🌙𝐋𝐢𝐥𝐢𝐭𝐡
The Lunar Sanctum rose before us like sothing torn from a dream—or a nightmare, depending on how the light caught it.
It wasn’t a building so much as a monunt to sothing ancient and untouchable. Stone columns twisted skyward in spirals that seed to defy gravity, their surfaces carved with symbols that hurt to look at directly. The architecture married the sacred geotry of a temple with the sweeping grandeur of a world-class museum, all flowing lines and impossible angles that made my eyes water when I tried to follow them to their conclusion.
Massive windows of black glass reflected nothing, drinking in light the sa way the car’s surface had. The entrance gaped open like a mouth, frad by an archway that pulsed with veins of silver running through the stone.
Beautiful. Terrifying. Alive in a way that made my skin crawl.
Everything in this realm had that distinct effect on ; either so beautiful it hurt or terrifying it filled with dread.
Two figures erged from the shadows of the entrance as our car ca to a stop. Won draped in black robes that pooled around their feet, the fabric so dark it seed to absorb the daylight around them. Their faces were hidden beneath deep hoods, but I could feel their attention settle on us like weight.
Vladimir stepped out first, moving with that predatory grace that made every gesture look choreographed. One of the robed won inclined her head—a gesture that managed to be both respectful and sohow condescending.
"Alpha," she said, voice smooth as silk.
I climbed out after him, legs unsteady from sitting too long in tension. The second woman approached without a word, hands reaching for the fur coat draped over my shoulders. Her fingers were cold when they brushed my skin, efficient and impersonal as she lifted the weight away.
Neither woman smiled. Neither spoke beyond that single acknowledgnt. Their faces, what I could see of them in the shadow of their hoods, remained blank as carved marble. Unreadable. Unmoved.
They turned and began walking toward the entrance, expecting us to follow.
I fell into step behind them, Vladimir’s presence at my shoulder. The robed figures glided ahead of us, their movents eerily synchronized, like dancers who’d perford this sa routine a thousand tis before.
The closer we got to that gaping entrance, the more the air seed to thicken around us, heavy with the weight of sothing I couldn’t na.
Stepping across the threshold was like crossing into another world entirely.
The mont my feet touched the polished floor inside, the sensation of morning vanished. Not gradually—instantly, as if soone had thrown a switch. The warmth of the climbing sun disappeared from my skin, replaced by the cool embrace of perpetual twilight.
I looked up and forgot how to breathe.
The ceiling soared impossibly high above us, lost in darkness that seed to stretch into infinity. But scattered across that vast expanse were stars—real stars, not the plastic glow-in-the-dark decorations from childhood bedrooms. These burned with genuine light, silver and gold and distant blue, scattered across the artificial night sky like diamonds thrown across black velvet. They pulsed with their own rhythms, so bright and steady, others flickering like candles in an unfelt breeze.
The beauty of it hit like a physical blow. I’d seen planetariums, but this was different—alive, breathing, as if soone had torn a piece of the actual cosmos and trapped it here for their pleasure.
I turned in a slow circle, trying to take it all in. The walls curved away into shadow, their surfaces gleaming with the sa strange stone as the exterior. Everywhere I looked, symbols caught the starlight and threw it back in patterns that seed to shift when I wasn’t looking directly at them.
"Vladimir?" I called softly, my voice swallowed by the vast space.
No answer.
I turned another circle, faster this ti. The robed won who had led us in were gone. The entrance behind us had disappeared into shadow. And Vladimir—
"Vladimir!" Panic crept into my voice, making it crack.
Nothing but the echo of my own fear bouncing back from those impossible walls.
My heart began to race as I spun around, searching the starlit darkness. How had I lost them? We’d been walking together just monts ago, following those silent guides. I’d only looked up at the stars for a few seconds—
"VLADIMIR!" I scread his na now, the sound raw and desperate as it tore from my throat.
The stars above continued their silent dance. My feet found their pace, carrying deeper into the space as panic took hold. I ran toward what I thought might be corridors or alcoves, calling his na until my voice went hoarse. The darkness seed to part before and close behind, as if the very building was swallowing my presence.
Had he left here intentionally? Was this so kind of test? Or had sothing happened to him too?
My breath ca in short gasps as I stumbled through the cosmic twilight, alone with nothing but the stars as witnesses to my growing terror.
"Lili."
The voice cut through the starlit silence like a blade, and my entire body went rigid. Every muscle locked in place, my breath catching in my throat as recognition slamd into with the force of a sledge hammar.
I knew that voice. Had dread of it, mourned it, tried desperately to forget it when guilt was too much to bear.
Footsteps echoed behind ; soft, asured, achingly familiar. The sound of heels on polished stone, the sa cadence I’d heard a thousand tis walking down hallways of our cramped family ho, across kitchen floors, up stairs to tuck into bed.
My heart hamred against my ribs as I slowly turned around, terrified of what I’d find but unable to stop myself.
She stood there beneath the cosmic canopy, bathed in starlight that seed to gather around her like she was drawing it in. Hazel eyes that I’d not inherited stared back at , warm and alive and impossible. Blonde hair fell in waves past her shoulders, just the way I rembered, just the way it had been before—
It was coloured auburn with her own blood.
"Mom?" The word escaped as barely a whisper, my voice breaking on that single syllable.
She smiled; that gentle, knowing smile that had comforted scraped knees and soothed nightmares, that had been absent from my world for so long I’d started to forget what it looked like.
"Hello, sweetheart," she said, taking a step closer. Her voice was exactly as I rembered it, soft and lodic, carrying that hint of laughter it always held when she looked at .
My legs gave out. I stumbled backward, my hand flying to my mouth, my breath coming short, painful spurts. This couldn’t be real. This couldn’t be happening. She was gone. She’d been gone for years.
Three years.
But there she stood, solid and real under the impossible stars, looking at with all the love I’d lost.
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