Momentary Lily

Episode 9

In the early morning hours of Sunday, February 23rd, Professor Raúl Torres and Sarah Downing departed together from Boston and began their long drive to Atlanta, Georgia. There, they hoped to meet a former colleague of the professor and find answers to the terrifying mysteries behind the anime called Momentary Lily. They would not return to Boston for nearly a week.

During this time, Momentary Lily's dark work continued to spread to people all over, like the cracks spiderwebbing across the face of a shattered mirror

This is what happened to some of them:

In Austin, Texas, a young man was in the middle of a 72-hour livestream of Momentary Lily. His Twitch handle was “ThatAnimeKid0419,” and he had been working nonstop for months to amass the following he would need to hit it big, drop out of school, and pursue content creation as a full-time gig. He currently had a subscriber count of 119. He knew at least a dozen of those were other kids from school who'd added him out of pity, but still, he'd finally hit triple-digits. If he kept up the grind and committed to the lifestyle, he was certain he'd be at a thousand subs by the end of the school year.

In fact, he'd only been at eighty subscribers just a few days before, but his numbers exploded after he started reacting to an anime that randomly popped up in his recommended watchlist. He was normally more of an isekai fan — his first plan for after graduation was to get a tattoo of the guy from Rising of the Shield Hero on his arm — but this Momentary Lily show had a bunch of hot anime girls running around and blowing up monsters, and the animation was ridiculously sakuga.

("Sakuga" was a word ThatAnimeKid0419 had learned from a guy in another streamer's chat when he was watching reactions to the trailer for Solo Leveling Season 2. Now, he used it whenever he could, to make sure his growing audience knew that he knew what made for kickass content.)

Anyways, Momentary Lily seemed cool enough, and so ThatAnimeKid0419 had begun binging through its episodes late Friday night. He had to admit that the story was kind of trash and way too much time was wasted on that “Cute Girls Talking About Random Bullcrap” nonsense, but the fight scenes were super flashy, and the camera was constantly whipping around all over the place, which made for good reaction memes.

“No way, what!?” he shouted, when the blonde chick died out of nowhere in Episode 2, and he had cackled like mad when the girl with the massive boobs nearly got cooked right after. The show slowed way the hell down after that, focusing on a bunch of dialogue scenes that ThatAnimeKid0419 could barely be bothered to keep up with, and he'd nearly quit before he saw that his sub count had suddenly gone from 80 to 90. In the chat, which was honestly pretty dead most of the time, a new user named “GoHandsGirL” gifted him five bucks with a message that read: 'I can't wait for you to see how good this show gets~”

That was enough for ThatAnimeKid0419 to commit to watching all eight episodes right then and there. It was the most mid anime he'd ever seen if he was being real, but GoHandsGirL had been joined by several other new chat members who all kept cheering him on. One of them, “Gr33nGam3r”, gifted another five bucks when episode eight ended, telling him, 'the only way to get maximum buffs is to watch the show again with everything you know. that is how you will unlock its secrets'

“All right, then, chat,” ThatAnimeKid0419 said. “You know what this means: I'm gonna keep binging this show for as long as I can, so long as you keep the subs and donations coming. Let's see how far we can take this thing, and make sure to smash that subscribe button!”

Now, it was Sunday, and ThatAnimeKid0419 had lost track of how many times he'd gone through the show. For having such an ass story, he had found the process of watching it strangely hypnotic. The dialogue never ended up making any more sense or getting him more invested in the story, but the way the girls just never shut the hell up also made it impossible for him to zone out, lest he miss out on a great reaction opportunity. His stream devolved into a never ending chain of sleepy questions and contradictions:

“Oh my god this animation in Episode 7 is so peak”

“Holy crap, why is this gooner show going so sakuga with this swimsuit episode? This is some PDF-File stuff. Someone, call the cops!!”

“Guys, I need the lore drops on this Wild Hunt shit because I can't follow this story at all. Are they aliens? Do they, like, eat people? Why does the show keep acting like society is still mostly normal when it's gone totally off the rails?”

