It began for her,
her backstory in a silent but loud place called Maya.
I was a sheltered child.
I was a sickly peasant waiting for my prince to rescue me from my castle I was locked up in.
I was locked in body, in motion—but not my soul.
My Father brought majestic vitality to my life.
He was an artist, and he worked tirelessly.
He desperately did his best to support me.
He ached for me.
He cried for me.
His bedridden daughter.
He was poor, and I was pretending to be happy being raised as the less fortunate.
But when you're in a room full of paintings—
You know, actually... paintings are beautiful because they are untouched by causality.
A moment that captures the essence of life.
When you are provided with the knowledge expressed by such a painting, you begin to wonder.
And when you wonder, you crave and yearn.
To be in a room where you know these things—
but can never sense their pleasurable experiences.
To know an apple is red, but to never know what redness is.
Art is an alchemical process.
So what is the philosopher's stone all artists seek?
That does not matter.
What matters is that those who create, and those who experience the creation,
are enamoured with life equally.
So I was enamoured.
I tired of the room.
I prayed.
And prayed.
For release from my suffering.
Even now, I ponder on—if in that room, was I ever conscious?
And if I wasn't... was I ever real?
An illusion.
Is that what my life was, up to that point?
Eventually my prayers were indeed answered.
God was real.
God was good.
God was great.
I awakened one day with a golden key.
It laid above my heart—
my all-too-bleeding and aching heart.
But later, when dawn became dusk,
and my father's wears outweighed his wills and woes...
I knew what the key did.
Through my God's alchemy, I rose from the ashes.
I was reborn.
I walked the night.
The dreamy and starry night.
The town was unknown—
and thus was beautiful.
Maya.
A beautiful name.
A strange town—both filled with wisdom and madness.
Desire and suffering.
Ignorance and enlightenment.
Eventually, I came across a sickly old lady.
She was on her last legs, but she maintained a smile full of hope.
How could I abandon her?
I firmly grasped my key and told her I would pray for her.
I assured her—in this town of opposites—I understood the world.
"My God will act for me and provide you with sanctuary.
Not in His Kingdom above, but in His Kingdom below."
I knew alchemy.
I knew the magic of miracles.
"Drink of blood," I told her.
"Blood is unclean, but mine is clean.
Mine is beautiful."
She hesitated at first.
But when my key let the blood drip,
she didn't waste a drop.
Like she had been quenched of thirst,
she swallowed with tears and fears.
She looked at my face, my hair, my eyes—
and proclaimed that divinity flowed through me.
That my blood could nurture her withered soul.
That night, I snuck back inside.
My tired father was sound asleep.
I put a blanket over him—it was a cold night—
and went to sleep myself.
But the woman said:
"If I live, how should I thank you?"
I replied:
"Thank God, and His Mystery.
But if you must thank a personhood—
I was inspired by the great artist who works that stall."
I pointed to where my father usually set up his shop.
I only knew these details based on his past tales of Maya.
When the dream washed over me,
my father was shouting with sheer happiness.
Unfiltered joy.
His paintings were finally selling.
I smiled—truly proud.
"That is great," I said, with my head held high.
But I was curious.
So I returned once more to the place called Maya.
I was met with great surprise.
I was swarmed with praise and worship.
"Please, Saintess—Lady of Blood! Heal me next!"
"No, me!"
"I'll give you all my cattle!"
"All my gold!"
"You like art, right? I'll buy all the work of the man who inspired your presence!"
I told them it was fine.
I had no need for material things.
Their health was enough.
From then, they saw me as a pure being from the two heavens.
Even the nobles began to desire me.
I heard from my father they wanted to buy his paintings—
"The Lady of Blood has blessed them," they said.
He didn't know who she was.
But his paintings sold,
so she must be an angel.
He wore a peaceful smile.
But peace could not last.
When I returned in the coming weeks—
The earth had been scorched.
It was as if the Day of Wrath had come.
"We are here to extinguish the heretic who has practiced chaos magick!"
"This land is a blasphemous gathering of demons!"
"Everything they have infected must be scorched!"
"Offer their souls to the abyss! Let The Harbinger feast!"
The townspeople were slaughtered.
Staked.
Burned alive.
Some tried to flee—flayed alive.
Others tried to fight—
but this was a jihad, and they were but kindling.
This was a time before Eden.
Before Adam consummated with Eve.
Adam had already repulsed me.
Accused me of treachery.
Swore to his Father that he would not marry my soul in Heaven.
In time before time.
The old woman I saved—
she took my hand and pulled me to safety.
The inquisitors, bored of their jihad,
left—assuming I had died among the thousands.
It was a field of blood.
Souls charred.
Corpses staked by the jaws of entropy.
The old woman died soon after.
Vomiting blood.
Her death was agony.
That was the last straw.
The survivors turned on me.
"Burn the witch at the stake!"
"Curse the Lady of Blood!"
"Curse the wench Magdalene!"
"She is the mother of vampires!"
"The apostle of Babylon!"
They strung me up.
Ripped out my eye.
I saw a large albino man,
with eyes like eternity.
Smiling.
Dancing.
As if this was his opera.
They burned the eye.
They tried to do unspeakable things.
They reached for my other.
But then—
"I told you, Beatrix, you naive fool.
People are just wolves in sheep's clothing."
My father.
He came with a sword.
He told me to run.
I did.
Bleeding.
Blind.
I barely saw him die.
His heart—staked clean out.
They used the town as bait.
I ran.
I fell.
I was broken.
Delusional.
Then—
a voice:
"Wow. You're a sight for sore eyes.
I can't believe they stained you like this."
He was right.
My hair was stained in blood.
"Don't worry now.
It is time to exit the stage, cursed child—blessed woman.
Neither is the crone."
I was burned.
Bloodied.
Visceral.
He performed a miracle.
"Your eye must remain shut," he said.
"You must never see such ignorance again.
You opened Pandora's Box too early."
"They cannot see past blessings and curses."
"Accursed witch."
"Pitiful girl."
"Beautiful war-goddess."
"Virgin to causality."
"I free you. Thus spoke Zarathustra."
He was God.
White hair.
Golden eyes.
Detached from the world.
I lost consciousness.
And in the mists between thought and non-being,
I heard a second voice.
"Forces beyond even me utter your name.
I will utter it too.
But I will not remember."
"However—stay, as if you would never leave.
Girl pure of heart."
That voice...
The second one was your father.