The queen sat quietly for a long moment.
The excitement from meeting another survivor had faded. In its place was something older.
Grief.
She looked up toward the circle of sunlight shining through the ancient glass above the ruined hall.
"When humanity ended," she said softly, "I was only fifteen years old."
The chamber became silent.
Even the two elder lamia beside her lowered their eyes.
"I wasn't a scientist. I wasn't important. I wasn't some powerful leader who could save the world."
A faint bitter smile appeared on her face.
"I was just a girl."
She touched her tail absentmindedly.
"A girl who lost her parents."
She took a slow breath before continuing.
"My family was wealthy. Very wealthy. We owned businesses, land, investments. The kind of wealth that lasts for generations."
Her expression darkened.
"Then one day a drunk driver crossed into the wrong lane."
The queen closed her eyes.
"The car rolled."
"My father died instantly."
"My mother died before the ambulance arrived."
"And I..."
She looked down at the lower half of her body.
"I lost both legs."
The hall remained quiet.
"At first I thought my life was over."
"But then Eden appeared."
I felt my chest tighten.
The name sounded strange coming from someone else's mouth.
"Eden could regrow organs. Regrow nerves. Regrow limbs."
The queen laughed softly.
"People called it a miracle."
She looked at me.
"I was receiving treatment inside my family's villa when the pandemic began."
The smile vanished.
"The doctors stopped coming."
"The nurses stopped answering."
"The news became stranger every day."
She folded her hands together.
"My villa had its own medical wing. My family could afford it."
"So I stayed there while the world outside collapsed."
Her voice became distant.
"I watched it happen through security cameras."
The queen stared at nothing.
"The workers started changing."
"They attacked each other."
"They tore each other apart."
"They ate the bodies."
Several younger lamia listening nearby looked uncomfortable.
The queen continued anyway.
"I wanted to run."
"I couldn't."
"Machines were keeping me alive."
She touched her stomach.
"My legs were still regrowing."
"Then I became infected."
I already knew the answer.
"Pandora," I said quietly.
She nodded.
"Pandora."
The queen looked at her tail.
"My growing legs started changing."
"Eden wanted to rebuild me."
"Pandora wanted to remake me."
"They fought inside my body."
She clenched her fists.
"I couldn't move."
"I couldn't escape."
"I could only lie in bed and watch the monitors."
"Tube after tube connected me to life-support systems."
The memory clearly still haunted her.
"Then I fell asleep."
"Not normal sleep."
"A coma."
The queen looked away.
"When I woke up, over a month had passed."
She laughed bitterly.
"And my legs were gone again."
Her tail shifted behind her.
"Instead, I had this."
No one spoke.
"I was starving."
"So hungry that it hurt."
The queen described how she crawled through the abandoned mansion searching for food.
How she found canned supplies.
How she sat alone in the kitchen eating cold food while trying to understand what had happened.
"After I ate, I cried."
She smiled weakly.
"A lot."
"I kept thinking I would wake up."
"That it was a nightmare."
"That I would open my eyes and be back in the car with my parents."
Her voice trembled.
"But every morning I was still there."
She searched for news.
The internet was dead.
Phones were dead.
Television broadcasts were gone.
Only silence remained.
Fortunately, the villa had been designed as a luxury survival retreat.
It possessed solar panels, batteries, water purification systems, food reserves, medical supplies, and security doors capable of sealing the entire property.
Thirty people could have survived there for a year.
Only one remained.
"So I locked myself inside."
The queen laughed.
"I prayed."
"I wasn't even religious."
"But I prayed."
The smile disappeared.
"Nothing changed."
Then she hesitated.
For the first time since beginning her story, she seemed embarrassed.
"My periods stopped."
Several of the younger lamia immediately looked away.
The queen sighed.
"The lower half of my body had changed."
"I didn't understand what was happening."
"Then one day..."
She rubbed her forehead.
"I laid an egg."
The entire hall was silent.
"An egg the size of an ostrich egg."
I blinked.
The queen laughed weakly.
"Exactly."
"I panicked too."
She had no idea what to do with it.
At first she assumed it was similar to an unfertilized chicken egg.
Something meaningless.
Something she could ignore.
So she left it inside her bedroom.
