Afterdeath

Chapter III: The Abyss

Lilith opens her eyes.
She gasp for air as if she's just resurfaced from water.
She looks to her left, all she can see is black.
She looks to her right, all she can see is black.

She can just about make out her cold breath in front of her face, which looks like smoke. No matter where she looks, it's all the same. Black. Complete and utter darkness. She reaches her right arm out, and waves it around to see if anything was in front of her, and just as she suspected, nothing.
"Where the hell am I? " Lilith whispers to herself.
It was cold, and pitch black. It's dark, but Lilith has never experienced this sort of darkness. She almost feels just as empty and blank as the "place" she's stood in.
Lilith can hear her breath trembling, but she doesn't seem to react much more to the environment around her. She closes her eyes, squinting them as if she's forcing herself to keep them closed.
"This isn't real. This is just a dream." Lilith doubted to herself in a soft tone.
"This isn't happening right now. This is a bad dream." she continues to talk herself, as if she's comforting a child.

Suddenly, Lilith hears a very subtle click, which echoes. Her eyebrows raise slightly to the noise, but she doesn't open her eyes. She is still stood in the same spot, keeping her eyes shut. Her heartbeat picks up rapidly, and her neck begins to feel clammy.
She slowly cracks open her left eye, and can see a blurry light in her sight. She completely opens both eyes, to find a dim lightbulb hanging from a thin cord. The cord continues in to the abyss, appearing to be never ending. The light flickers slightly, making Lilith feel on edge. One minute she was running away from Marcus, and made it out of the alleyway to ask for help, then all of a sudden she's in a living horror movie. Despite what just happened to Lilith, she has no memory of it happening.
She takes one step closer to the light, hesitating.
"There must be a way out of this place." Lilith thinks to herself.
She proceeds to walk slowly towards the lightbulb, which appears to be slowly getting closer to her, each step she takes.
Eventually, Lilith is stood directly below this lightbulb, and can see nothing but darkness where the light doesn't reach. Even though it is freezing, Lilith doesn't seem to be affected from the temperature. She looks up at the lightbulb, which even has frosted over slightly on the bottom.
Lilith begins to panic, it looks like there's no way out that she can see. She doesn't trust the space enough to walk out and try and find a way herself. She looks around her, to see if she can see if anything will emerge from the darkness.
"Hello? Is anyone there?" Lilith called out. Her voice echoes across the space, and gets no response.
"Anybody here? Hello?" Lilith shouted this time, with a much stronger echo ringing through the space.
No response, yet again.
The lightbulb begins to flicker more, making Lilith looking up at it again. It appears to be getting worse, and the light looks like it could give out any second.
"No, not again." Lilith mutters to herself.
Lilith raises her heels off the ground gradually, leaving herself standing on her toes to give herself extra height. She reaches up towards the lightbulb, hoping that maybe she'd be able to reach it and screw it in tighter, to see if that would improve the flickering.
As her finger just touches the lightbulb, the lightbulb immediately shines brighter than anything Lilith has seen.

Lilith drops to the floor, shielding her eyes from the light. She can hear a high pitched tone ringing and echoing, like a monitor. She then hears the cries of a woman echo throughout this space. She opens her eyes, frightened from the distressing sounds, and stood in front of her appears to be a black cloak, it is no longer dark anymore, in fact, the space is just white and never ending. The only thing that's dark now is this cloak stood upright in front of her. It looks like nobody is in it; it's just stood by itself.
The hood is up and draped over. Lilith is unable to see a face. Suddenly, she is no longer cold or frightened. In fact, she feels nothing.
She stares at this cloak for a moment, and she brings herself back up to her feet. The cloak slightly rises in height. The hood is pulled down to reveal a black silhouette under this cloak. They're bald, and as black as the space that Lilith was just stood. A black, skinny hand emerges from the cloak on the right hand side, and reaches back in to their left hand side, rummaging through the cloak.
Lilith doesn't say a word, in fact, she's not even breathing. She's just stood there completely lifeless, watching this figure.
As the figure is rummaging, they go on to say in a very low and raspy tone,
"Usually souls are screaming and crying right now..."
Lilith's eyes widen, as she did not expect this mysterious entity to speak to her.
"Souls?" Lilith questions them.
The figure pulls out a dark, ruined book from the cloak, and opens it on a specific page, about two thirds in to the book.
"Lilith Skyes?" the voice asks.
Lilith looks at the book, then back at where the figures face would be.
"Yes, that's me." she responds.
The figure slams the book shut, slipping it away back in to the cloak that drapes from this figure.
The figure slowly moves towards Lilith, but there appears to be no movement from the cloak, as if they're floating, not walking.
Lilith gulps, wondering who this mysterious person is, and what they want with her.