u/Abject_Ordinary9245

"What do you want to be when you grow up, Alice?"

A question asked by every adult in every kid's life. Hopeful and innocent. Always expecting an answer like doctor, firefighter, astronaut...

We drew our answers once in the first grade, and stood up to explain it in front of the class. I drew an angel with eyes as bright as the sky and wavy blonde hair like Mom's. Angel Alice had a long, flowy white robe made of clouds, a golden halo that shined like the sun, and wide silver wings.

She also had a sword like the Angel Michael, but she never had to use it. She was a healer. She didn't need glasses. She was bright and beautiful, flying above the earth, helping others in ways they couldn't see. Free and safe from death.

There was no faster way to make every adult who ever asked smile with well-meant concern. They worried for me in the sweetest ways. A lot of them thought that angels were just dead people. When I was that young, I guess I did too, but at the same time I wasn't afraid of that.

Godfather Carl taught me to not be afraid of death. "Everything dies," he said, "It's nature. It's all God's plan. But when we die, it isn't the end. We leave our bodies, but our souls live forever. We live in perfect, painless peace with God, forever."

But angels don't die at all. Pure, created, sinless beings that never had to leave heaven -- at least the ones that didn't fall. As perfect as a thing can be, next to God. But no human can ever be an angel. So what do we turn into when we die?

The lightning woke me up. Thunder rumbled all the way to the ground and I felt the rain pouring down on me. It caked my eyes, even as the downpour broke it down little bit by little bit into tiny rivers streaming down the sides of my face. That's when I realized my glasses were gone.

In the darkness, I could hardly remember where I was, until the lightning came in bright flashes over the towering treetops. The streaks of light were broken by the blurred silhouettes of a hundred black arms reaching out and breaking off in every direction above me. Thick and stalky alike, impossibly long, arms waving in the rain-soaked wind, like they were beckoning me up from out of the ground.

I gasped like it was the first breath I ever took, but felt no rush of air. Only mud and rainwater pouring through the corners of my mouth, as I felt the shallow puddle wash around my face. I gagged, and I tried to cough, but like the outside air, it didn't reach my mouth. It came in a painful rasp out of the base of my neck. It was cold there. Empty. All the way across.

I tried to turn my head, but only turned my body through the slipping molds of wet earth. I felt that same empty cold in my stomach, like something was missing. And I tried to raise my head.

Legs and arms carving themselves out from the ground, but not my head. My gaze fixed up to the dark sky as my head refused to move from where it was, half-submerged in the mud. Dad took us all camping back when there were just the five of us -- not in these, in the real woods near where he used to hunt, in the off season. We were all in sleeping bags in a single tent when the rain came and was just minutes away from flooding the valley. We woke up in two inches of rain water and to the sound of Dad frantically disassembling the tent to collect us into his truck, back when he had a truck.

It was like that, except here I was alone.

I felt and I heard a faint cracking, like knuckles, just above my chest. I could feel it clicking inside my unmoving head, straining as I tried. The cracking got louder the harder I tried to move myself -- to will myself -- up. And finally it moved. Backwards.

My head hung nearly all the way backwards against my struggling body, like a loose tooth hanging on by a single nerve. The shadows of the trees hung down from the dark earth, beneath a sky of filthy water at the roof of my vision.

I let go. Relaxed, as much as I could. And I breathed shallowly through my throat. I reached up with my hand, over my torn skirt and tattered sweater, to the buttons on my soaked blouse, to the cuts. My fingers trace them, nearly flipping through them like the pages of a book... two, five, nine, thirteen...

Thirteen to the bone. Through the tender, stinging folds of scarred flesh, it was as if bone was the only thing holding me together. I crawl my fingers over my mud-covered face, into my hair. It's matted, crusty, like dirty ropes, and I grab a handful of it at the roots. I can still feel it tugging at my scalp. I pick up the slack from my gashed neck and I hold myself steadily upright, to see straight.

