Lilith Between Flesh And Spirit

Chapter Ten: Leaving A Trail Of Smoke

Pulse speeding into a vortex of violent rotating winds. Body tensing into a funnel-shapes cloud with feet destroying anything dear to her.

These are the feelings raging within Lilith at the mention of her son's names.

These were also the first inhabitants of Earth when she originally appeared on it. Lilith walked across the ocean like a woman in bare flesh with the essence of a barked tree body, a symbol of motherhood, as she held on each of her arms two giant eggs.

They made her collapse on her knees with exhaustion, letting out a breath that turned into smoke, but Lilith only furrowed her brow—this wouldn't be the end of her. She got back on her feet, walking through the collapse of rock from mountains with nothing but the pound of a heartbeat.

A fast-paced stride and muscles quivering as she crossed the shaking ground that injected energy into the lithosphere, fuelling her as it cracked patches of lava flow.

Lilith would stop at nothing until she was sure they would be all safe.

This place was where she planted the last broken root falling out of her skin. Within the blink of an eye, it grew back into the Tree of Life from Eden, a tree that now bore edible and beautiful fruits with a bird perching on the top of its branches to throw down for her its gathering.

A snake also found refuge right in front of it, protecting a crack in his trunk, the door to Lilith's new house. She stepped inside and guarded her two eggs there.

After weeks of incubation, the two young boys hatched out. They had smiles of pure mischief, heart of gold and were both able to care for themselves. One detail about them left Lilith with a sour taste. They both had blood coloured eyes and hair, like her and nothing alike to Adam.

Cain knew from his early days how to cultivate the land, whereas Abel, the second, came back with a flock of animals and called himself a shepherd.

The days went by; the years flew away, and the boys became nearly men, while Lilith grew older. Nothing ever happened as long as they live within the tree, but the home was the one of Lilith alone now until one lance stabbed through it.

A stentorian voice followed with this order. "Lilith, we are here to find you and to take you back to Eden."

It compelled her to step out of her house and there, Lilith in her rough clothes and messy red hair, met for the first time in her life the SSS.

Senoy drew nearer to her. "We had been sent by the almighty Yaldaboath to retrieve you back into his realm, Eden, as his creation."

His courtesy was admirable, but at the mention of Yaldaboath, Lilith's heart felt a sharp pain. She owed nothing to this Demiurge and after a smirk; she punched Senoy to the face with the back of her sword's hilt after she called upon it.

Her weapon in this material world shone silver under the sunlight, leaving a trail of smoke with a red hilt shaped into the form of a snake's body.

Senoy wiped the blood from his face as he looked up to this fierce warrior towering over him. She was the shadow under the sunlight, an enemy not to be underestimated, and she instantly stood in a fighting position. "You want to take me back to Yaldaboath? You'll have to kill me first."

Aghast by her provocation, Senoy joined his two brothers, and they fought Lilith relentlessly for days. They lured her away from her tree, piercing her feet with their lances to hang her upside down above the sea for her insolence.

Senoy then asked her again. "Would you now return to Yaldaboath's realm, Eden?"

"No."

Shaking his head, Senoy now clenched his jaw. "Lilith, you do not belong to this world. This is the material world and if you are not going back with us to Eden, we will have to harm your sons?"

Her face reddened at the remark, tears evaporating as they streamed down her face. "Don't you dare to involve Cain and Abel in all of it?" She sniffed. "They will never know of Yaldaboath and what Eve, Adam, and I had endured there!" Lilith shook her head. "They can't be made aware that Yaldaboath created us to farm soldiers and food for his plan of taking over the Pleroma."

Her revelation froze the three angels on the spot. Her rounded eyes pleaded for her cause even more. She was a helpless animal back there, and now she was no better because of them. A myriad of questions ran through their minds, but the rise of a high-pitched scream interrupted everything. Sammangelof was the first to drag her back on land, retrieving his lance from Lilith with a curt nod to her, while the rest of them did the same before helping her to walk.

They followed through the sound of tears and pains—the howling wind guiding their feet through a mash of beheaded animals and soiled crops. Senoy picked up a crimson stone on their way. Sansenoi found a piece of torn clothes too until they reached Abel. The boy was beyond recognition, beaten into a pulp and in front of them was a red sun outlining the form of Elaois.

He smirked as he patted on the head of a kneeled down Cain before him.

Lilith leaped out from Sammangelof's arms. Her wounded feet could barely hold her up and her chin hit the ground instantly, yet she found one last ounce of strength to shout out.

"What have you done, Elaois?"

Pain, anger and disappointment all blended into the brittle timbre of her voice. They were all powerless to the claim of the Archon.

"They are my sons too, Lilith!"

He delivered to her the death of Abel with nothing but a knowing grin plastered on his face, and he boasted into a loud laugh when he now raised his sword at Cain, ready to behead the latter. Cain, though, stabbed Elaois to the stomach with a sharpened stone in the last seconds before departing the scene.

The injured Elaois, the demon of envy, vanished in the betrayal of Cain, leaving an army of angels to rain down from the Pleroma to surround the SSS and Lilith. All their artillery pointed towards them, accusing them of the killing of the young Abel.

The SSS held all the murder weapons in their hands, with even their feet covered in blood, but it was Lilith who told them the whole truth. Her courage saved the SSS from being framed for a crime they hadn't committed. She also informed them of Yaldaboath's threat against the Pleroma.

That day still seeped into her heart in blisters of regret. This was the last she saw of her sons as later, the higher beings on the Pleroma engineered a terrible flood to destroy everything Yaldaboath had corrupted—ending this mockery that was the earth.

A drop of tears fell from Lilith's eyes over the apples she holds. Her words becoming the hidden truth behind the myth of Abel and Cain.

"I searched everywhere around the earth, but I never met the soul of Abel and neither of the one of Cain. It was as if they have been graced to never have to come back again while I reborn to come back to that same tree house. To this day, I truly believe the favour that Elaois offered to Abel was to turn him into a new Archon, but Cain stopped that out of love for his brother."

Lilith now extends one of her arm with one of the fruit in it to Norea. "Take a bite on it and we'll be in Eden to kill the evil at its roots!"