לִילִית: Lilith's Story

Chapter Six

Zelda's screams were silenced by mouthfuls of water as she thrashed and fought against the pull of the Wrathful. Forgetting about her broken bones, she kicked her feet trying to propel herself upwards and pain rushed through her, forcing her to black out. Once again she was thrust through Time, spat out in the Seventh Circle of Hell, where Lilith was now enduring further punishment. Coughing and gasping for air, Zelda's lungs burned and her ankle throbbed. Her hands pulled at the strands of hair plastered to her face as she tried to catch her breath and process what she was seeing.

Lilith was in the third ring of the Seventh Circle, stretched across burning sand, her wrists and ankles encircled with heavy chains holding her in place on the scorching sand. The rough particles dug into her sensitive flesh, already violated by the Wrathful and the flaming tombs in the Sixth Circle (Heresy), burning her. Lilith had been screaming for seven circles and her voice was lost, when she opened her mouth only sobs were released. Feeling as though she'd been drowned and resuscitated, it took Zelda a while to muster the courage to move. Every inch of her body hurt and she began to wonder if she would survive this trip.

Inch by inch, Zelda Spellman made her way to the suffering demoness. She shouldn't even be considering intervening in the past, knowing that any action she took now would have a significant impact on the future - everything has a price. But she couldn't watch Lilith suffer alone any longer. Reaching the dark haired witch, Zelda's gaze washed over the broken being; Lilith's body was scratched, bitten, bruised, broken, and burnt. The Mother of Demons' breathing was laboured and she was teetering on the edges of consciousness. Zelda could not interfere but she could offer some comfort.

"Lilith...." wincing as she crawled onto the burning sands to be closer to the witch, Zelda whispered so no minions could hear her, "Lilith!"

Satan's concubine opened her eyes, frowning as she looked into nothing. Just as she was closing her eyes again, praying to Lucifer that he would have mercy on her and remove her from the sand, she heard her name. She whimpered softly and tried to locate where it was coming from. The movement caused tiny landslides in the sand, forcing granules to settle in different places, leaving their searing mark behind. The pain was unbearable and Lilith closed her eyes again, silently begging for death.

"Lilith. Mother of Demons, Dawn of Doom, you are the First Woman. You were chosen! You are meant to rise to unimaginable heights. Do not give up! This is not how it ends. I believe in you." Tears welled up in Zelda's eyes as she realized the truth of the words she whispered so passionately.

Unsure if she was hallucinating voices, Lilith shuddered and reached out towards the sound of the voice, her chains dragging along the sands and stopping her from reaching too far. Zelda's heart clenched and she couldn't stop herself from reaching up and taking Lilith's hand, squeezing it tightly and watching as the witch reacted to her touch.

"I'm here." Zelda held on to Lilith fiercely. "You are not alone."

At those words, Lilith began to sob in earnest, drawing the attention of the supervising minion whose eyes narrow at the strange shape her outstretched hand was making. With a snap of his fingers, the void opened up and the sand sank away from her, chains breaking and she fell, clutching onto the voice that comforted her. Together with Lilith, Zelda fell, remarking that if she died in this Hell, her entire story would be erased. Blackwood would continue to rule as High Priest and, worse than that, he would rule with a heavy patriarchal fist. As the witches crashed down into the bolge, narrow trenches surrounded by horned demons prepared to whip their victims, Zelda worried that her time travel might not be worth it. She knew Lilith would survive, because the witch already had, but would she?