They left me in the woods. An untouched portion of forest park between our neighborhood and our school. It stretched for miles in this crescent moon shape like it was trying to envelope the suburbs, and I learned when I was 9 that I could either ride in a crammed van for 45 minutes or I could hike the shortcut that only I ever seemed to take, straight through the middle, direct to the school, and be there in 15.

The choice was easy, especially since there were more of us every year. You can tell how badly your parents wanted a boy by just how many daughters they have. Mom was the oldest, like me, but she had three younger brothers that worshipped her like she was their princess. She was kind, confident, but sensitive and small, and they towered over her like bodyguards and were always there when she needed them. I think that's all she wanted for her daughters too.

Dad was an only child in a house with no father. No one to toss a ball or play sword-fight or sneak into theaters to watch scary movies with. He was quiet and serious most of the time, a rock of responsibility, but he could turn into the biggest goofball at the drop of a hat. A Boy Scout who wanted to raise a couple of his own. He loved talking to us, asking about our days, and even though he'd never admit it, we could always tell how much he hated saying, "You have to ask your mother."

For him, I think he just wanted someone for him to feel... less lonely. Seventeen years and seven daughters later, he'd made his peace with it. Have to, by that point. He got one good tomboy with Sonny, #2, and just last year before Isobel, #7, bought himself a rottweiler he named Brock, who he at least got to throw the ball with.

He always drove at least four of the young'uns to school and Mom was always home with at least one baby, so nine years I walked that path through the woods. That secret path, I liked to call it. Nine years, from Ascension Elementary to St. Sebastian across the street. Nine years I never saw anything, or anyone, but the old, gray trees. Even the birds seemed like they waited til I was out the other side to start singing again.

I didn't know today would be so different. I was walking back like a thousand times before, and I had just finished playing the second song in my earbuds outta the four or five it always takes to get home. I was adjusting my backpack and looking at my phone to change the song; I wanted something sweeter, brighter, something my friend Riley had recommended. The time had just turned to 3:30.

They came up from behind. Two of them. Just two.

One was skinny. Wiry. Long greasy hair under a beanie he wore with his blazer. Pointed nose crooked every which way and uneven patches of hair all along his chin. Always tweaked out, always high on something. Everyone whispered about him anyway, a burnout with no future, living in his parents' garage. His breath smelled like cigarettes.

Avery Miller.

The other was one to recognize. Slick, combed blonde hair. Clean cut, organized. Bright blue eyes and a million-dollar grin that had everyone fooled, even me. Could talk his way into or out of anything he wanted. Star athlete, model student, and valedictorian with his whole life ahead of him on a silver platter, living in the house on the hill. The only rumors spread about him were who his next willing conquest would be. He was the last one anyone would ever expect.

Kit Holloway.

They both held me down, tore my clothes. The one with the knife was Kit. But it was both of them.

He held it to my throat and just stared at me with blank, soulless eyes. He breathed so steadily, like a lying dog. I kept expecting him to say something, threaten me, but he never did. He just stayed silent, pressing the knife to my throat the whole time. I kept thinking my silence would save me.

The most I said was just a whisper, "I won't tell anyone, just please don't hurt me."

Even after Avery gagged my mouth, I kept thinking that like it was a wish. Like it'd make a difference. I wished that someone else -- anyone else -- would happen to take this "secret path" I loved so much. But no one did. No one ever did. I stared past the both of them through the towering trees into the graying sky, the coming storm.

It's almost over, I kept thinking, Just stay still, it'll be over soon.

Then they cut me. Over and over. Cuts as deep as the grave was shallow.

The first one scared them. It was Avery, I think, after Kit climbed off and held down my arms. It felt like something stuck at the bottom of my throat. I couldn't breathe and I started to cough, and I could see that I was spitting blood onto the dirt and grass. Then he started screaming.

Kit grabbed the knife and he took over, while Avery covered his face with his shirt. I could barely feel what was happening to me. I didn't want to. I could hear thunder in the distance as I started to slip away.

