"Although I didn't want to interact with Lilith, it honestly stung a little. That look she gave me when Zayden announced how both of us were the leads.
It was of pure repulsion, like she'd just tasted something rotten.
"I mean… I don't look that bad, right? Sure, I have my flaws, but that reaction felt like overkill."
"And how is that relevant?" Lilith asked sharply, brows raised. Her voice made it painfully obvious:
I'd said that out loud.
Again.
Zayden's so called "reveal" felt less like a reveal and more like a nuclear strike launched point blank at my sanity. And before my brain could even recover, Lilith and I were already heading toward the school auditorium.
Well… 'heading together' was generous.
Lilith walked two steps ahead of me, like the space between us was a safety barrier she desperately needed. Every few seconds, she'd throw me these strange glances, half irritation, half something I couldn't decipher.
In my head, it felt like a siege was beginning. The impenetrable glass castle I'd lived in for years, its walls, its gates, its throne, all trembling under the weight of this one girl's presence.
If I didn't break the silence soon, I felt something far worse would happen.
"Hey… um, don't you think the weather's changing really quick-"
My pathetic attempt at starting a conversation died instantly.
Because Lilith suddenly turned her head slightly with a sly smile that looked enchanting at any glance and asked, in a calm and observant
"Arin, do you know what the Ship of Theseus is?"
And at those words
I knew that the siege had nonetheless begun
"I've heard something about it on reels once," I said cautiously, keeping my guard up.
"I never really bothered to look into it."
"Well," Lilith replied without turning back, her tone calm and certain,
"You, of all people, would've found it interesting."
My mind went blank.
Yeah, she was acting like she knew something about me, big deal. People make assumptions all the time. But how could she say something so specific… so confidently… after exchanging barely a handful of words with me?
No.
No way.
This girl, Lilith, with her pretentious little ethereal name, couldn't just appear out of nowhere and act like she had me figured out.
I hated it.
I refused to believe she saw anything real.
She couldn't.
She shouldn't.
It wasn't connected.
It couldn't be connected.
"Arin? No reply? "Her voice carried back to me, soft but sharp enough to hook straight into my spine.
She still didn't turn around. All I could see was her back… yet somehow it felt larger than it should have, like she was towering over me despite being physically smaller.
Her words brought my spiraling thoughts to a halt.
Like a hand gripping the back of my neck.
I clicked my tongue, irritation slipping through before I could catch it.
"What's this stupid ship even about?" I asked, frustrated, unguarded.
The mask was slipping, and we both knew it.
"It's not really a physical ship that existed," she began, her tone calm and knowing,
"but more of an ancient Greek thought experiment."
"Theseus was a legendary hero, the one who defeated the Minotaur in the labyrinth.
When he returned to Athens, the Greeks wanted to preserve the ship he sailed on, so they kept it docked as a symbol of victory."
She walked a little ahead of me, her voice steady.
"But time wears everything down.
Eventually, the wood began to rot.
So the Athenians replaced the damaged planks, one by one, to maintain the ship."
"Whenever something decayed, they swapped it out with fresh wood.
Piece after piece… year after year…"
She was about to continue when something clicked in my mind.
And before I could stop myself, the words slipped out:
"So by the end of it," I said, my voice startlingly flat,
"The ship they had wasn't the original anymore. Every part had been replaced.
Which means the question is whether that final ship was still Theseus's ship, or an entirely new one."
Lilith finally turned her head, not fully, just enough for me to see one of her green eyes.
A faint, unreadable smile tugged at her lips.
"See, Arin," she said softly,
"I knew you'd be good at deciphering these kinds of thoughts."
My jaw tightened.
This girl was not backing down.
"And why do people care so much about a ship anyway?" I snapped, frustration slipping into my voice before I could reel it back in.
Lilith didn't miss a beat.
"Because, Arin…"She took a step closer, her voice dropping slightly.
"The experiment was never about the ship."
She looked straight ahead again, but her words stabbed right through me.
"It's always been about people."
Both Lilith and I fell silent after that. Not because the conversation had reached a natural end, but because my mind had simply… stopped working.
Her words sat in my head like weights, heavy enough to pull every coherent thought under with them.
By the time I managed to claw my way back into myself, we were already standing inside the auditorium.
Sarah was waiting for us, arms crossed, papers pressed against her chest. Her brows were drawn together in a way that instantly told me something was wrong.
"There seems to be a bit of a problem," she said, her voice unusually restrained.
"And it seems," Sarah sighed, already annoyed,
"That both of you will need to help… together."