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.

"There is no hatred without fear, and no fear without awe."

The higher-ups had waited for this moment. Prepared for it.

And now, after centuries of failure, after countless lost experiments, they were about to succeed.

A living, breathing goddling in their grasp.

The Eridians were never meant to exist.

That was the lie they had told themselves. The comforting, pitiful lie.

That beings like them were aberrations. Mistakes.

That the universe had given them power instead of purpose.

That they were freaks instead of kings.

They walked the cosmos like they owned it.

The first Eridian had been discovered long ago.

Back when the higher-ups were nothing more than mortals with ambition.

It had been taller than a man, but lesser than a god.

And the melody had been a language of war.

They had burned worlds to kill it.

And when it finally fell, screaming its impossible, inhuman song, they had poured over its corpse like starving men at a feast.

Trying—desperately, pathetically—to understand.

But Eridians were not meant to be understood.

A reminder that no matter how powerful the higher-ups became, no matter how far they reached, there were still things beyond them.

And that was why they had to suffer.

But because the gods should have been them.

Because they should have been the gods.

Now, after all these years, they had another chance.

Not fully formed. Not yet beyond their grasp.

And this time, they would not fail.

This time, they would chain the divine.

This time, they would tear her apart and take what was stolen from them.

Arc 2 Chapter 9: What do You Call A god in Chains