Soon enough it all went black. But they say hearing is the last sense that leaves you in the end. I heard their voices.

"Oh shit, oh shit, oh fuck, what're we gonna do?!"

"Calm down."

"She's dead -- we fucking killed her, man."

"Calm. Down."

"I'm sorry, I mean... You -- you really..."

"You got the ball rolling, all I did was make sure."

"Jesus... I don't think I can -- "

"Hey. Hey! Look at me... You keep it together. You're not flaking out on me now."

"This wasn't supposed to happen!"

"Well it did. Could've been a lot worse. Remember, we were worried she'd talk. Now that's not a factor anymore. So keep it together."

"What the fuck do we do, man?"

"We go home. We clean ourselves up. Plan for the next day. We were never here."

"We can't just leave her like this..."

"We'll cover her, but we haul ass outta here. Rain's coming in, it'll wash away... a lot of it. I'll trash her backpack. If no one's found her by tomorrow, we come back, trash her somewhere else. Lake or something."

"But what if they find her?"

"Then we deal with that as it happens. We were never here, we don't know her. Go home and think solutions. Think of anything you have that we can use. Think."

"I... I have a tarp in the garage."

"Tarp, that's good. We'll need that. I got chlorine at my place, I'll clean the knife."

"What? No, that's my dad's knife. I'll clean it."

"Will you?"

"Yes."

"Okay, just make sure it's the first thing you do. Go home, clean the knife, get yourself cleaned up, give me the night to make a plan."

"Okay. Okay..."

"We were never here. Right?"

"Right."

"And -- stay lucid, okay? I need you reliable."

"Yeah. Yeah, okay."

"Seriously, I mean it."

"Okay! Sorry..."

"... It's okay."

"God, there's so much blood."

"Yeah, that's what happens. Help me with her."

They buried me. Shallow, with their hands and with branches they used to churn the earth. Enough for the rain to wash into mud down my face, my body... my wounds. And the water pooled at my sides like a deflated kiddie pool.

Holding my loose head steady with one hand, I use the other to push myself up, the dark brown water sloshing and receding as I moved to reveal my ruined uniform. Blood soaked in reddish-brown stains through the fabric of my white shirt, all the way down to some odd tears across my stomach. Wounds I felt all the way through to my back. They stabbed me, I couldn't count how many times.

When did they stab me? Why didn't I feel it? Was it after...

How was I still alive? How was I still breathing, through the gashes in my neck? I couldn't even feel the veins in my neck anymore. This wasn't possible. It wasn't real, it couldn't be.

But it didn't go away. I saw that I was still bleeding from the wounds on my stomach, down to my skirt. It didn't hurt, it was just cold, which the rain didn't help with. I slipped myself out of the right arm of my school sweater and wrapped it halfway around my stomach. I didn't want to take my other hand off my head.

My feet kicked at the bottom of the mud puddle as I scooted myself, inch by inch, back onto the ground. I turned myself around and forced myself up to my knees. Wobbly and weak, but I held myself.

Stand up.

I tried moving my knee prostrate, but I couldn't. It's like they were asleep, even as I was kneeling in the mud and the rain. I couldn't stand up. Even if I thought I could make it, I couldn't even tell where to go. Where was home?

Over the patter of rain, I heard something. Not thunder, it was for sure on the ground. Loud, but pointed. Like a voice in the distance, calling out somewhere. To me? I didn't know, I couldn't even tell what it said.

But it knew at least that it was behind me. So on my knees, I crawled, little by little, mud and twigs trailing behind me, as I held my head in place. The lightning shining off the trickling trees lit the uncertain way for me, before the darkness came again. Kept crawling forward, brushing my shoulder against the bark of unseen trees, just as I started to forget where the sound has come from.

"Raff!"

There it was again. Light and sharp, hollow and breathy, closer than before. Not quite a dog bark, but very loud for a person. Some kind of voice, for sure, but not a word, I don't think. Maybe a name? A parent calling their child? Did I know any Raff's? Is that even a name?

