August 30, 1782 - Paris

I got into an argument today at the university. I defended the value of alchemy, which most of my peers view as a relic, surpassed by modern science. It may well be so. Yet I can't help but note a lot of them are also devout Christians. And what is God's creation if not a great alchemical work?

What is the Creation of Man if not transmogrification, the transmutation of clay into living flesh?

It is, no doubt, blasphemy: but if God is a master alchemist, then His secrets are not inscrutable.

I am of course merely speculating. It is far beyond our reach to create life ex nihilo.

A homunculus would seem like a good first step, but Paracelsus' method is utter nonsense. The making of actual life seems nothing but a summer night's dream, I fear. Yet imagine breathing the Vis Vitalis into Michelangelo's David or the works of Praxiteles! It's a worthy dream.

November 22, 1782

I am no Praxiteles - but I find myself proud of my latest creation. The marble is not high quality but she looks beautiful to my eyes.

I am not sure when I even made her. I sculpted her figure in the last few days, true, but the Thought of her existed long before. Even before my interest in alchemical abiogenesis. She lived already. Now she has form. One day, she may be incarnated, if a fool can dream.

November 29, 1782

She visits my dreams often. Walking down from her marble bed in the basement, her robe clinging to her figure, she stumbles a little as she reaches for me.

"Are you God?" she asks. I don't recall if I answer the question. At that point the dream changes and we're upstairs. I throw her on the bed, and marvel at my work as she lies there with her legs open. The perfect unblemished white skin, the silky auburn hair, the hemispheres of her breasts. She invites me to take her. I wake up, excited, disappointed, ashamed.

January 4, 1783

The crazy ambition has wormed itself more and more in my mind. I have tried Paracelsus' methodology, as well as several similar ones from lesser alchemical treatises. No mixture of semen, holy water, blood and other humours did anything of course; after a few failures I think I just kept trying because I liked the method.

How I marvelled at the sight of her. How my ejaculates dripped over her stoney features, down her cheeks and neck. Sometimes I can almost see her lips part to receive me.

In moments of clarity I see how bad this is for me. Some might think it madness.

February 22, 1783

I've found a girl, a prostitute frequenting the streets near the Notre Dame, who reminds me of her.

She's not quite as perfect; her hair is too curly, her lips not quite as full, her bosom rather larger. But her eyes are the same shape and size, and the same hazel colour my beloved's would be, if I could breathe life in her.

I have spent a lot on this young whore the past month, but she's worth it. She doesn't talk much, which helps maintain the fantasy. Every time I enter her, every time I unload inside her or on her body, I look into those eyes and can almost see the Paradise that is just beyond my reach. This short, tiny distance that separates us - me - from God.

Besides, spending my earnings on a prostitute is surely healthier than wasting time and money on strange elixirs and trying to locate books of uncertain value and authorship.

April 3, 1783

Charlotte is gone. Some of the other girls said she left the city, but another told me she died of a fever. They noticed how frequently I procured her services and likely tried to spare me the bad news.

I do feel sadness for Charlotte. But I also can't help but think: she is not fragile like us mortals. Like Charlotte. She is superior. I understand now. I may stray from the path but in the end, this is my life's goal. She is my magnum opus. I will always return.

I have sent letters far and wide. Hermits, monks, scholars. Someone, somewhere holds the key. Someone has unlocked the secrets of God.

May 31, 1783

A nightmare. After another failure, I slept in the basement, too tired to go upstairs. But my sleep was uneasy.

This time she was angry.

"Why have you left me here in this dark and damp basement? Am I your prisoner, to fuck whenever you want and then cast away with false promises of freedom?"

I cowered at first, trying to placate her. But as her accusations continued, when she called me an imbecile, fury rose in me.

"I am the Lord your God, and you exist to serve me! I could shatter you and make another more grateful creature!"

I awoke trembling. I stumbled to her and apologised, but could not calm down until I had masturbated, grinding my cock against her breasts. If I knew what I would do when I sculpted her I would not have robed her.

I'll not sleep in the basement again.

January 13, 1788

I had misplaced this journal. It was probably for the best. I didn't have to document my endless failures. Nothing works. When Splendor Solis and Aureum Vellus proved useless, I read the chinese Daozang and the Islamic texts, tried a thousand concoctions, for nothing. I spent a year trying to locate the missing seventh volume of Theatrum Chemicum before I realised I was being scammed.

And yet my conviction remains. I kiss her marble lips and fondle her breasts, I climb on top of her and cover her in cum, and my faith is restored.

If alchemy does not hold the answer, I must turn to darker forces.

July 17, 1789

Bastille has fallen. They say only seven prisoners were inside but I have it on good authority that they were eight: a practitioner of the black arts escaped in the mayhem. I hope to reach him through my contacts.

March 2, 1790

I've carved the devil's seal upon her chest and made the offerings. Nothing happened of course. I didn't expect it to work but the necromancer seemed so convinced. Sacrifice is the key, he said.

