The Book of Exi

"Hurry up, cultie," Ardith was looking at her again. "You better get used to things, fast."

Lilith tried to wet her lips using her tongue, but the sensation was as unpleasant as sandpaper rubbing against itself. "What's... a 'cultie'?"

"Means you were in or are from one of those weird obsessive cults," Ardith said. Her voice carried a subtle annoyance, as if she was saying something obvious.

"A... cult?"

"Yes, a cult," Ardith said. They leaned forward and snapped their fingers loudly twice in front of Lilith's face, causing her to jolt back. "So wake up. There's work to do, and we haven't got all day."

~

"It's not a matter of if you deserve it or not. Do you want it?"

A simple question, really, one with only two answers to choose from.

But to Lilith, it felt as if she had been thrust to the very edge of a precipice, and was now dangling over the depths of a familiar abyss. It wasn't until she stared into the depths of her own elegiac soul that Lilith finally felt an answer forming at the tip of her tongue

~
A Series of Bayisrian & Necelian Tales: The Book of Exi
~

A tale in which a naive young woman was raised in an obsolescent lifestyle and fashion-believing marriage to be a guaranteed solution in making her future perfect-but now finds herself waking up in a technologically advanced and high-security facility, where she is forced to formulate a plan with other prisoners to escape before they each lose their free will for good.

~

[Book cover was a commission created by the lovely @murttburt]