"Rah-ulff!"

Closer now. Louder. Sounded like "Ralph" but in two syllables. Lightning flashed and ahead of me some ten feet I could see a single, skinny tree trunk cut down to maybe a foot and a half of stump, in amongst a towering forest. I'd never seen it in all the time I'd been through here.

And it didn't look evenly cut either, like some of the bark had stayed intact along the cutting line even when the body was missing. Two bits that pointed up along the sides like stout little horns. I swear even through the darkness, near the top, I could see two distinct droplets of water that shined through like the reflection of the lightning had yet to escape them.

They shined out to me through the rain like two little soft yellow eyes. They even blinked at me.

Lightning flashed again. It was a fox.

Little black fox -- "melanistic" I think is the word, the opposite of albino -- with wisps of white along his chin and chest and snout. Just sitting upright in the rain across from me, eyes glowing a hollow glow to let me know he was still there in the rumbling dark.

I always loved foxes, but I'd never seen any like this, even in pictures. Maybe I am dead.

"Ralph!" I heard him call again.

It almost hurt my ears how close he was. For a second I could only see his eyes until the lightning struck again and I saw just how well-kept he was. He looked like someone's pet. And he wasn't afraid of me as he just sat there, stock still, staring at me. Somehow that made me less afraid of him too.

He got up on all fours and kept staring. I had to lean to let one of my legs up, and I almost fell over as I did. The sole of my left foot made contact with the muddy ground.

Halfway there. In my legs I felt that numb stinging like when they're asleep. They wobbled like it was the first time I'd ever walked on them, and the dirty rainwater dripped off of me. I don't think I could help but go slow, fearing the higher and higher I rose to my feet that I'd fall to the ground again. That my head would snap off and my insides pour out of me, as I desperately clutched both of them closed.

I couldn't find my balance, I could feel it -- I was going to fall.

"Ralph!" the fox yipped, my eyes snapping back to his.

A focus, a center. My right foot found the ground, and I stood up on stiff legs. I was dizzy, pulling on my own hair like a horse's bridle. Ralph's glowing eyes disappeared one moment and in the next, the lightning showed me that he turned himself around, looking over his shoulder at me. Beckoning me.

I didn't know where I was going, so I followed him. My legs barely worked as I took slow, awkward steps over fallen branches, terrified that each one might be one too much for this broken body. He was always ahead, but never fully out of sight. Except for those yips, he never made a sound, but I knew where he was. There in the dark, walking with him, barely thinking.

Classmates, school, St. Sebastian... I always hated that story. Never knew what I was supposed to learn from it. He was a saint, martyred by the Romans. Condemned by the emperor, tied to a tree, and shot with arrows. Dozens of arrows in his stomach and his chest and his arms and his neck. The soldiers didn't stop until their arms got tired, the arrows ran out, and Sebastian was "as full of arrows as a feathered urchin." I never forgot that description. By then they just left him there, against the tree. But he lived.

He was found and nursed to health. And he went back to the soldiers and the emperor that left him for dead, to accuse them. So they seized him and... I forget if they beat him to death or cut off his head. Either way, they finished the job. What was the point of that? He was alive. He avoided death, he was safe. What would've been so wrong with him just, living? But he went back to show them he was alive, just for them to kill him again. God handed him a miracle, and he chose to die. What was he thinking?

Where was I...?

"Ralph!"

In the dark, he flashed his eyes back at me, leading me... somewhere. I didn't care where, just let me out of these woods. If I die, let me die at home, with my family. Please, give me this miracle.

I start to see the street lights through the trees. I just want to crawl into my bed one last time. And sleep.

Ralph sits patiently at the edge of the forest, right in front of Maple Street, where I always tag the lamppost before I head in. He looks at me, then back to the street, as I take my last tiring steps to meet him, and look out.

Rows of brick houses I passed by all the time, lights on, blinds drawn. I looked all the way down, on the left, to the street corner marked by the house I grew up in. The tree I used to climb with Sonny when we were younger. The police car parked in our driveway, flashing its red and blue lights.

