[9:33 PM — Wednesday, December 23rd]

Hickory dickory dock. The mouse ran up the clock.

The morgue’s sterile silence trembled with an impossible rhythm.

Three hours. Three minutes. Three seconds.

It had been that long since Lilith Romana Grimes was pronounced dead. 

Cause of death. Chest cavity hemorrhage. This was what was in the doctors’ reports. But many eyes who witness the body argued otherwise. 

Cracked ribcage, bones piercing several vital organs. The internal damage was in terrible shape as if someone had taken a sledgehammer and had at it. It was an unexplainable phenomenon that had come out of nowhere without answers. 

Yet, lying upon the sliding table, her body, a vessel waiting to be reclaimed, sat. The thing white sheet that cloaked her body fell just before the stitches unraveled like a nursery rhyme’s last desperate verse. Skin unfolded, and a hand emerged—elegant, coated in the memory of death.

Caked in red, she climbed, contorting upward to stand upright before a mirror to run her fingers through their long hair. It was deep black with a potent shimmering scarlet hue underlying its color. Amber hazel eyes studied the reflection that looked back. Supple, firm skin, caked in a thick layer of blood that slowly moved around, shifted, and thickened to folds. It hardened not as a shell but into silk that dried into a black dress with many folds.

Lilith could taste the cold remnant of death—sharp, bitter, temporary.

The fluorescent light flickered, its electricity feeling almost like pins dancing across her resurrected form. 

With a deep sigh, Lilith poked and prodded at her supple, firm skin. It felt like new clothes, freshly washed and out of the dryer.

“Middle 30’s huh? Oh, Diora, you’ve been a naughty girl to bring me back to such a state.”

Her tone was sharp, and her gaze shifted to a more familiar, harsh scowl. Her reflection in the mirror stared back independently as if it were its own person in another world. 

The clock struck one. The mouse ran down.

“Hmm, they should have left me be, yes?” The reflection smiled as Lilith continued to talk to herself. “And here I was content with dying of old age…” 

A rat in the corner—witness and unwitting participant—scurried, unaware its fate was already written.

The independent reflection walked away out of view from its mirrored world, disappearing entirely. Seconds, if so long, did the squeaking from the tiny creature bellow out in pain last.

A cut emerging along its back as if being dissected.

“Don’t be that way,” Lilith hushed. “Fighting back always hurts. Just let it be.”

Hair curling sounds simmered as the skin of the rat folding back into place. It’s body twitching despite not having a pulse.

“There, not so bad now, is it? Go find her. She couldn’t have gotten too far. And while you’re at it, find that foul stench I smell as well.”

At the words of its commands, it scurried out of sight. 

Alone, Lilith stared back at the vacant mirror to adore herself. Despite no reflection she took to gazing upon it as if there was. Stretching, touching her toes without bending her knees, rolling her shoulders, and tilting her head. 

“Goodness… It’s been so long since I could move like this…”

Not a moment later, a single fluorescent light above flickered. 

As it steadied, the woman it had casted over was gone.

Hickory dickory dock. 

[1:07 AM — Thursday, December 24th] 

The mouse ran up the clock.

The rats began their dance. One bite. Then another. A mathematical progression of infection, of control. Lilith’s unspoken command transformed them from individual creatures to a single, pulsing organism.

By 3:15 AM, two million rats moved as one—a living clock ticking to a rhythm only she could hear.

The mouse ran down the clock.

[11:13 PM — Thursday, December 24th]

Lilith watched, her gaze falling upon the intricate network of the sprawling streets and the city lights. She stood, with no ground, floating in the air high above for none to see as it provided the most beautiful sight to behold—the symphony that was about to be had.

“Every command,” she murmured, “must come with a sacrifice.”

Raising her hands as if to conduct a silent orchestra, she tapped her fingers into the air. It was as if an enormous shadowy hand reached out, covering the entire city. Most people thought nothing of it, a simple gust of wind. Chilling, dry, cold air, a by-product of winter days at night in the heart of a city. 

But for Lilith, it was as if she held the entire city in her grip. 

The city streets pulsated like veins, one with her own heartbeat. Clapping her hands together, the rats in the city, no matter how far and wide, were both her eyes and ears. The whispers of everyone, man, woman, and child, tickled her eardrum until one voice reached her with a name. 

“Alicent…”

It was a curse in of itself to utter a witch’s full name, even worse, should a title be attached to it. Yet, for Lilith, it brought with it a declaration of war. 

By midnight, Lilith had taken to finishing one witch only for another’s name to grace her ears. 

But as she moved, she found her path crossing another’s. A woman stepped from the building engulfed in flames. Her body healed almost instantly, leaving not even a scratch as fingers ran through her long, ashen white hair. It was not a Witch but an old friend—the friend of her daughter, who stood with a dazzling and hypnotic grin.

“Eve…”

“Lilith…”

The two stared at each other, their hands filled with still air and death within their grips.

“Is that a witch in your hands?”

“Yeah. Long night. Going to burn her over in that nice big fancy candle you got going on. You? Want help with that?”

“No. No need. You aren’t the type for revenge anyways. Don’t worry. He doesn’t have much longer.”

“Good.”

“Good.”

Time is a rat, while death is a whisper. The clock never stops as the two carry on with their businesses.

Hickory dickory dock.