Were the room not so dark, Victoria may have seen how beautifully the curls in her hair reflected the light. How the yellow red hue played against the glass before her. The room was dark, though, and though the wall before her was made entirely of glass, no reflection was possible. She stared into it anyway, hoping as she did in her waking hours, that something would change. It hadn’t, at least not while she looked. It was only a deep blue, almost black, that never changed or faltered. Often Victoria had wondered why it was there, what purpose it served. Everything here, in the space she could move, seemed to serve a purpose but this. One small green light, fading almost imperceptibly every day, seemed to indicate some sort of lively hood, of this she was sure. It blinked, steadily, a pinprick in the darkness. She felt it was talking to her, without sound, a desperate plea that wanted what she wanted and knew what that might be. Should anything happen, she was not sure she could resist the temptation to pursue the meaning of this light. Tim, she called it. She felt, she knew Tim’s purpose.

But not this wall. Through its sheer immensity and darkness, it perplexed her. In fact, within the inner reaches of her mind she could hear herself say that it caused her fear. But she knew, living with it, that she must face it. So she did, in all of her waking hours she willed it to change. Looking on, forever.

The silence was broken, by a low monstrous moan. Formless syllables lined the deep groaning of a material beyond her comprehension. It belied forces that could crush something so fragile as her, were she to face it. Eyes widening, she looked up at something that seemed to be all around her, pounding her chest and fighting with her heartbeat for dominance in the forefront of her mind. And after seconds that seemed a lifetime, it was gone and she was left alone with the beating and churning of her organs.

Suddenly she was aware of her body, of her inner workings. That she was functioning, and through that she reflected this vessel she rode upon. She wondered what it looked like, how this outcropping or the next could be put to use. She reached up and grabbed her ear, and even in her tiny hand it seemed delicate. Was she, delicate? Or was it a perception induced by the unknown comparison of things similar to her? Desperately she wished to look upon herself, to know if, at the very least, she was as aesthetically pleasing as she believed.

Her thoughts disappeared quickly, with a discipline honed by an eternity absent of distractions. Thoughts like that, wishes, like that, would do nothing. Her thoughts clear she returned to her task, perhaps, she thought, her purpose for being here. To win over The Wall, should that be the end of it, or her, or anything at all, she didn’t know. She only knew that nothing had changed, so she looked.

Hours would pass before she would rest, and before the immense stamina of The Wall, she must conserve her strength. The focus that strained her quiet mind was still yet strong, and while she peered into the darkness, into silence and the unknown, she thought of Tim. She reached out, unwillingly, with thoughts of something she could not describe. She heard him clicking, the deep silence of the room making it impossible not to hear a sound made by electrons moving from one wire to the next. Maybe, she thought, I don’t speak his language. Perhaps this clicking is a desperate struggle to be understood, an almost silent plea to give unto her the knowledge she sought of The Wall. Perhaps Tim was not named so, but possessed a name belonging to a language she could not hear or imagine.

If It were so, it was sad. He persisted, perhaps for her benefit or to the benefit of nobody at all.

Maybe, he simply was.

It was the first time she considered such a thing, despite being here for so long. Her longing for the opposite was a physical pain she felt, not in any place in particular but in such a way it caused her to ache. A sound then, which she had not heard ever in her waking hours, brushed past her lips.

Her feet hit the floor with a solemn tone, but she ignored it. She was aware that footfalls made noise. She was not, however, aware that she could. She tried once more to create it, trying to force lungs to create a breath only those who had known physical struggle could provide. But she could feel it, moving within her throat. She tried pursing lips unfamiliar with the task, and flexing a throat never flexed. It was exhausting.

Wondering if it was in her head, she sat down, her attention drawn completely away from the wall. Inwardly she knew, that she was unfocused and that in this moment the wall was winning whatever downward spiral of a struggle they were in, but she did not care. The possibility of any new element was something her unexposed mind simply could not ignore. Hours passed.

She awoke in the place she had been sitting, as she did every time her consciousness returned. She got up slowly and felt her throat, the pain there was almost insignificant in everything but the fact that it was there. She had felt pain before, long before, when she did not know the dimensions of her universe. But this, she felt, was proof of the anomaly she had experienced. But how? How did that occur, she mused as she rose, moving to her left, to a wall she had defeated. Her hand ran down its flawless surface in a usual and practiced manner of searching for new elements, anything she could hold over The Wall she now fought. Though as it had time and time again, the frail light that Tim provided only reassured her that this wall was simply that, a wall. Nor were the next two she searched, carefully running her hands down each surface, taking extra care to circle Tim with her index finger in a way that could be said to contain love.