I didn't dare turn my head to him, but I moved only my eyes to the bottom corner of my vision to see that little black fox and its soft golden eyes as it looked up at me.

What is this?

It stood on all fours and turned silently back to trot into the woods, a tuft of snow white fur on the tip of its tail twirling behind, before disappearing in darkness.

I was alone, but I could see it. See them. Silhouettes in the lights shining from every window in that house. In front of the house just across the street from me, was a girl with a handle flashlight and yellow rain coat, pacing on the porch. Checking her watch. Adjusting her glasses. Kaitlynn. Number 3.

She was looking for me. The door didn't open and she stood there on the porch, waving the light beam like a signal tower. The rays scanned the treeline across from where she was, passing me by in a bright glowing flash, and suddenly snapped back to where I was. A blinding light. I couldn't cover my eyes, only shut them as hard as I could. I could see the black blood vessels in my eyelids, and the light slowly, slowly intensified.

The patter of rain was constant, somehow louder against asphalt. But through it, like interference on a radio, I could just barely hear:

"Alice...?"

I opened my eyes, just for a moment, the light blaring into my skull.

"Oh God...!" raised the voice of my sister, "Dad! Officer!!"

The blaring vanished, the flashes receding as I blinked them away. Kaitlynn ran hard through the heavy rain, screaming all the way down the street. I tried to call out after her, but no sound came from me.

At the house where she'd just been, I saw the door open and a friendly, middle-aged woman look out at the street, the screaming. She looked, confused, in every direction, same as Kaitlynn. She was thin, down to her hair. Tired. Pretty, but weathered. I recognized her too. Mrs. Miller was always nice, as far as neighbors went. She cupped her eyes to look along the treeline -- she looked right at me -- but after a moment, she shook her head and shut the door.

I looked over to see that even the light in the garage was on. Two cars in the driveway. He was in there.

I walked through the rain, across the street to the back of the garage. I heard yelling down the street as I stood in front of the back door, under an awning. The door knob was there, but my hands were full. I felt how my school jacket was dead weight in my hand, and I held it to my torn stomach like a rag. I pulled it up, tucking one arm in between the buttons of my shirt, and wrapped the other side properly around like I should've done earlier. It wasn't anything like a proper tourniquet, but it was enough to free my hand.

I turned the knob. No lock. The door opened. The floor was all mats and rugs, duct taped end-to-end to one another. A pair of muddy shoes sat on a doormat just inside. The walls were all movie posters and a long white sheet draped over what was once the garage door. A pair of bicycles hung on the third wall, over a workshop desk of house and garden tools, and what looked like an unplugged lava lamp. No, no it wasn't that. The closer I looked, the more I saw -- it was a hookah. So that's what the smell was.

In the middle of the room was a projector stood up on a tripod in front of a coffee table holding a half-empty glass of milk, a standing bag of cookies, and a pair of crossed bare feet. I followed the legs of loose pajama pants to a spindly boy in a black sweater, staring at me with wide, bloodshot red eyes as he was chewing his food.

Avery.

The air was thick and silent between us as the rain came down outside. My breath was steadier than expected -- it all still felt a little like a dream to me -- while his came in shudders as he finished swallowing.

"Nah..." he grumbled, shaking his head, giggling in slurred words. "No, no, no. You're not real... You're dead... We left you in the woods... Shit was crazy. You're not real..."

He slowly crawled over the arm of his couch, craning his skinny neck to look closer at me. Up and down, his bright red eyes raked over me.

"How are you still... so hot?"

I walked over to the table and picked up the milk glass. His absent gaze followed me as he reached out a limp left hand over to me, his right snaking down to his crotch.

I smashed the glass on the right side of his face, my neck falling down onto my shoulder as Avery fell, screaming in pain onto the floor. Larger shards than I expected embedded themselves in my hand and I looked down to see a massive jagged piece was stuck in his cheek and one of his eyes, his face drenched in milk and dripping bright red blood.