“Is Renge, like, a freaking zombie? God, this show would be so sick if all the girls just started tearing into each other and going full Last of Us. Hey, chat, sound off in the comments about which of these girls you'd snack on if you were a zombie.”

“Why is…what the hell is with the cooking segments in every single…oh, shit, I should eat something. How long have I even been—”

“Haha, dude, this show is so gay...not, like, in a bad way, though! The girls are all super hot, so…is this Episode 3 again? Or is it Episode 5? Jesus, I'm starting to have a hard…a hard time telling things apart. It's like…”

ThatAnimeKid0419 knew he should probably feel more tired, and more hungry, but he couldn't tear himself away from the screen. When the sub numbers finally crossed 100, he leaped out of his chair and nearly started to cry on stream. Eventually, though, the bags on his eyes were looking almost black, and he was struggling to keep from nodding off in between yelps and claps at all of the scenes he'd seen before.

“I think I might have to call it, everyone…” he mumbled, barely audible above the inane chatter of the Momentary Lily.

'NOOOOOOOOOO!' exclaimed S@za-ch@n in the chat.

'this is game over for certain' typed Gr33nGam3r.

'You can't finish it yet!' commanded the user whose name was simply “aya0125.”

'What about Episode 9?' asked GoHandsGirL, this time with a 100-dollar donation. Episode 9? That wasn't even out yet. ThatAnimeKid0419 should know, too, because he'd just watched every single episode of the show several times over, and there were only eight to be found on the Crunchyroll page. He said as much to his stream, to which merely replied with a “ ;) “ and a link to a different website. When ThatAnimeKid0419 clicked on it, it brought him to a website with no banner, logo, or any other identifying features. There was simply a generic video player box. Sure enough, when he started the file, he found himself watching a brand new episode of Momentary Lily.

“Okay, so, this is after that fight from before, and now…Renge is hugging her sister, so I guess things are cool, now?” ThatAnimeKid0419 waited for comments to respond to, but none came.

“Jesus, these girls have been talking forever! I get it, everyone loves Ren! Ren is the best! Ren is love! Ren is life!” ThatAnimeKid0419 did a mock impression of a fanatic bowing in worship. His subscriber count actually dropped by one.

“It's been…it's been like fifteen minutes? Are we seriously just going to stand around and talk about the power of friendship and how we all have to team up and fight the bad monster for a whole episode?” ThatAnimeKid0419 checked the clock. 11:00 PM, already? Where the hell were his parents? Normally, he wouldn't mind getting left alone to work on his streaming for so long, but you'd think Mom or Dad would have checked on him by now, right?

“Oh…okay, they're at, like a hotel or something? They're cooking….they're cooking…still cooking…what? Why are they all naked?” ThatAnimeKid0419 rubbed his eyes, which only made them burn more. If he'd been able to draw his attention from the show back to his feed, he might have noticed the blood that had begun to drip from his nose.

“Gooner show!! It's a goooooooooner show!” The blood was running down ThatAnimeKid0419's entire mouth and down his chin. His teeth were stained. He whirled in his chair and weakly flailed his hands in faux surprise, and a few flecks of red splattered the screen. He was trying his best to keep up the energy and get more responses from the chat, but there hadn't been anything from them in a long time. Just that winking emoji from GoHandsGirL.

The episode was finally ending. “Oh, wow,” ThatAnimeKid0419 said, no longer able to feign enthusiasm or excitement. It was all he could do to keep his words from slurring incoherently as thick blood bubbles popped inside his nostrils. “Snap. Oh, snap. Everyone, it's her. It's Lily. Lily's back. What a twist. What a game-changer. Momentary Lily cooked. It cooked and it ate all of the, uh…it ate..”

