kweenjaded

For as long as the stars have burned, she has existed. She has been called many names—Gaia, Lilith, the First, the Eternal Witness—but time has eroded meaning, leaving only silence. When the sun finally devoured itself and Earth drifted into the abyss, she closed her eyes, expecting oblivion.

But she did not die.

Eons passed, and Earth—no longer Earth—was reborn in a distant galaxy, reshaped by her unconscious will. Now a training ground for civilizations across the cosmos, the planet teems with life once more. And she, no longer Lilith yet not fully something else, awakens in a body that is hers but unfamiliar. She knows everything yet feels nothing. Memories exist as echoes, not experiences.

When a young explorer, Tilana, stumbles upon her, she is given a name—Lily—a word tied to a flower that no longer exists. As Lily navigates a world both familiar and alien, she must relearn what it means to feel, to connect, and to exist. But something lingers in the depths of this reborn world, something that calls to the remnants of who she was.

To see tomorrow, one must kill yesterday. But what if yesterday refuses to die?.

Lily: The last lily of a forgotten world.

"You ever get the feeling you've been set up?"

Three months ago, Zane had a future.

A solid one. Prestigious. Bloody. The kind that came with power and expectations, the kind his father had carved out before him.

All of it neat, packaged, precise.

The kind of downfall that didn't happen by accident.

It would have been insulting if it weren't so well-executed.

A walking headline. A perfectly placed piece in someone else's game.

The first murder had been an inconvenience.

That one had been a bit more personal.

Maybe it had been waiting to happen.

The bounty feeds ran on a loop. His face, his name, the charges stacking higher every time he checked.

Alekzander "Zane" Vael — WANTED FOR ESCAPE & MULTIPLE HOMICIDES.

Somehow, the word felt worse than murderer.

Like someone had gone ahead and added a few extras, just for balance.

He had spent years being trained for situations like this. He knew the signs of a setup, could read the angles, predict the moves—but that only worked if you had control.

If you hadn't already been pushed off the board.

Lily, who had walked into his life and shattered it like glass.

Lily, who had broken him out of jail with all the grace of someone retrieving a lost object rather than a person.

Lily, who might have been the cause of all this.

Or just another piece being moved.

And someone—somewhere—was still playing.

Arc 2 Chapter 2 : The Fool Who Thought He Had A Choice