Then one morning she woke up to crying.
The egg had hatched.
Inside was a baby.
A baby with a lamia tail.
The queen's expression softened.
"I was terrified."
Her eyes became distant.
"I remember staring at her for hours."
The first of her daughters.
The elder lamia beside her lowered her head slightly.
The queen smiled.
"I thought about killing her."
The hall froze.
"I really did."
She looked at her hands.
"I was scared."
"I thought she was a monster."
The smile vanished.
"Then I looked in a mirror."
Silence.
"If she deserved to die for being born this way..."
The queen touched her own scales.
"Then so did I."
Tears formed in her eyes.
"My parents left everything behind so I could live."
"How could I abandon my own child?"
So she picked the baby up.
Washed her.
Wrapped her in cotton cloth.
Fed her watered-down condensed milk because her own body could not produce milk.
And became a mother.
One month later she laid another egg.
Then another.
Then another.
Every month a new child arrived.
Each egg hatched after roughly one month.
Within a year she had twelve daughters.
Fortunately, they grew rapidly.
By the time the twelfth child hatched, the eldest already looked ten years old.
"They all looked like me."
The queen smiled sadly.
"The same hair."
"The same eyes."
"The same scales."
"The same face."
So she taught them.
Reading.
Writing.
Mathematics.
Language.
Everything she remembered from her own childhood.
Soon the eldest daughters helped care for the younger ones.
But children needed food.
Lots of food.
The villa reserves eventually ran low.
So she taught them how to survive.
How to craft wooden spears.
How to coat the tips with venom.
How to hunt.
The estate's swimming pools, gardens, courtyards, and reclaimed woodland provided rabbits, birds, rodents, and fruit.
They expanded little by little.
Year by year.
Until humanity returned.
The queen's smile vanished completely.
"The first encounter was a disaster."
A group of survivors arrived using old maps.
They came seeking supplies.
Technology.
Loot.
History.
The moment they saw lamia, they opened fire.
No warning.
No conversation.
No negotiation.
Three daughters died.
One human died in return.
The queen's hands trembled.
"I thought it was a misunderstanding."
So she made signs.
Large signs.
Written in multiple languages.
"We are not monsters."
"We come in peace."
"We are open for negotiation."
The survivors returned.
This time they talked.
The queen invited them inside the mansion.
Shared food.
Shared information.
Shared her story.
The survivors claimed they were rebuilding humanity under a united kingdom.
They claimed to have encountered other mutation cases.
They claimed they were researching cures.
Trade agreements were established.
The lamia needed food.
The humans wanted electronics, tools, machinery, and metal from the abandoned estate.
A doctor would supposedly visit.
The queen laughed.
A hollow sound.
"How naive I was."
She wiped away tears.
"That night they returned."
Not with traders.
Not with doctors.
Not with diplomats.
With soldiers.
Assault rifles.
Body armor.
Vehicles.
The queen's voice broke.
"My daughters stood between me and the bullets."
No one moved.
No one spoke.
The hall was completely silent.
"They never wanted trade."
"They wanted what we had."
The mansion.
The technology.
The supplies.
The wealth.
Why negotiate when they could simply take everything?
The queen looked down.
"It didn't matter that I used to be human."
"It wouldn't have mattered even if I still looked human."
Her fists clenched.
"It's all my fault."
The assault shattered the settlement.
The survivors fled into the wilderness.
The humans pursued.
More daughters died.
Some from bullets.
Some from hunger.
Some from predators.
Some from the forest itself.
The queen's tears finally spilled over.
"We kept running."
"Running."
"Running."
"Until we found this place."
She looked around the ruined hall.
"It took years to make it livable."
Years of digging.
Years of learning.
Years of burying daughters.
Years of surviving.
The queen reached out and placed a trembling hand on the shoulder of the lamia standing beside her.
Then the other.
"These two..."
Her voice cracked.
"...are the only survivors from the mansion."
The two elder lamia lowered their heads.
The queen could no longer hold back her tears.
Neither could several of the younger lamia listening from the edges of the hall.
For a long time nobody spoke.
Not even me.
Because there was nothing I could say that would make any of it better.
All I could do was listen.
And remember.
Because this tragedy had begun with Eden.
And Eden had begun with me.