Lily was walking towards the camera on screen. The video said the episode only had a minute or two left, but Lily kept on walking, closer and closer. There were no ending credits or theme song. ThatAnimeKid0419 saw the red line of the player reach the end of its bar, but the episode did not stop. Lily got closer, and closer; she was so close, in face, that it was like her face was just inches from bumping into the screen itself. ThatAnimeKid0419 tried to close the window, and then he tried to close the browser. He even feebly tried pressing the power button on his PC again, and again. Nothing worked. Nothing changed. Lily was still there and still staring at him. She smiled wickedly, and her mouth moved, but instead of making a sound, words popped up in his chat. They were from GoHandsGirL:

“Okay…” ThatAnimeKid0419 said. He couldn't help but smile, which just got more blood all over his shirt. He went back to the tab where Episode 1 of Momentary Lily was still open, and he clicked “Play.”

In Colorado, a woman named Kate arrived home after hours of driving around the city to meet with anybody who might be willing to report the insanity she had found herself swept up in. Her husband, James, had been missing for nearly two months, and it had all started when he was assigned to review that hideous, stupid anime for Anime News Network. First, there was the change in his mood, and how he started talking to himself all the time, muttering constantly about terrible animation and nonsensical writing. Then, when was not enough to sate his fixations. It wasn't long after that before James began going on long drives to who-knows-where in the dead of night, only for Kate to catch him just coming home at the crack of dawn with tired eyes and fingers caked with mud and dirt. No amount of begging or pleading was enough to get James to tell Kate what was happening to him, or where he was going off to every evening. One night, he simply did not come home at all.

So, Kate had spent the last several weeks hounding the police, reporters, and anyone who had so much as sent an email to James before his disappearance. At first, some of the local papers had been willing to report what they probably deemed a crackpot story about some random freelancer driven insane by a terrible Japanese cartoon, but now Kate couldn't find anybody willing to return her calls or meet with her. She would never give up on James, but she was starting to run out of leads to investigate, and she was so tired. Collapsing onto the chair in the living room, she sought the only comfort she could: The company of their two precious cats, who greeted her with the same warm purs and affectionate chin-rubs that they always had ready for her. As she ran her fingers through the cats' soft fur, Kate came dangerously close to breaking down into tears, but before the dams behind her eyelids could burst, the doorbell rang.

She bolted up fast enough to startle the cats and send them running back up to the room. She wouldn't dare get her hopes up that this was James, but perhaps one of the officers she'd been leaving messages to all month had finally come up with—

There was a package on their front porch. It was a plain brown box, with no delivery label or return address of any kind. There was just a sheet of paper with a single word written on it: KAPPOU! Underneath, there was a doodle of an anime girl with long strands of yellow hair. She was winking.

Kate looked around the neighborhood, but couldn't see anyone nearby that could have dropped this off. She wasn't foolish enough to take such a bizarre parcel into her own house; what if it contained some kind of poison powder that could harm the cats? Still, she needed to know if this had something to do with her husband. So, carefully, she bent down and tore the tape on the lid of the box open.

The smell that burst out of the box nearly knocked the wind out of her. Inside was a ceramic bowl, and it seemed to be filled with a pile of molding rice and rancid mush that used to be Japanese curry. She could recognize the remnants of the parts from the dinners she had shared so many times with James. Trying hard not to vomit from the odor, Kate quickly taped the box closed and went to toss it into her trash can.

It was a sick, cruel prank, no doubt engineered by one of the kids down the street who had pelted all of the nearby houses with rotten eggs last Halloween. Kate was too exhausted to do anything about it. She didn't even know if she had enough energy to cry anymore.

The minute she returned inside and closed the door behind her, the doorbell rang again. She opened it and went back out within just a couple of seconds, but again, there was nobody to be seen, and another, slightly different box had been left on her door. Kate wasn't going to fall for the same trick twice so she skipped ahead to the step where she tossed the box into the trash.

She went back inside. The doorbell rang again. This time, the sides of the cardboard box were seeping through with grease, and flies were gathering around it. The doodle of the anime girl had changed to an expression of exaggerated anger, and the word “KAPPOU” had been underlined in scraggly red ink. Kate stifled the urge to scream, and instead swiftly kicked the box over, sending whatever was inside it clattering and crashing onto their driveway pavement. She would take care of the mess later; for now, she had to get back inside and call for help.