Her routine, if it could be said to be one, complete, she collapsed into the chair exhausted. The frail atrophied body she possessed done with its physical labors for the day. Hours passed, most of what could be called her day even, as she half-heartedly continued her dispute with her nemesis. She felt discontent for the first time ever. It had always been simple. There was The Wall, and there was her. One would win, eventually, through circumstances that had yet to be seen. She could not know how she or it would win, but-

Was it the wall? Is it trying something new?

A new feeling emerged as she felt her face grow hot, and were she aware of any color but Tim she would know her face flushed red with anger.

Have you stooped so low as to harm me?

She stood, furious. She had never felt these things before, but she felt empowered. Her limbs which had never known strength quivering with the adrenaline fueled rage of a titan.

You bastard! She screamed internally, approaching it with a raised fist. Two can play at that game, TWO CAN-

Her weight shifted against her will, and it seemed gravity increased. The long, powerful roar of the material encapsulating her bellowed in her heart and mind. Her legs nearly buckling, her hand melting from its iron state.

No, she thought. No I… this isn’t… I’m sorry I took it to far I’m sorry I-

Her weight shifted against her will once more, her legs buckling and sending her towards the wall at speeds she had never known. Her head clashed, with a deathly hollow sound, against the entity she called The Wall, and again with the floor, and her consciousness faded as she thought at Tim to save her.

He answered, unfaltering, as he always had, as everything faded to black.

She awoke, blinded, and thought that this was the end. The Wall had won with its powerplay, and she had fallen right into its plans. She struggled to get up, to see, and slowly it came to her. She saw Tim, in front of her, dead it seemed. His joyous and unfaltering signs of life had finally faltered, and he was gone.

She wept silently at the loss of the only thing she had ever enjoyed. Great waves of fluid rushed from her eyes and blinded her once more to her surroundings, and she was alone in the darkness. She was, she realized, still within her world, her knowledge. She looked at the wall, her body racked by silent waves of grief. Her body dragged behind her as she made a desperate attempt to reach it, so that she could give in. Take me, she thought, you’ve bested me, and I cannot go on knowing so. END IT, I…

Her words faded in her mind, wiped of all anger or sorrow as the wall responded. She looked on as it began to change. She looked and realized how close she was, inches from it, and she began to see. The Wall was merciful? The change began to grow. The deep blue of the abyss was changing, into a thing of light, the color shifted brighter and brighter until she could see things beyond her ability to describe them. They moved naturally through the abyss, paying no mind to her. She gaped in awe as she saw a new thing.

It was beautiful, she thought, as she looked. It was soft and kind, dotted with light brown flecks against a pale white background. A red, soft line, sat below some sort of structure protruding from the silky canvas, both equally as beautiful and curvaceous as the rest. Two small, embedded globes of white contained the prettiest thing she had ever seen, circles of emerald encasing a small black sphere. She felt sadness, and the liquid pouring down her face as she was reminded of her loss, and saw liquid pouring from it, as well.

The first time I got high was outside of a bar called Taproot. A collection of bearded musicians and a wooden dance floor that seemed to attract older men like my date, trying to impress impressionable young women, like I used to be. There were many pairs of us, but somehow I felt elite, sitting next to my brooding companion. We were by far the handsomest, of that I was smugly certain.

It was winter, but the hipster-local-who-cares-cocktails I had consumed kept me warm when we went outside - snowing though it was. A jacket would cover the appeal of my outfit - my trap for his eyes. His eyes never needed much ensnaring, they flittered around recklessly even then.

His Chevrolet truck - with the covered back where he kept the dogs he walked for a living - was open at the driver’s side. I was soon against the door - swooning under whiskey lips and feeling heady from the thrill of being desired. He pulled back - lids heavy, and produced a joint from his flannel breast pocket. I was delighted by every cliché. I fell for his jungle colors, his peacock spread.

I was a novice then, and so his taste for my lips and my lack of knowledge lead to an exchange. He blew the smoke within me - again and again - watched me expel it into the night air. The fiddle that played in the background of our embraces called my attention now - as did the gaze of the door guard. A full figured man - he peered at our exchange,  and I supposed he had watched many couples in this manner - too drunk to notice his leer. Fresh from the country, every detail of this shoddy part of town enthralled me - made me feel like a bold city girl.

My date noticed the fat man’s observation, and pulled me to him again. It was a performance - I couldn’t recognize then that this display was more for the guard’s benefit than mine. It was this night that I went home with him, the night of my surrender - exchange of flesh. A step more severe for me than for him, of that I was aware.

We were woken the next morning by a knock - followed without much pause by an open door - for which his roommate seemed embarrassed. I covered myself, blushing. My lips were swollen from kissing, I felt them with my fingertips as my date cursed his roommate. The roommate, a shy boy - was just short of writhing in his discomfort.

