NEVER NEVER NEVER

Lilitu the Erotic Female Demon

 After the sage disappeared into thin air, I am left alone in the dark forest. I wonder if it was a daydream or it really happened. But I made an oath to the old sage, and my life mission sits firmly in my heart.

As soon as the night clears out with faint sunlight, I advance toward the north. The double ascending mountains are still nowhere in sight. I keep walking the sun behind my back.

Several days after encountering the old sage, my eyes detect a protruding stone edifice in the forest.  I get curious about what I am seeing ahead of me. Probably, there is a city nearby. I become cautious of advancing because the Gods or demi-Gods might rule the city.

The more I get close to the town, the more I become watchful. I abhor how I am feeling, and I resist the feeling of running away. My feet stop once in a while to make sure nothing unpredictable awaits me.

My left foot steps on a twig, and it breaks. A cracking sound echoes in the air, and hundreds of birds fly away from a large oak tree in front of me. I freeze.

The forest turns back to silence. I detect a red-ochre stone structure beneath the oak tree. The wall surrounding the town is near.  I advance one step at a time. A vast edifice exposes itself in the middle of the forest.

I stand in front of the gigantic wall and observe it from left to right—it extends to eternity. Red piled bricks are falling apart in many places. I climb up one of the broken cracks on the wall and sneak inside to the city.

The city is completely run down and destroyed. The streets are filled with debris, and the plants are taking over the environment. The tall brick buildings fall apart in ruin.  They only let me imagine how glorious days had been. Those prosperous years were gone a long time ago, and the memory of the civilization is wiped out completely.

I walk around one street after another with amazement. I notice something keenly peculiar. At first, I overlooked that peculiarity. The second time I walked back to the streets where I came from, something became very clear.

At every corner, there is a statue with large bosoms with voluptuous hips. She is completely n***d. Behind her, two wings are extended into the air. Her feet are the feet of eagles instead of human feet. She must be a deity whose inhabitants worshiped.

"Wait a moment." I stop and reflect.

I realize that this is not a city like how I imagined. This is a gigantic ancient temple that worshiped this female deity. This monstrous temple was built only for her. This realization makes my spine cold.

At the back of the central path, I observe the highest structure protruding into the sky. That was the pyramid I saw from the forest. My feet cautiously approach the building.

Once at the foot of the temple, I look up, and endless numbers of staircases extend to the sky. I firmly step forward and keep moving upward. When I reached the last step, I turn around to see the view beneath me.

The deep green forest extends to eternity, and a faint brush of blue in the distance catches my eyes. It must be the Tigris river. I look left, and another blue stream far away is in my view. That must be the Euphrates.

The entrance to the temple opens up the mouth as if it wants to swallow me. Inside is pitch dark. My feet move toward the rectangular void, magnetized by the invisible force.

In the darkness, the temperature drops drastically. I shiver. My eyes try to adjust to blackness. My vision gradually comes back, and the profound space becomes present in front of me. There is an altar made out of stone. A burning incense fills the space. A statue of the nude female deity stands mischievously as if she is provoking me with her sexuality.

I gulp my throat and look away. Her provocation is too much for me to handle, even it is a stone statue.

My eyes stare back at the statue's face. Her face is the face of a beautiful young Sumer woman. Her eyes are so inviting, as if your soul is sucked into them. I keep staring at her eyes, and her eyes stare back at me.

Her face begins to blur and reshapes itself. I notice that I am looking at my wife's face before leaving my house for the duel with Musashi. Her eyes were telling me not to go, but she stayed quiet without uttering any words. She knew somehow I wouldn't come back alive. She couldn't tell me not to go because she was the wife of well-known samurai. 

"Kojiro, I missed you since you were gone." She whispers.

"Come close to me, my love."

I am confused. My wife is in front of me, and she is begging me to be with her. My brain tells me it is impossible for her to be here. But my heart is dying to hold her in my arms. Her eyes are filled with sorrow.

"Please come to me and hold me like how you used to hold me."

