Chapter 9: Visions of the Past
"What do we do?" Lucifer asked with panic as he gripped Lilith tightly, tears in his eyes. They were sat on a bench in the palace's garden, crimson grass surrounded them. There were trees with red leaves and black bark in a circle around the bench. Their daughter, Charlie, was playing with a toy doll about twenty metres from them, blissfully unaware of Lilith's condition.
Lilith was dying, she had been for a long time, but neither of them ever wanted to accept it. She had bound her soul to the tree of knowledge when she had forged the seven rings, and she was cut off from it, she was beginning to fade, same as the Hellborne demons.
"It's too late for me, Luci," said Lilith, holding her husband's hands in her own.
"No!" cried Lucifer, "don't say that! We can take back Eden, then you'll be alright! You'll be fine!"
"We can't rush things, my love," Lilith said as she shook her head, "if we act too quickly, we'll be unprepared and our one opportunity will be wasted."
"How long do you have?" Lucifer asked hesitantly, unsure if he wanted to know the answer.
"I'll probably live to see Charlie become a grown woman," Lilith said, unlike Lucifer she wasn't panicking, she was beginning to come to terms with her demise.
Lucifer gripped Lilith tightly as if letting her go would mean he'd never see her again.
"I love you," is all Lucifer could say in between tearful sobs.
"I love you too," Lilith said as she rested her head on Lucifer's and a tear rolled across the ridge of her nose.
"If Eden is to be reclaimed someone will need to inherit the flame," Lilith said, Lucifer looked up into her eyes and spoke.
"Do you think…" Lucifer began to ask.
"Charlie? No. I won't force Sin upon her, it'll need to be another sinner, someone with the drive to change Hell for the better," Lilith explained.
This was where Lilith and Lucifer disagreed on things, Lucifer thought that Hell was too dependent on Sin for it to be gotten rid of, while Lilith thought that the Age of Sin had to come to an end to make way for something new. They may have been in disagreement, but this wasn't the time to express those thoughts.
Lucifer reached into the pocket of his jacket, pulling out a white metal ring, it shone like a star in the night sky. He looked from the ring to his daughter, who was still playing in the grass.
"Are you thinking of giving her that?" Lilith asked.
"Only if she wants it," Lucifer said, "I'll wait until she's a woman to see if she'll take that responsibility."
"And if she doesn't?" Lilith asked.
"Then she'll still be our daughter, which is all we need her to be," Lucifer said.
They'd been distracted for a moment, but Lucifer's mind crept back to the thought of Lilith dying and tears filled his eyes once again.
"I love you…" Lilith said as she leaned into her husband.
"I love you too…" replied Lucifer.
Cold tears rolled down Charlie's face as she awoke to a bright morning, she remembered that day, at the time she was just playing with her toys and she was confused when she saw her parents crying, only now realising why. Despite the pain it brought her she tried to hold onto the dream, she reached into the bedside drawer and grabbed a pen and paper, using them to frantically write down what had happened before she forgot it, any memory of her mother was precious to her, whether it was real or not. As she wrote her mind began to piece things together, what she'd seen wasn't a dream at all but was rather one of the visions of the past that her father had described. The vision answered nothing and only brought questions with it, Lilith and Lucifer had been speaking of things that Charlie had no knowledge of, she began to ask herself what they had meant. Inherit the flame? Why did Lilith need another sinner? What was that white ring she'd seen?
Charlie looked towards the morning sun so that she might reflect, but her eyes widened when she saw that it was still night and that the light wasn't coming from the sun at all. In the distance, on the other side of the city, was a tower in flames.