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.

—Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice

Zane had never thought about the future.

His entire life had been written before he was born.

The perfect heir. The perfect soldier. The perfect pawn.

And when it all burned away—when his name was stripped from him, when his future became nothing but a smoldering grave—he never replaced it with something new.

Now, for the first time, he was thinking about the future.

The bottle was nearly empty when Lily sat down across from him.

Zane had lost track of time—somewhere between the third drink and the fourth, somewhere between pretending he wasn't falling apart and realizing it wasn't working.

Like she was waiting for something.

Like she already knew what was about to happen.

"Do you know what the worst part is?"

His voice was too loud. He didn't care.

"Not the almost dying. Not the betrayal. Not the whole 'being framed for murder' thing."

"You don't care, do you?" he muttered.

"I do not understand the question."

His head was heavy. His limbs were numb.

"Not because you asked me to. Not because I had to. Not even because I wanted to."

His fingers tightened around the bottle.

"Because I don't know what the hell you are to me."

The words hung in the air, thick and suffocating.

"I broke you out of prison," she corrected.

A flicker of something crossed her face.

"And you don't even know why, do you?"

His vision blurred. His pulse was loud in his ears.

And he hated that she never had to ask.

Hated that she let him fall apart without ever offering to catch him.

Hated that she was the only one left who still looked at him like he was something other than a mistake.

Sleep dragged at the edges of his mind.

His tongue felt thick, clumsy, but before he could stop himself, before he could think—

The words barely made it past his lips before his head hit the table.

Arc 2 Chapter 14 : A future that isn't mine.