My foot moves forward, and my eyes are mesmerized by her gaze. My wife keeps holding both of her arms toward me.

"Yes, I love you, Kojiro. Kiss me."

Another foot moves forward. I reach my hand for her.

"Hold my hand, Kojiro. I missed you so much!" She extends her arms.

When my finger is about to touch hers, someone tackled me from the left side, and I was thrown onto the floor.

"Kojiro, don't be fooled by Lilitu's black magic. She is trying to seduce you so that she can suck your blood out of your body. Once she grabs you, she will not let you go until you turn into a dry corpse."

I look toward the voice. A cobra woman is holding me tight. She is stopping me from moving forward. I stare back at the statue, and now, she is no longer has my wife's face. Instead, it turned to my mother, who died when I was still small.

"Kojiro, do you remember me? I am your mother." She stares at me with a warm smile.

My heart aches for her.

"Mom!" I stretch my arm toward her.

"Come to your mother. Come, Kojiro!" My mother holds her arms as if she wants to lift me.

I desperately try to get away from the cobra woman to get closer to my mother.

"Kojiro, close your eyes. Lilitu cast a spell on you. If you don't see her eyes, she can't trick you with her black magic."

I close my eyes as told and calm myself down. Soon, serenity fills my heart, and I am back to myself. 

"Kojiro, you have to slay her head with your sword. Keep closing your eyes, and I will tell you where she is." The cobra woman warns me from behind. 

I stand up tall and take out my sword from my back and aim it straight at the female Demon.

"Keep closing your eyes. Move one step left and two steps forward." The cobra woman commands me with certitude. I move exactly as told, step by step.

"You aren't going to kill your mother, are you, Kojiro?" Lilitu continues to perplex me.

"Two steps forward and swing your sword at your shoulder level." The cobra woman's voice echoes the room. I take two steps forward.

"You can't kill me. You are my boy."

"Now!" The cobra woman screams.

I swing my sword sideways as fast as possible. I hear the howling scream— an outcry of my mother.

My heart aches—I killed my own mother.

I hear something fall on the ground. I open my eyes slowly to see the head of Lilitu lying on the floor.

"You did it!" The cobra woman yells with joy.

I turn around and thank her.

"You saved my life. I can never repay you for what you've done for me. Thank you!" I bow deeply in front of her.

"Don't even mention it. You often helped me when we were in that dungeon."

Many questions bubble up in my mind.

"How did you know that I was here?" I am perplexed.

"I didn't mean to come here to save you. I was running away from some bounty hunters."

"Bounty hunters?" Her words confuse me.

"Yeah, when you run away from Uruk, all the guards' attention was on you. So I seized the opportunity to escape. I run opposite to where you run. Luckily, no one saw me running away from the south gate."

I still don't get about the bounty hunters.

"How about the bounty hunters?" I inquire.

"As soon as I left the city of Uruk, I changed the direction to the north to join with the resistance. About a month into being a fugitive,  I passed the town of Nippur and saw how demi-Gods ruled the humans. They had no mercy toward humans, even to a little child."

She stopped talking as if she saw a g******e in Nippur. Her voice chokes with anger.  

"I knew I had to flee from the town as fast as possible. So I went back to the forest, and some bounty hunters were released from the town to go after me. They are humans chasing after demi-Gods like us. If they catch one of us, they get rewarded with a piece of gold. That's all they are interested in—a piece of gold."

"Why are they after demi-Gods?"

"Because the majority of humans don't trust demi-Gods. They think demi-Gods are created to control humans. They don't know we are mainly created to extract gold. I've been running away from the bounty hunters ever since I left Nippur."

"I am glad that you survived. Did anyone else escape from Uruk?"

"I don't know, Kojiro. I didn't have any time to spare other than escaping from that hell."

I realize I still don't know her name.

"I see. By the way, I still don't know your name. What is your name?"

"I am Meretseger. Everyone calls me Cobra-Woman."

She is my first collaborator to oust the God of the Gods.