Chaos

Chapter 1

There was nothing but silence around Lilah. Late afternoon sunlight gently filled the room, and miniscule particles in the air floated through its beams. She stared almost blindly at the beautiful manifestation of nature, dancing through the light. If only everything in life could be so gentle, so pure. Blowing wayward hair out of her eyes, she forced herself to refocus. Looking back down, Lilah buried her hands wrist deep in the surprisingly still-warm liquid. It was thicker than she expected and the smell invaded her nose.

Seemingly offended, it began to twitch. She reached up quickly to catch her sneeze, in the process covering the bottom half of her face in dish soap. Laughing softly, she buried her face in her shoulder to wipe away the suds. Detergents always made her sneeze.

Strong arms suddenly banded around her waist and hoisted her off the ground. Screaming, she flailed her arms, flinging bubbles all over the kitchen.

"Misha! Put me down!" Laughing gleefully, she threw her head back as he spun her in circles, her wild movements knocking the fruit bowl off the breakfast island.

"Put me down this instant!" She giggled like a toddler as his warmth engulfed her and buried her face in his chest when he set her down.

"I love you so much," he whispered into her hair...

"I love you too," she uttered aloud, caught in the bittersweet memory. 

Lilah realised she couldn't breathe through her nose and wetness covered her cheeks. She was crying. That familiar male scent morphed into something metallic, the now icy air clinging to the bare skin of her arms. Lilah warily re-opened her eyes to the scene before her. No loving comfort. No warmth. Most certainly not her kitchen.

The walls around her were nothing but cement, icy stone beneath her knees. The cold like fingers dug into her skin and each movement she made echoed up into the never ending tower. The only reprieve from her stark surroundings was a small, unadorned window, where a new evening's darkness was beginning to banish the weak sunlight. A window that was out of the reach of any ordinary individual. She sniffled drearily.

Nothing like sitting alone in a dark, frigid tower to drive home a sense of hopelessness.

A shudder rocked the building, and Lilah was reminded of her purpose there. She wiped her eyes in the crook of her elbow. The aching maw in her chest would have to wait.

Lilah took a deep breath and glanced down. She had to close her eyes again to keep from retching. Which was almost laughable, considering. As if the mere squelching sound of her hands moving inside another human's body wasn't enough to make her want to vomit. A lot.

Of course, it was her own fault she was wrist deep in a stranger's internal organs. She knew better. She truly did. She'd seen an Oracle once, who told her 'You beg carnage to follow you. It is your shadow. It is kindred. You call to its darkness, as it does to you. But this curse one cannot break, merely escape...'. Though cryptic and infuriating, she had not been wrong. Lilah was prone to leaving a rather conspicuous trail of havoc behind her, and for some reason kept ending up where disaster already reigned. However, at this point, disaster was kind of her best buddy. She didn't really want to escape the curse. Not for the next three minutes and forty-two seconds, at least.

It would be reasonable to assume that there would have to be something very important tucked away in another being's stomach, for a delicate and proper lady such as Lilah—cough cough—to risk the unknown mysteries of digestive acid. In a sense, that would be true. The talisman was important, she was sure. Just not to her. The idea was that if she could retrieve it without incurring grizzly death at the hands of its rabid minions, there was a literal chest of treasure with her name on it waiting on the other side. Turned out she was a mercenary at heart. Sigh.