Whispers From Lilith

The night pressed against the paper walls like a held breath.

Ryunosuke sat cross-legged on his futon, sketchbook open across his lap, the soft hum of the heater being the only sound in the room. A single desk lamp casted long shadows over the scattered pages at his feet—drawings torn from their spine, half-finished and forgotten.

He flipped through them slowly.

Walls. Eyes. Blades. A face he'd only seen in newsprint.

Each drawing more rigid than the last—measured lines, clenched angles. Nothing soft. Nothing real.

He turned to an older sketch from LA—one he barely remembered making. A cityscape at night, seen from the rooftop of his mother's apartment. The lights were uneven. The buildings were crooked. But there was life in it. Noise in the lines.

It felt like someone else had drawn it.

He touched the edge of the page.

What happened to me?

He tried to draw himself. Just a simple figure, sitting.

But the pencil wouldn't move.

Everything he put down became someone else's story. His father's shadow. Kanda's wall. The family crest bleeding across cracked stone.

He closed the book.

The weight of it sank into his lap like a brick.

Leaning back against the cold wall, Ryunosuke stared at the ceiling and let the silence settle. The room smelled faintly of cedar and ink. Outside, a dog barked once, distant and low. Then nothing.

He closed his eyes.

And wished, not for sleep—but for something quieter than thought.

Something that could speak without asking.

Something that could tell him who he was before the world began drawing over him.

The stillness shifted.

He didn't remember falling asleep, but the weight of the sketchbook vanished from his lap, and the cold floor beneath him became warm stone. Wind rustled through leaves overhead—soft, circular, like someone breathing.

When he opened his eyes, he was no longer in the guesthouse.

A garden stretched around him, uneven and strangely unreal. Pale stones arced across a dry riverbed, and reeds swayed where there was no breeze. The sky above flickered—neither day nor night, painted in colors that refused to settle.

At the center of it all was a single pond. Perfectly still.

And she was there.

Seated on a low bench beneath a flowering tree that bore no scent.

Lilith.

Barefoot. Hair longer than before, cascading down her back in soft waves. Her dress was simple, a pale ivory that caught the light without reflecting it. She didn't speak right away. She didn't smile.

Just watched him.

Ryunosuke stood there, uncertain.

"You look different," he said finally.

Lilith tilted her head slightly. "So do you."

He moved toward the bench but didn't sit. "Is this… real?"

She looked around at the shifting sky. "Does it matter?"

He didn't answer.

"You've been drawing things that don't belong to you," she said softly. "Other people's anger. Other people's fears."

He bristled. "They're not just 'other people.' Kanda, Victor—my father—"

"I didn't say they didn't matter," she interrupted gently. "Only that they're not you."

Her eyes, those impossible violet eyes, met his with a stillness that cut deeper than accusation.

"You're letting them define the shape of your mind. That's not art. That's surrender."

He looked down. "Then what should I draw? What do I even have left?"

Lilith stood and stepped toward him. The stone garden didn't echo beneath her feet.

"Choice," she said.

He looked up.

She reached out, barely touching the edge of his sleeve.

"You don't need to wear their anger like armor. You don't need to become what they've all prepared you to be."

Her tone softened, her voice quiet but tinged with something rare from her—concern.

"Because once you do… you'll forget what it felt like to choose. And that's when they win."

He didn't know what to say.

Lilith stepped back, her silhouette blurring at the edges.

"You'll wake soon," she said. "But before you do—remember this."

The garden dimmed. The colors shifted.

Her voice faded with the wind:

"Just because you were born in a storm doesn't mean you have to live in one."

He woke to gray light bleeding through the window.

The heater had shut off sometime in the night, and the room had cooled to silence again. Ryunosuke sat up slowly, the dream still clinging to the edges of his breath—not quite memory, not quite emotion—just the echo of a voice that hadn't sounded like it came from his mind.

Lilith's words lingered in the stillness.

"Just because you were born in a storm doesn't mean you have to live in one."

He reached for his sketchbook without thinking.

No hesitation. No planning.

He flipped to a fresh page and started to draw—not the garden, not Lilith, not even himself.

Just a figure.

Standing at the center of a blank space. No weapons. No mask. No past. One road splitting into two behind him. One foot planted forward, but the other still caught in shadow.

He didn't give it a face.

Didn't give it clothing.

Just posture. Weight. Choice.

The pencil hovered at the edge of the sketch, but he didn't finish it.

He closed the book.

Set it beside him.

And for the first time in days, he let himself breathe—not with purpose, not with pressure.

But to remember that he still could.