Dear Akin,
After a month of secrets, I have finally done it. I created my own ink out of berries and my own paper out flour I have been saving, keeping it from my ooloi, Nikanj. It has been difficult. But I have finally gotten the time alone and sharpened a stick into a pencil. I wish I could tell you everything about our culture and our history, but instead I’m going to tell you this. I did not want you. Not at first. At first I hated you and how Nikanj forced you into me even though I wasn’t ready. My mind wasn’t, at least.
But I’m ready now. I want you, and I want you to know this. You aren’t human. You are something else. I have sacrificed everything to create you and I have only done to that humans can win. You are a battle I lost, but through you I will win the war. I am hiding this letter for you so that when you are older you can read it and know that I want you, a non-human, to do as I have done and sacrifice everything so that the real humans can survive, flaws and all. The ooloi will tell you differently, but they are wrong. And you need to know that your only purpose so to help the real, unaltered humans can procreate. What the ooloi are doing is wrong and you are the product of their manipulation. You shouldn’t have been had, but I’m happy you’re coming because you can carry out my life’s goals long after I’m unable to do them myself. I don’t know how you’re going to learn how to read this letter, but I hope you will and that somehow we, as a human and a non-human hybrid, will be able to subvert the ooloi and maintain everything about humans that makes them more than the Oankali’s playthings.
Sincerely,
Your mother, Lilith