赤裸裸的滑稽故事

Drip, drip, drip.

The sound echoed in the dark.

Drip, drip, drip.

A dark liquid slipped between the cracks of the grimy window, falling in loud drips to the craggy dirt-covered stone of the ground below her.

The cracks were getting more significant. Every time Alice got the treatment, they grew a little more. She wondered how long it would be before the window shattered. What would happen then?

She lay in the center of the dark cave. Her body was worn down. Exhausted from the effort to keep her mind awake. From the fight to keep her head above the liquid and keep from drowning.

Covered in dirt and bruises. Weak and tired. She let out a soft sob.

Why did she keep fighting? Why did she keep trying to wake up?

So many of her memories had already been corrupted, broken, torn away. Even now, she could barely remember what she had already forgotten.

She closed her eyes. Breathed the stale, mildewed air in through her nose. Somewhere mixed into that awful smell was that sweetness she longed for. The soft hint of chocolate kept her mind from sinking into the emptiness surrounding her memory.

“The sweet boy…” she whispered to herself with a weak smile.

She could almost see his face. It used to be so clear, so easy to remember. But even that was slipping away now. Alice let out another sob. Her lip shook as she tried to keep herself from accepting defeat.

She took another deep breath and told herself the same sad story she always did. The story of her._.

“There once was a little girl. She came home from school to find that she was alone,” Alice whispered.

“She cried out for her mother, but the little girl never saw her mother again, only the dress she wore, wet with the same red liquid that covered their kitchen floor.

“The man was there too. He took the little girl away from the kitchen and then even further away. To a place she had never seen before, a place where people wore costumes all the time. Where the voice, face, and words they used were always hiding the monster that lived inside of them.

“The little girl was scared, but the man told her she needed to be strong and brave. He taught her to be brave, to be strong. He taught her how to hide from the monsters by living in their shadows, to listen to their secrets, to find the things that hurt them, and then use them as weapons to kill the monsters.

“She learned many things. She told him all the things she had learned. And then she forgot them.”

Alice paused; her mind began to drift. She took another shaky breath.

“The man… told the girl… she needed to be a monster,” she struggled to remember the words, remember the story, but she found them again.

A tear fell from her eye, and she let out a small laugh as she recalled the next part of the story.

“That was when she died.”

***

“Do we wake her?” Asked a young man in black scrubs. Standing over a hospital bed in a dark room.

“Without her passphrase? Are you crazy? Do you even realize who this is?” Replied an older man wearing a white lab coat and thick dark-rimmed glasses.

“No… I’ve never seen her before,” the young man replied, looking closer at the woman’s small face. “Is she someone special?”

The man in the lab coat pulled back on the boy’s shoulder.

“Read the file next time,” he said before turning back to the monitors and making notes on the tablet in his arm.

The boy stepped back, still looking at the woman on the bed. She wasn’t much older than him. Her hair was short, just above her chin, a medium brown color with soft curls. She had a natural curve in her mouth, making it look like she always had a gentle smile.

She looked sweet.

He wondered what someone like her was doing down in this lab. He was curious, so he opened the file on his tablet. Immediately his eyes widened.

“This is Alice!” he shouted in surprise.

“Shut up!” the old man chided him. “We don’t want to wake her!”

The boy licked his lips nervously, even he had heard of Alice. The shadow of the Alpha. She was hardly ever seen, and those who had seen her could never agree on what she looked like other than

being a woman.

But one thing they did all agree on was that she was dangerous in more ways than one.

“But…” the boy said. “She’s had a full treatment; shouldn’t she be… blank?”

“That’s not how it works, kid,” the old man said as he continued to type away at his computer.

“With every treatment, everything she knows is still there. It’s just shoved really far back into the corners of her mind,” the old man replied. “At least… that’s how it works for most.”

“For most?”

“Yea, Alice is… different,” the old man said, his voice taking on a sadder tone, though he still did not look back. “She’s had treatments every year or every few months since she was small. But recently, it’s been a lot more.”

“Isn’t that dangerous?” the boy asked.

“It’s above my paygrade to ask those questions,” the man sighed. “All I know is that because of the repeated treatments, Alice wakes up different than others. Most people wake up shiny and new. Alice wakes up with complete awareness.”

The boy’s eyes widened.

“You mean she remembers everything? Like there was no treatment at all?”

“Exactly,” the man said. “Her body treats the treatments like a reversal. That’s why the passphrase is vital in her case. That’s what reroutes her thought pattern.

“Without it, she knows all the things she’s learned… the secrets, the lies, skills, and grudges. But, when the passphrase is used, she becomes–”

“Shiny and new,” a soft, playful, feminine voice called out.

The old man at his computer froze, feeling an icy chill down his back.

The boy swallowed, his heartbeat picked up, and his mouth ran dry.

“Aren’t you going to say hi, Daniel?” Alice said sweetly. “It’s been so long since we’ve seen each other, eye to eye.”

Daniel swallowed down the fear that crawled up his throat. He slowly turned in his chair to face her.

Alice sat up in her bed. She had positioned herself on her bent knees leaning forward on her hands as though she were preparing to crawl forward.

“Hi,” she smiled brightly.

Anyone else might have thought she meant it sweetly, but Daniel had met the real Alice before, and she did not like him.

“It’s been a while since you did this,” Alice said. “Where’s the other one?”

“He… he… uh… he left. Joined a different team.”

“No, Daniel, he didn’t,” Alice smiled even brighter. “Holden slit his throat open, right over there.”

The boy gasped; Alice turned toward him.

“You’re new,” she whispered. “Welcome to the team.”

“Alice…” Daniel called, “It’s time for some rest.”

Alice shook her head.

“Daniel.. Daniel… No,” Alice said with a growl at the end.

“Come on now, we both know this is what’s best for you,” Daniel said as he stood up from his chair, reaching his hand into his pocket.

“Are you going to stab me with a needle, Daniel?” Alice asked. “That’s not very nice.”

Her eyes swirled with threatening darkness. A low growl emanated from her chest before she leaped at Daniel.

“A very happy unbirthday to you, Alice.”

The words rang out in her mind like a gunshot blast. Her consciousness was sharply pulled into the small room with the grimy, cracked window. She gasped for air and coughed as she felt the impact of losing herself yet again.

Alice’s body crumpled to the floor. Daniel fell back into his chair.

“Sir, welcome back. You made it just in– who are you?!” Daniel jumped up from his chair, stepping back toward the boy that still stood in complete shock at the situation he had witnessed.

The man in the doorway stepped forward. He smiled a mischievous and dark grin. His pale blue eyes and shaggy black hair were unique enough that Daniel knew this was not a wolf of Spring.

“I’m no one you need to know about,” he said. Squatting down, he lifted Alice’s chin to look at him. “So, this is who you really are?”

She looked up at him, her eyes void of emotion or acknowledgment. Inside her mind, she stared back out at him. She gripped her hair and growled in frustration.

‘You…’ she growled. ‘I know you… I know you are not good… but you are not him… who are you?!?’

Granger smiled.

“Come, Alice, let’s go play.”