To the Temple and Back again

In a desolate world, the only thing surviving is a woman, alone, with a home built over the dry earth. She has the same routine every day, starting when the moon sets, she goes out to forage. Her diet is slightly different from most humans; instead of meats or vegetables, she needs blood. She'll come home just an hour before sunrise discovering the same thing as the last 55,480 days: nothing but her, starving, dehydrated, and miles upon miles of cracked, bone-dry dirt.

On day 55,481, a door appears just over 3 miles west of her shelter. Upon finding it, she stands and stares. "Grandfather?" She whispers, almost afraid she's forgotten the words. "Grandfather, have you come to free me from this torment?" she raises her voice some looking around and up to the moon. Collapsing to her knees and crying out to the sky, "Free me, you coward! I am so tired. I am so alone. I've counted each day as it passes; my sanity sits on the edge begging for this to end." Nothing, just her and the night. The silence sparks insanity otherwise dormant as she stands. Her voice becomes deep and booming across the barren world "I am the Queen of the Undead Lamia, firstborn human nothing can keep me!" She lunges for the door, grips the handle, and jerks it open. She pauses, peering through with nothing on the other side but dirt. The same dust she's been trying to escape since she arrived 55,486 days ago.

Around noon on day 55,487 knock places itself at her door. She rushes towards it, swinging it open while hiding in the fold of the door, evading the light while welcoming the visitor. "H-hello?" a young boy's voice call's from the other side. "Is anyone home?"

"Please come in." The boy walks in the door shutting the instant he's out of its range.

"Hello? Who's there?" Lamia walks around in front of the boy before answering his call. She squats to meet his eyes with her own.

"I am Lamia. How'd you get out here?" She looks the boy up and down, noticing no marks.

"I don't know. A man told me there was a lady who needed my help, and he led me to a door."

"A man?" She asks but wonders if the door, the sudden appearance of a child, is she losing her mind?

"He told me you lost a child." He pauses, looking away for a moment. "I lost my mom." The boy hugs Lamia. She could feel the warmth, the beating of his heart. At first, her body calls to feed, but all of what's human inside her hugs back.

"I'm sorry you've lost your mom; this isn't a safe place to be." She pulls away, combing some of his hair with her fingers. "What's your name?"

"My name is Marcus."

"Come with me Marcus, how old are you?" They walk over to where she sleeps, sitting on top of an old couch.

"I'm 12 years old. How old are you?" Lamia chuckles at the thought of answering.

"It's not very polite to ask a lady her age."

"Why not?"

"I don't know. If I tell you how old I am, do you promise to keep it a secret?" The boy eagerly agrees to the proposition.

"I don't know the exact number anymore, though I'm older than magic. I remember getting to see the second decade and everything after."

"If you're so old, you must've been on all kinds of adventures. My mom always told me when I'm older I'll get to see the world." Both of them spoke until the boy had fallen asleep. Lamia carefully sneaks from the house and to the door. She screams to the sky, "You sick bastard! What did I do to deserve this? You will not warp this boy!" She turns her attention to the hard earth and forces her fingers into it, ignoring the pain pulses of her dark violet magic radiate through the ground below her as clouds fill the sky. She held this pose through the night and returned home, as usual, an hour before the sun would rise. As she steps inside, thunder scares Marcus awake.

"What's happening?"

"It's okay sweet boy; it's just a storm." She sat with him through the wind and rain that followed, waiting for it to end.