Every child, upon birth, carries a sin. But you, Lilith, what did you bring here?
In this place, the sun never rose. Or rather… it had never risen. Across the leaden-grey sky, only a faint, milky light, like cold milk, bled through the gaps in the clouds—opaque, weary, never quite strong enough to dispel the eternal mist. There was no day, no night; each moment was just a silent shadow stretching into infinity, unchanging in color, unwavering in wind, like a creator's unfinished canvas.
The forest there was the same.
No sounds of life. No birdsong, no rustling leaves, no flowing streams. Only a silence as heavy as a stone pressing on the chest—an all-encompassing stillness no one could touch, no one could escape. The smell of damp, decaying earth, the scent of oblivion, permeated every breath.
In the heart of that desolate forest stood a rotting wooden hut. And within it, she lived.
No one knew her name. Because no one had ever named her. No mother, no father, no midwife. In a world where everything was predetermined by the "Sentence"—a curse of future sin—she was a perfect emptiness. No mark, no prophecy. She was a mistake, forgotten the moment she was born.
Only Father.
Father was not like a human. Nor was he like a demon. He was a "something"—existing through words, through the cold breath that crawled on her skin each night, through the mysterious presence that was always near. Sometimes he was a whisper in the wind, seeping through the cracks in the door. Other times, a flickering shadow across the ceiling, like a long shadow trapped in the wooden planks, never quite complete. She called him Father, for there was no other word for this constant, albeit invisible, presence.
"Do you see your name?" he asked one windless day. His voice was deep, echoing in the hut, yet creating no sound outside. She remained silent, her eyes on the moss-covered roof. The wind didn't blow. The fire didn't burn. The air thickened like jelly, suspending all movement.
"Do you remember when they abandoned you?" he continued, tapping rhythmically at her memory.
And she remembered. As if it had happened yesterday. She remembered rough hands grasping her tiny collar, not to cradle, but to discard. She remembered the sound of feet splashing through mud, running faster and faster, leaving her utterly alone. She remembered the scent of sour milk in the air—a gentle smell now tinged with terror. And the hoarse voice of a woman, panicked:
> "Don't let anyone see it."
> "It has no Sentence. It's a demon. A calamity."
>
After that… She was left by the hollow trunk of a decaying tree. It wasn't raining. Nor was it sunny. Only her, naked and hopeless. And a gaze from afar—eyes without pupils, cold and empty like herself. That gaze, she knew, was Father's.
From then on, she lived with Father. He was the only one who didn't cast her away. She didn't learn to speak, for there was no one to talk to. Didn't learn to cry, for tears never flowed. She simply lived. Simply breathed. Simply listened to Father asking question after question, like cold pins pricking her brain, relentlessly repeating:
> "If no one calls you, do you exist?"
> "If you die here, who will know?"
> "If Father eats your soul, will you still be you?"
>
There were days she cut her hands with sharp stones to see if the blood was red. It seeped out, thick and ice-cold, a dark brown like mud. Some nights, she stared at her reflection in murky puddles and saw nothing, just a boundless darkness, as if she were merely an illusion.
And sometimes, she thought, with a fear more vague than death itself:
> "What if I never truly existed? Am I just the echo of someone dead, trapped in this body?"
>
Then one day, everything changed. A shocking event, though it was just a sound. As she was trying to light a fire with damp wood, attempting to coax a faint warmth into the eternal cold of the forest, something struck her head. Not an object, not a sudden gust of wind. But… a voice. Not Father's. A female voice. Distant. Vibrating. Young. It echoed directly into her mind, clearer and sharper than any whisper Father had ever created:
> "She will kill you on the seventh day."
> "Not because she wants to. But because if she doesn't, her village will die."
>
Lilith stood motionless. The fire in her hands died. The wind ceased, the air once again thick like jelly. She felt a strange shiver run down her spine, not of fear, but of an awakening.
Father laughed again. His laughter made no sound, but it felt like bones rattling in the earth, eerie and cruel.
> "She's here," he whispered, his voice still deep, as if he had been waiting for this moment for a very long time.
> "The last bringer of light."
> "That girl believes she can save everyone by killing you."
>
She asked, naturally and without hesitation, as if the question had been waiting on the tip of her tongue: "What's her name?"
> "Isha."
>
That night, Lilith didn't sleep. She sat quietly before the decaying hut, eyes wide open, staring into the boundless darkness of the deep forest. Not out of fear of the prophecy of death. But because in her chest, something was stirring. Not her heart. Her heart rarely beat meaningfully.
But it was… the realization that, for the first time, someone had remembered her. Even if it was to kill her, at least her existence had been acknowledged, linked to a name, to another fate. It was a strange and heavy feeling, a tiny tremor of connection in a life that had been utterly solitary.
> "I taught you how to be silent to survive," Father whispered, his voice merging with the cold night mist.
> "But if the light is approaching…"
> "You will have to learn to kill, to survive longer."
>
When morning broke, Lilith stood up. She carried nothing—no weapons, no possessions, no hope. She simply walked into the forest, where that strange light began to filter through the bare trees, like a mysterious invitation.
And she knew. From now on, she would have a name. Even if that name was only a curse, or a target, it would be tied to her. It would be something someone, finally, would call.