Lilith drilled her with questions about her health and well being. Each one met with the hunter's repeated assurance that she was fine. She had her doubts, but Lilith could only ask the same questions so many times, and soon found herself with nothing much to do.

        In the end, she decided to read. That was the seed of her discovery, though it would take time to bear fruit. Lilith opened her father's satchel to retrieve the novel she had stored there the night before. She made her way back to the bed, got comfortable, then opened to the next chapter before her brain registered that something was out of place. There had been a change. An extra notebook packed safely in the bag that she couldn't recall seeing the night before.

        Had she imagined it? She must have. It didn't make any sense otherwise. Things don't just appear from nowhere. She must have seen wrong.

        Lilith tried to turn her attention back to the novel, but the words blurred together on the page. She couldn't force herself to focus. Her thoughts kept crawling back to her father's bag and the extra book she had seen inside.

        Thought she had seen.

        She didn't know anymore. She needed to check. But how? Pandora was still in the room. She couldn't drop her mask now. She still needed to diligently play the part of normal human girl. If she started tearing through her bag, counting the items inside it would do nothing but arouse suspicion.

        But the uncertainty was eating away at her.

        Lilith would need to get Pandora out of the room, then she could look. Upturn the satchel and be done with this creeping anxiety. But she had no idea how to go about it. And until she figured out how, she would be consumed by the fear that something was very, very wrong.

        First, she considered claiming she had lost something during breakfast, then asking Pandora to search for it. Except, what item would she have reasonably brought with her to eat? The best she could come up with was saying she took her book to read, but Pandora would have surely noticed that she had been reading that same book all morning.

        Next, she considered the possibility of Pandora leaving to use the restroom. The closest one was far enough from the room to buy her five, maybe ten minutes. But how exactly was she meant to control that? If it happened naturally she wouldn't complain, but it wasn't like she could make Pandora drink a bunch of water.