SQUADGOALS

Chapter One

    LILITH-

The memory replays in her head again, as it has been doing ever since she fell into this deep sleep. In it, she sees herself hunched over, trembling at the edge of a yawning clif. Her smooth milky skin is sliced everywhere and bleeding silver blood. Waves of her mint hair are plastered to her tear stained face and a diamond necklace is hung around her bloodied neck. She doesn't remember why she is there but she knows she will die.

Looking up, she sees a familiar-looking girl with wispy silver hair standing in front of her who clenches a fist as if grabbing something and twists hard. Her eyebrows are scrunched with strain and her bloodshot golden eyes burn with fiery determination. Yuki, that's who she is. With a flash of blue light, a blade of pure ice forms in Yuki's hand. From behind her, a boy with jet-black hair, Ilias, steps forward taking the blade of ice from Yuki. But as soon as he so much touches it, its searing cold surface burns him. Crying out in pain, he blinks back the tears that well up in his eyes. He then positions the blade over the mint-haired girl's heart. With no hesitation he plunges it deep into her delicate body until the tip of the blade protrudes from her backside. She gasps at the feeling, convulsing against the burning cold of the blade.

"That's not enough to kill me," she stutters weakly.

"Well it was enough to kill Samiyra," he spitefully replies. "You should've known we wouldn't let you reach her, Lilith."

He steps away and immediately frost starts to creep from her wound, turning her flesh icy and brittle. Lilith hangs her head in defeat, almost accepting her imminent doom until she sees Samiyra's frozen corpse skewered with a similar icy blade. Gritting her teeth she whispers, "Not yet."

As the frost spreads, Lilith feigns death and collapses to the ground. Once Ilias turns to leave, she starts to reach desperately for the snapping strings of Samiyra's life force. She doesn't have enough strength to bind them together but manages to uncoil a few strands of her own fading life and entwine them with Samiyra's. Not enough to revive her but just enough to keep her alive. Once Ilias rejoins the other five awaiting him, she takes action.

Lilith stands up, rips the icy blade out of her flesh, and shoots it toward his neck.

It strikes true.

Piercing through the back of his head, the blade exits right above his collarbone, but remains lodged in his neck. As soon as it enters, his flesh begins to ice over and he falls to the ground. A sobbing girl, Allia, rushes to his dying body and tries to cradle his head with her arms, but she flinches away when the icy frost nips harshly at her bare skin. Lilith smiles at the scene and unwinds his dying soul's string to coil it around Samiyra's and her own, but before she can entwine it, the girl charges at her. Her silvery-gray eyes blaze with rage. She roars a broken cry and uses two quicksilver blades to hack at Lilith's arms, face, legs, anything. But her blades aren't cold enough to freeze Lilith's burning heart, they can not destroy her.

Lilith shoots a hand out and grips her neck, pale fingers stark against the girl's golden-brown skin.

"You monster," Allia chokes out, gasping from lack of air.

Narrowing her eyes, Lilith frowns, "I'm no more of a monster than you are."

Allia's eyes bulge and her face turns a bright red, but with shaking hands she lifts her blades and tries to stab Lilith with them. Lilith laughs at her futile attempt to fight back and tosses Allia on Ilias's frozen body. As the frost starts to creep onto Allia's body as well, an orange haired boy, Ember, runs toward her, sparks crackling at the tips of his fingers, to stop the creeping frost.

Licking her lips in anticipation, Lilith finishes entwining Ilias's life to Samiyra's and greedily grasps the other four people's life forces. Yuki, Ember, Uia, and Opal. They are no ordinary humans, they have been bound to powers by Allia's hand, so with Ilias's life already melting the ice coating Samiyra's body, killing them should be able to revive Samiyra.

Gasping, Lilith flutters open her heavy eyes. They feel cracked with long dried tears, but she doesn't understand why. Her vision appears washed in a milky haze making it difficult to make her surroundings. She blinks. Once. Twice. Thrice. But her vision does not clear. Puzzled, she goes to wipe her eyes and her vision starts to sharpen, showing her she is in a bed. The bed is piled with downy blankets that enclose her in a sweet cloud but it appears to be the only piece of furniture in the room. But the walls, the walls of her room are slick and glittering...like a diamond.

"Are you well milady?" a voice calls out, as sweet as a nightingale. It cuts through the dull silence that hung through the air and brings life. But the source of the voice is a woman who is anything but life, if she had never spoken, Lilith would had never noticed she even existed. She looks like an angel of death, blending into the pale white of the room itself. With silvery hair that looks white, it does nothing to contrast her wan translucent skin. Her hollow golden eyes that are the only colour she has, the only thing that prevents her from becoming a complete devoid of colour. In fact, everything is a pure, shiny, white.

Like a fish gulping for water, Lilith tries to form words in reply but they come out as a few choked gasps.