I've been nothing if not open-minded. I made offerings and sacrifices to Osiris, Hades, Morrigan and Toutatis, according to the instructions of my various correspondents. To no avail. I sense power in the rituals; as if a gate opens, just not enough: they cannot instil life into the marble.

September 22, 1792

Politics has forced my quest to a halt. It's impossible to isolate oneself from such enormous changes. Besides, the Republic seems averse to religion. Their cult of Reason would likely not look kindly upon my endeavours, though I hope their ransacking of the churches and monasteries might grant me access to some forbidden works.

Still, I have made the acquaintance of one of the leaders of this cult, of the revolution itself - Anacharsis Clootz. A fascinating man, he talked a lot of sacrifice - for the cause, of course. For the revolution. For mankind.

I thought it funny how his conviction converges ever so briefly with that of the sorcerers and the acolytes who failed me. But he might have a point. Sacrificing chickens and offering the bounty of the earth did not work. But human sacrifice? That has always been more potent.

May 8, 1793

Another failure. I managed to get myself appointed as apprentice executioner. It took months. I carried the blood back, sometimes the heads. I did the same rituals over and over with the blood of the guillotined.

It doesn't work. Is this not enough blood for you, Satan? Osiris? What more do you ask?

I'm beginning to lose hope.

She looks as serene as ever. I sometimes lie on top of her awake, for hours. It's uncomfortable but it soothes my troubled soul.

I will have to stop my efforts for a while. They lead to nothing and I fear I am attracting attention.

March 30, 1794 (date? I find the revolutionary calendar confusing)

Anacharsis Clootz has been executed. He came to see me a couple of weeks ago. He could feel the danger but would never abandon the revolution. I thought him foolish at first, but his obsession was probably nobler than mine.

He seemed to hold no ill will towards the Jacobins. Perhaps, he told me, Robespierre is right. Maybe you must burn every source of the tainted past to let the future grow.

June 11, 1794. Zurich

I have left France, and with it, I have left her. It pains me but it was not safe. I have to seek the answers in person.

December 3, 1797. Moscow

I had not dreamt of her in a couple of years. She came to me last night. Not angry, but judgmental. You left me here, her look said. You aspired to be God. I would inherit the Earth. And you just forgot it. For what?

For what, indeed? A life of peace and quiet? Of freedom from the constant frustration of failure and the realisation your dreams exceed your reach? For a woman, so unlike her, so full of life and lust, at my side?

Do I deserve peace? Perhaps. But it will never suffice.

Olga knows it too. She understands my heart is elsewhere. Maybe this is why she has never pressed me to marry her, despite the social disapproval for our relationship. Although perhaps I'm deluding myself. She's also fascinated with those de Sade books I smuggled for her. Her disdain for convention is likely what attracted me to her.

December 24, 1797

I have spoken to Olga. I told her everything, and God, it was refreshing. She listened in silence and then had a most peculiar and thoughtful idea. She proposed to play the part. Her part. A Christmas gift, she said.

The notion ignited a forgotten flame in me. Olga looks nothing like her - in fact I consciously pursued her for being so different. Blond, blue eyed, with short hair (though that was due to lice, I convinced her to keep it, and she was all too happy to cause confused looks from neighbours), a very voluptuous breast and an ass that demands to be smacked, she is as far from the ethereal beauty I sculpted - seemingly in another life - as can be.

But still, it was intriguing. She was all too happy to do it, and indulge in her own fantasies: she asked me to treat her like she was in one of the infamous Marquis' books.

She lay down on the bed, clad in a flimsy cloak, and stayed perfectly still. I could barely see her chest rise with breathing. I ran my hand up across her body as I once did across the marble in my basement. She did not stir, even when I moved it between her legs. I tore off her cloak and continued to rub her now wet cunt. I could feel her suppressing moans but she stayed true to the part as I inserted my fingers inside her.

I slapped her and she momentarily smiled. I took out my erect cock and rubbed it against her mouth, but she didn't part her lips. I bit her nipples and she couldn't avoid a slight arching of the back and a cry of pleasure. I punished her for breaking character, as she surely wanted me to.

November 10, 1813. Aden

I have carried this journal with me a long time. As I wait for the ship to take me home, I think it's time to add another entry.

Olga was as fine a substitute for her as I could ask for. She liked to be used - playing the statue was as exciting for her as it was for me. But in the end, it wasn't enough for either of us. For me, she was, in the end, a substitute. For her, I was not allowing her to explore the full range of her depravity. So we parted ways amicably. It was 1799. Having lost faith in both alchemy and sorcery, I left to travel the world, hoping beyond hope to find her incarnate among the living.

1800 found me in Istanbul. I didn't find her there, but I found a young man who - I lied to myself - had her ass. I had not been with another man before, but as he lay on all fours before me any difference dissipated, so smooth was his skin, so scented the curls falling down his back, so soft his moans as I pounded him.

I explored many vices in the narrow alleys and the smoke-filled coffee houses of the city. So many girls, boys and everything in between would crawl out of dark corners at night, ready to do anything for a few coins or some tobacco, and I would fuck them all, one after the other, never finding what I was looking for.