“I’m sorry man, she just came in.”

From behind him, a woman stepped forth, closer to my date’s age than mine. I stared back defiantly from his bed on the floor, though my date began to sputter and collect himself. I’m embarrassed for that stare now. She said nothing, but my boxer-clad companion followed her out the door.

In my naivety I allowed him to embrace me again when he returned, no questions asked or answered. Foolish men thrive on foolish girls.

Foolish girls let foolish men tell them to ignore their intuition, ignore their observations.

I did not stop being a foolish girl until I found myself at his door, peering in at him and a face that didn’t belong to me - who stared back at me with a familiar rosy defiance.

“Cross God one time, and you will be depicted forever as a bloodied goat man - but I’m the evil one.”

       She crossed and uncrossed her legs.

       Indeed, the young woman across from me was not unpleasant to look at. She was plain looking, mousy even.

       If I had been told that the devil were a woman, my mind would have filled with a vision of a Delilah temptress, forked tongue slipping in my ear while I quivered with waning resistance.

       Alas - no swirling smoke, no hopping henchmen. Dressed in crimson satin, a woman devil of my imagination would convince me to do vile things with whimsy.

       The woman across from me was buttoned down, no cleavage or flitting eyelashes. She looks like a mom. I try to keep my suspicion, any fool could guess that this was naught but a trick. Blue blouse and khakis did not an innocent make.

“Oh, this isn’t my normal form, this is a rental especially for you.”

       A wink, there it was - the trickster was out to play. Ignoring that Lucifer was reading my unexpressed thoughts - I was filled with disgust. This woman possessed, to be used and discarded like some puppet.

“Don’t you recognize me?”

       Staccato laughter burst from her, drawing the attention of the tables around us. It was that laugh that began the chill, which poured over my skin like oil.

“This is my fault, I tend to indulge in theatrics.”

       She began to change. Sallow shrinking greying meat - half of her face ripped up with a violence, showing bloodless flesh - she laughed again, the laughter strange sounding from behind flapping skin. It was then that I saw the tire marks, which crawled up across her chest before me.

“Remember me now?”

       I had tried to forget. Spread on pavement in the dark - I hadn’t gotten a good look. Besides, I had been very drunk.

Everything pours out of me,

sand in an arthritic hand -

but nothing is poured in you see,

'cept weed and wine and vanity.

little more...

Just one more sip -

I'm almost done, don't give me lip.

"Just bitch and whine!"

"I told you, I'm fine."

I do not seek adjustment - I can only hope to wait out his whiskey. My husband is more malevolent these days.

"I'm fine." He used to say, before I stopped believing him.

He seemed fine, fit and functional - who am I to question method? I am no virgin to dysfunction.

My mother said the same. Father too, fine as well, broken glass - drunk as hell.

Wives are different than daughters, they're drowned by husbands in darker waters.

She was in air for a fitful moment, but gravity soon interrupted.  A vision of legs and lavender fabric collided with earth -

        “humph”

The noise escaped her with the impact, a betrayal of her pride by her body. Her arms followed her legs in a manner equally unceremonious - flailing for orientation.

At once she was still, slapped breathless by the fall. A cloud of dirt held the air above her, and she had every appearance of being dead. The group of men that surrounded her waited curiously, the possibility of her expiration being of little consequence to them. They fidgeted quietly, sleepy-eyed and indifferent.

Lilith was not however, dead; and as her lungs expanded and reclaimed her chest, she coughed fitfully for the dust. She sat up. The men in the circle did not move save for the occasional curious glance at the figure responsible for Lilith’s condition. King Henrick Kane, Lord of this realm, such as it was - continued his surly observation from the deck. He had not moved since launching Lilith off the porch by two fistfuls of her dress.   

This King had a penchant for rattling cages. Cruelty - impervious to any counter, a royal indulgence. Preening in self admiration, he ran his palms across his temples and back over an oily sheen of black hair.   

Henrick’s henchman - though that term seemed generous - were silent still, some swaying slightly in the breeze of the morning. The collective of their odors was representative of an excess in spirits, and an absence of hygiene. This could be said of their appearance as well, each man looking more like a criminal caricature than the last. They seemed bored by this midmorning drama.

Lilith pulled her legs and dress beneath her - concerned more with hiding her weapon than protecting her modesty. Her dignity, though valuable to Lilith - had proven less useful as of late. It was then that she saw the broken body in the dirt beside her. A familiar man, dead - a bloody broken head. The diplomat!

Her eyes widened,

“What have you done?”