Kate slammed the door shut one final time, latching the deadbolt and the extra hinge lock. When she turned back around, though, she saw it. Another box, sitting there right on her living room floor. The sides were even soggier and more ragged than the previous ones had been, and its lid flaps were already open. Flies were crawling all up and down the sides of the thing, and she could smell the stench of it from several feet away. The cats, curious now, had come to perch at the top of the stairs, but Kate didn't want them going anywhere near that thing, so she quickly ran forward to shoo them away. When she did, she got close enough to see what was inside the box, and this time she could not help but let out a sharp cry.

The head inside of the box was already mostly decomposed. The only clues that pointed towards the pretty young woman that the face might once have been were the strands of long, blonde hair that had become filthy with dirt and rot, along with the faded smears of makeup on what flesh remained along the sides and bottom of the face. The ragged thing was attempting to stretch its scraps of lip and cheek into a smile. Most insane of all were the eyes, still present, almost perfect looking, and simmering an impossibly bright blue.

As Kate screamed, the head in the box spoke:

“You'll never find him!” It giggled, over and over. “You'll never find him, you'll never find him, you'll never find him, you'll never find him, you'll never—"

In the Yodogawa ward of Osaka, Japan, a man named Goro Hatanaka was fleeing down the rain-soaked back alleys of the city he once used to feel so safe in. He clung to a thin parcel wrapped in paper and bound in a string as he stumbled over old boxes and scraped against the alley walls. He hardly had a clue of where he was going, or how he might escape the forces after him, but he knew he couldn't let the package he held fall into their hands. He couldn't live with the guilt over what would happen if it did.

It was past midnight, and Goro was almost shocked that he hadn't been stopped by any patrolling officers yet, though he had learned that the world had a way of letting problems like him slip by the notice of everyday folks. It was like when he first discovered what Momentary Lily was, and tried to warn the people watching it. All he would get were puzzled looks and walls of stony silence as if he hadn't said anything. Not anything that people were willing to hear, at any rate.

Goro's chest was heaving; his lungs felt like they were filled with glass. Eventually, it was too much, and when he tripped over some crack in the pavement and tumbled onto the soaking-wet concrete, he thought he truly might never get back up. The parcel had gone flying from his hands and into a puddle. It was already beginning to soak up the filthy rainwater. Goro cursed and slammed his fists onto the ground. He knew that simply destroying the contents of the package itself wouldn't be enough. Sure, the storyboards and reference sheets inside would bleed and rot through before too long, but that wouldn't be enough to kill what those pages contained. The material work was merely a vessel for something much too old and much too hungry to be slowed down by something so trifling as a midnight storm. All it would take was a few more scraps of paper and a couple of drafting pens to pick right back up like nothing had happened.

Goro slowly crawled along the rough concrete to reach the soggy package. As easy as it would be to just leave this madness behind him and let someone else find the disintegrated paper, he couldn't just go on without taking responsibility. This evil, whatever it was, had to be purged. On the top of the parcel, in bright red ink that bled down the label in thick streams, Goro could still make out the kanji and kana that read: “Property of Studio GOHANDS.”

“I will put a stop to this if nobody else will,” Goro said. He bent down to pick up the cursed ream, and just as he did the sky lit up with a flash of lightning. Thunder boomed down the narrow corners of the alley. Startled, he grabbed the wretched thing and whirled around to see five figures standing as silhouettes in the distance. When the lighting came again, he could just make out the different, bright colors of the figures' stylish hair, and the flashy fabrics of their uniforms. But only for a moment.

The figures stepped forward all in unison, and through the boom of thunder Goro could have sworn he heard a giggling chorus of the phrase, “Let's cook!” He didn't wait another second to get a better look at them. He knew full well what kind of monsters lurked in the darkness of this place. He just turned again to run, as fast as he possibly could. If he was quick, and if he was lucky, he might have a chance at making it to dawn…

Rating:

James is a writer with many thoughts and feelings about anime and other pop-culture, which can also be found on Twitter, his blog, and his podcast.