Lilith Between Flesh And Spirit

Chapter Two: As A Halo

"Indeed, the darkness shall not hide from You, but the night shines as the day; the darkness and the light are both alike to You"
Psaumes 139.12 — The New King James Version (NKJV)

From the darkness, she flutters her eyes back into reality. A sharp pain is stabbing through her head, pulsing louder and colder until she feels the wet tongue of a white Bichon Maltais licking her face—this is Maera. It is joined by an even smaller black Affenpinscher, which also jumps on her stomach—and this is Taniniver. Lilith pushes their faces away, telling them that is enough, but they keep on showing her their joy at seeing her.

"You're awake?" A familiar voice came into her ear. She couldn't distinguish anything through the thick coats of her two dogs, yet Lilith recognised the man sitting in front of her. With umber skin equal to the dark matter of the universe and a self-luminous suit, he radiates bright internal energy and is warm, friendly, and caring. Without even asking Lilith, she could feel his pain for her through the silk drape wrapped around one of his shoulders, then over the waistline of his jacket, to cry out in floating tears of stars.

After rubbing a hand through her face, Lilith calls out his name. "Senoy!" And he smiles back at her with his plump, silver-coloured lips embedded into his wrinkled face and drowning in his long beard. Smelling the latest trendy aftershave with his grey long hair all flattened to one side of his head, he taps his fingers over the armrest.

It's an annoying sound—the ticking of an invisible clock—but he means no harm, as he is an angel with an electronic device covering one of his gunmetal eyes and ears to rest on the top of his head as a halo. He then presses a button on it for an electronic voice to speak. "Message received on the first of January two thousand twenty-four at midnight: Help, they're back!"

Lilith flattened her lips at the report of her disheartened words. Flashes of the last night events suddenly hit her—the car crash, the shadowed man, and her desperate message to them—the SSS.

"I supposed you went out again on new Year's eve to intoxicate your head?" There is concern in his voice and sadness that Lilith couldn't face. Her hands hit her forehead in shame, muttering out some swear words under her breath in the discomfort of her agitated pets, while Senoy leans back and forms a steeple with his hands.

He is sitting on the opposite side of her, in a chair equally broken like hers, and they are in this place Lilith calls "home." It has no lock on the front door, no functioning machines in the kitchen apart from empty cupboards—houses for spiders. There is a door for a bedroom and a bathroom, but they are by the windows, with the moonlight caressing her visage, and Lilith readjusts herself on her seat, staring now at her Paeonia suffruticosa. It looks alive in its green leaves, or maybe it is hungry since she didn't water it for a while.

No matter how it feels, Lilith puts down her dogs and pinches the gap between her eyes. "Yeah!" she pauses. "Yeah, I just went out!"

Senoy let out a heavy breath. "You don't write this kind of message unless something bad has happened, Lilith?"

Fear grips her stomach, and she holds it as if it were hurt. Maera and Taninver suddenly growl at Senoy. Lilith raises her chin to fight her tears away, but she couldn't hide them from him. "I'm twenty today, and the Archons will come to kill me anytime, Senoy!" She sniffs, her chin still quivering at the flash of the hooded man in her head. "I already saw one of them last night!"

Senoy leaves his seat and kneels before Lilith, holding on to her wrists. He looks at her in the eyes, even though she tries to evade his wisdom each time. "I promise you no Archons are here and certainly not after you this time!"

The noise of a clicking tongue echoes into the room. It comes from a young man sitting on her kitchen bar with the green light of a hybrid video game console glowing in his face; nothing, though, can be seen from his features apart from the tip of a golden dreadlock's fringe. He is weightless in the background, a ghost in an immaculate oversized trouser and a hoodie, and when his game ends, he says, "Didn't they replace you with Pet Pe-Eve?"