Her voice was hollow, and she paused at the weight of this discovery. The man was a barbarian, and his life was of no sentimental value to her - but he was the political face of a tribe sick with bloodlust. The entire village would answer for this transgression. She stood to face the King, who smiled at her -

       “I have done nothing.”

Something in his tone alarmed her. King Henrick continued,

       “He was poisoned, some sort of hag’s brew I’m sure. Perhaps in his coffee, I don’t know your methods precisely.”

Her mouth fell open at the lie, and his smile grew wider, delighted by his own performance,

       “He fell off his horse once it took effect, and his head was smashed upon a rock. I saw it myself.”

But it wasn’t true, the diplomat was firmly on his horse before Henrick had struck him with the bottle. Half of the hunting party had seen it, and they snickered now from within the ranks. They - much like Henrick, had a penchant for inflicting misery.

       “The village already knows you killed one man, what’s another?”

Lilith was breathless - stunned. Though Henrick had unfairly summarized her crime, it was true that many in the village would accept his lie happily - rumors and reputations as they were. The ringing in her ears grew louder, and she shook her head.

       “You can’t --”

       “Silence, witch. I am still speaking.”

His need for control was palpable.

       “You have served me well in your time here, and thus I will allow you one hour.”

She opened her mouth to speak again, and he raised a silencing finger.

       “Confess your crime to his people, or I will add the charge of witchcraft. If you do not confess within the hour, you will face justice by my hand.”

His hand would show no mercy, of that she was certain. The king pointed then, gesturing to the forest across the lawn behind Lilith and his men. She turned - wordless, as words would be of no use to her now - and began across the lawn, gathering the front of her dress in hand. Her heart raced in preparation for flight, but Lilith did not want to give him the satisfaction of seeing her bolt in terror. She fought the storm of adrenaline within her.

It was only moments after that there was a shrill whistle - followed by raucous laughter from the fools behind her. A low sound in the distance grew louder, recognition stopped her heart cold - a howl. A damning sound. Instinct took over, and she began to run, her bare feet padding the grass with increasing pace.

The king threw a final taunt before she disappeared into the trees -

       “It would seem my hounds cannot measure an hour!”

Your laughter has static -

it crackles,

tickles a piece of my brain.

I cackle,

but you - you laugh,

and by your pain I am baffled.

Though she felt the weight of her gaze, Lilith ignored her. Poor attempts to get her attention - cough, cough. What a pest this woman was. She supposed that cough was a hint. Impending danger did nothing to quell the petty annoyance swelling within her.

Shifting the papers before her, her hands disrupted the pool of smoke that had spilled from the glass piece and onto the desk. Lilith had the ritual and charm practiced, but still, she was nervous. She took a sip of liquor from the muddy-colored glass beside her.

She lifted the pipe again, and Lucille could no longer refrain, rising from her chair,

“Lilith, if you do not extinguish that now...”

“Big talk from a woman who needs protection from her own mother.”

Lilith was wry, but her taunt did nothing to lighten the air, which was heavy with smoke and fear.

Lucille’s expression, having previously held prim - darkened, “I told you, that thing, whatever it is -- it is no longer my mother. Whatever I spoke to, whatever monster sitting behind those eyes, it was a stranger. Something has consumed her.”

She stepped before Lilith at the desk, her tone low and clipped, “I assume you know what a blow it is to my pride, coming to you with this...problem.” She eyed Lilith - continuing, “Considering my previously held opinions on the validity of your...talents, I am grateful for your help.” She swatted at a fresh plume of smoke from Lilith, who nodded - drawing again from the pipe.

“But - given the potential danger of this encounter - wouldn’t some lucidity be advantageous?” She raised her eyebrows at Lilith, who now held an indulgence per hand. The stranger had been tracking Lucille for days now, and the frailty of her composure was apparent, even in her condescension.

    “I am lucid.”

Lilith felt no obligation to explain her methods to someone who had - until yesterday, decried her as a fraud. Only her severe pragmatism had brought Lucille here, and only by the end of her own rope.

Lucille opened her mouth to argue, but was interrupted by a scratching at the door. Lilith leapt to her feet. Liquid bravado and all, she felt ice crawl up her spine.

There was a shrill muttering at the door then, feverish and unnatural.

“Lucilleeeeee.”

Lilith’s stomach twisted violently. She looked to Lucille, whose face was bloodless. Lilith lifted her hands, which had clutched the wooden ledge of the desk with such vigor that her knuckles were white.

“Lucilleeeeee.”

They locked eyes then, and Lilith tightened the leather strap at her waist. They both stepped to the door, and the stranger behind door grew silent at their approach. Lucille's hand hovered above the handle, and she looked to Lilith, who nodded.

They did their best to ignore the low cackle that broke the silence.

“Open the door.”