Interdimensionology

She told him her name was Lilith.

She always picked mythological names —Lilith, Persephone, Kali—goddess names with teeth.

Marcus didn’t care. He called her “Baby.” He called every woman that.
He met her at an art gallery opening—one of those faceless rooftop events where men drink too much white wine, say nonsense like “emergent” and “liminal.”

She stood alone in front of a mirror installation, staring at her own reflection like she was waiting for it to blink first.

He walked up behind her and said:

“You’re the only real piece of art here.”

She didn’t laugh. She tilted her head, like a bird listening for vibrations in the ground.
Then she smiled.
“You must be so tired,” she said.

He wasn’t the fun kind. Not the “look at me” peacock type. No, Marcus liked power. He liked to break people. Slowly.
He used silence like a knife. Praise like a drug.
He collected women the way other men collected watches—ticking, gleaming, replaceable.
He never thought one of them might be sharper than him.

“Tired of what.” he said
Lilith didn’t blink much. “From carrying that mirror around in your mouth.”

She said stranger things. Mumbled phrases like riddles.
“The mirror in my head cracked at age nine.”
“Do you ever feel like your name is a costume someone else picked?”

Marcus called her intense, fascinating, a little dark.
He thought he’d found a damaged toy.
Something sexy and broken. His perfect “baby.”

But Lilith wasn’t broken.
She was splintered.
And every shard wanted him dead.

—-

Her apartment was on the edge of the city, near where the river met the tracks.
Inside the walls were painted in golden ornamental spirals. Dozens of candles and mirrors.
Each showed her from a slightly different angle.
In some, she was smiling. In others, not.

When Marcus stepped inside, he laughed.

“Jesus, what is this?”

“No,” Lilith said. “This is a place where people see what they really are.”

He turned. Every mirror showed his face—but warped.
Eyes too wide. Mouth too small.

Is this a kink thing?” he asked.
“Because I can play along.”
Smilingly she offered him a drink.

Absinthe, she said. The kind that “opens doors,”

He drank it. Of course he did.
Men like Marcus always accept a poison as long as it’s handed to them with a wink.

He sat on the velvet couch. Lilith sat beside him, cross-legged like a ritual priestess.
She whispered in his ear. Her voice changed slightly each time, like it was coming from different versions of her.

“You want to own people.”
“You think love is control.”

She bit him in the neck everywhere.

She screamed faintly.

“You never loved anyone but your own reflection.”

He laughed at first.

“What do you think is hiding behind your smile?”

Then he began to sweat.

The mirrors moved.

Not physically.

Marcus could no longer tell which one showed her and which one showed him.

They blinked at different times.
One leaned closer. Another smiled, when he didn’t.

His heart began to pound.
“What is this?”

Lilith (gently):
“I told you. A place where people meet their real selves.”

She rose slowly and took something from a box under the couch.

A shard of mirror.
Clean. Curved like a crescent moon.
Sharp enough to shave a scream in half.

He stumbled backward.
She didn’t run. She walked. Like a dream coming to claim what was owed.

“You think I’m insane,” she said.
“But really, I’m just unfiltered. I see all my selves. I don’t pretend there’s only one. That’s your sickness, not mine.”

He begged. They all do in the end.

“You want to talk about control?” she whispered.
“Watch this.”

She didn’t stab him in the chest. She bit.
Then she slit a single line down the side of his cheek—so he could watch his mask crack.

The second cut.
The fatal one.

She did it while he stared into a mirror and saw, for the first time, nothing at all.

“Does nothing hurt?” She said, still looking like a pale priestess corpse on the couch, with her legs crossed.

One version of her was crying. Another was humming.
A third one whispered:

“That wasn’t justice. That was pleasure.”

Lilith tilted her head. Stood up, looked down and walked towards him on the floor while she lit a match and smiled at herself in 13, No. Now 14 reflections.

“Why can’t I be… more?”

Victoria Wonders, copyright 2025