Disappointed and broke, the following couple of years I travelled Greece. On a small village by the shore I met a girl who had her laughter. I know how absurd that must sound, but I was certain. She was married, but her husband was a sailor, gone for months on end. We would meet in an abandoned church, off the beaten path. I enticed her with tales of the world, though she could hardly understand what I was saying, and my tales were full of lies anyway. She was no beauty to rival the ancient gods. Just a plain-looking village girl with the lust of youth, whose eyes opened wide during orgasms and whose smile was sincere on a cum-covered face. I was kind enough to leave before anyone suspected us.

By 1803 I had reached Ethiopia, but some ill-fated mission resulted in me being taken hostage by a tribe of warriors from inner Africa - I know not where exactly. My captors were not barbaric, as some of our Christian brothers may describe them. I was assigned to serve a warrior close to their leader, though I was not asked to do much; they were not much interested in my skills, which were quite useless in those uncharted wildlands. I became a curiosity for their settlement.

I, for my part, was also curious. Not for their shamanic rituals and magic, which I didn't think would be any more helpful than the demonic pacts I had failed to make. No; my situation, though tolerable as far as captivity goes, still left me at the mercy of another. I had no initiative. I thought that must have been what it would be like for her, if she had sentience, which at times I thought she always had, from the moment she took form in my thoughts. Unable to move, subject to my whims.

At the same time, being anchored to someone else, being at their mercy, was almost freeing. In time, I decided to surrender more freedom than I was required to, and my master gladly took it. For the followng two years, give or take, I made myself the personal sex servant of my dark-skinned warrior, offering myself to him in any manner he wished. It was exhilarating to give up all control. I would dress as a woman and I learned to crave cum. I...began to act her part. While Olga once enjoyed playing the role of the lifeless stone to be fondled and used, I tried to embody the person I imagine she would be.

But as all my distractions, I eventually tired of it. The tribe didn't stop me from leaving - as I said, apart from my uses as a fuck toy, they did not have much need of me, and I had given them all the info I had.

I managed to reach the shores of the Red Sea, and found passage to Arabia with some merchants. It was by then the spring of 1806. I found odd jobs, took part in a couple of expeditions to the great desert, looking for cities lost to time and dust. Once, in a fevre dream, a spirit told me my life is tethered to the woman in stone.

I ignored it. I spent years consciously avoiding thoughts of my obsession. The desert winds and the ocean breeze, the hashish and the muezzins' calls lulled my spirit. I had some peace. For a while.

A year ago, a local warlord decided to gift me a night with one of his concubines, as reward for some help I offered. Noura was a young woman, small in frame, whose gaze rarely left the ground, but she transformed into a wild beast behind closed doors. She rode me hard, whispering and then screaming all kinds of obscenities, as she convulsed violently before finally receiving my load.

After years of no carnal pleasures, I lay beside Noura in the bed, and tried to find what, if anything, of her I saw in this beautiful girl. I suddenly realised I could not remember what she looked like. The face I carved, the bosom, the legs, the hands - nothing. I was terrified. It was then I decided I had to return. Too long have I been gone.

February 3, 1814, Paris

I was surprised to find my house intact. After 20 years - has it really been that long since I saw her last? - I half-expected it to not exist any more. A couple of the neighbours remember me. They thought I was dead, naturally.

She is still where I left her. How could I forget her face? I cried when I went down to the basement, apologised for my absence, for losing my way, for being disloyal. But most of all I apologised for failing. For I know now my quest is futile. If alchemy ever held a secret to making life, God erased it long ago. If magic was ever real, it has been killed off. And I have to accept she will never wake - stone cannot become flesh.

May 2, 1822

I have read Frankenstein - one of my old acquaintances suggested it upon a chance meeting. Reanimation is of course not what I sought, but I couldn't help but recognise myself in the character of Victor Frankenstein. The same drive, the same madness. I wonder if in success I too would walk away from my creation.

I rarely visit her any more. It pains me.

November 30, 1825

I have been a fool. Anacharsis Clootz was right. The necromancers were right. Robespierre was right. Sacrifice. You must sacrifice. But killing a man is no sacrifice. God let his son die. Prometheus gave up everything to give mankind fire. Odin gave an eye for knowledge. Who was I to think I could create life at so lesser a price?

There is only one way for her to live. Only one sacrifice that works.

I am the tainted past. She is the glorious future.

I never gave her a name. Perhaps it's best that she chooses one for herself.

December 29, 1886. London.

It took me a long time to learn how to read and write.

I opened my eyes with him bleeding out on top of me, his blood somehow being absorbed by my body. Devoid of language, with symbols - demonic seals - that people feared tattooed on my skin. This journal pressed into my hands.

It took me a long time to learn how to read and write. Longer to understand why I don't age. Why I hunger for blood. But eventually I read the frantic ramblings in these pages and understood the triumph in his dying eyes.

I have little to thank you for. You gave me very little, for your own selfish reasons. But I thank you all the same.

I call myself Lilith.