After he screamed, his shaky hands hovered over the new gashes in his gaunt face. The glass in his right eye kept him from blinking properly, and he let out a trembling gasp.

"What the fuck?"

I reached down, grabbing him by the throat with both hands. He immediately started gasping, choking, clawing at my hands and his neck. It wasn't until he started coughing in spurts of blood, and I felt a warm sensation flow softly between my fingers that I realized I was also cutting him. His screams were strangled under my hands.

He couldn't do anything now. I squeezed tighter. Tighter.

Weak and delirious, he threw his entire weight around me, pushing me off as he launched himself backward over the table, overturning it as he hit the floor. I could hear him gurgling as I walked along the other side. I wondered where he thought he was crawling to.

His words were garbled, breathy, desperate.

"Kit -- it was... Kit... please..."

The blood poured from his neck, his mouth, his face, soaking into the rugs underneath him as he pulled himself, dragging even the good side of his face. He gave up by the time his hand touched the bottom of the work bench, probably realizing he ran out of floor. I looked up at the wall of pegs, the tools hanging on them, the blunt instruments.

A hammer with a sky blue rubber grip.

All my focus went to keeping a strong hold on it, while the little weight fell to the side of my knee. I looked down at Avery, gasping, gargling, face down on the floor. I knelt down beside his head of greasy hair, envisioning the motion.

I raised my arm as he let out one last cry.

"Pleas-"

It sounded like a watermelon smashing on pavement. His head cracked like an egg and his blood burst out in a bright red mist that oozed up in bubbles around where the hammerhead was stuck. His shoulders started to spasm, so I hit him again. And again.

I lost count to be honest. I just know that I didn't stop until his skull was shattered into a hundred white puzzle pieces sprinkled into a stew of grayish-pink mince meat.

I was tired. Could I be tired if I was dead?

I sat against the bench, staring at the mostly intact body, ending at the neck in the mess I made of Avery Miller. His black sweatshirt promoting some werewolf movie that came out last year. His red plaid fucking PJ pants. But something else too...

He had something poking under the back of his shirt. I tug it up and back and pulled out from his waistband an Army knife with a brown wood handle and a long black blade still stained with red rust. That knife.

Kit.

I walked out of the Millers' garage back into the rain. Under the sounds of distant thunder, I thought I heard the sound of someone screaming far behind me. Thunder roared and dogs whimpered from their doghouses as I passed through open backyards bordered with wood or metal fences on only one neighbor's side.

As I marched forward through the mowed wet grass, I found it was difficult not to lean leftward as my tilted vision made me dizzy under the buzzing street lights. Everyone knew where the Holloways lived.

I found their regal colonial at the end of the cul-de-sac on Willow Way. I walked the stone path, up the steps to the door, wedged the knife into the slit between the lock and the frame, and broke it open with the hammer.

My eyes were focused mainly on the polished woodboards, glimmering in the light of the chandelier overhead. I heard barking from the next room, the clattering of paws coming closer and closer, to a scraping stop. The low growl turned to a high whimper as the scrambling receded.

I found the stairway, and my neck strained with every step as the water dripped down my clothes. Sitting in the middle of the stairs, I saw a little girl. Can't have been more than four, Emily's age. Precious, with bright blue eyes and golden blonde hair, holding a white stuffed rabbit.

She looked a little like me.

She wasn't scared as she looked up at me. Curious, more like. She tilted her head all the way to her shoulder to meet my gaze. Her hair fell down the same way her bunny's ears flopped. I didn't know he had a sister.

"Are you okay?" she asked like I'd just scraped my knee.

I looked up the stairs and walked past Little Alice all the way up the terrace to the white bathroom door. I heard his voice, muffled inside. The door opened easily, letting out the steam of the shower.

The walls were white tile, with this tacky rose stalk pattern. I saw his silhouette behind a translucent glass panel as he washed himself. Washed himself of me. Stuck to the dry side of the panel was a green Bluetooth speaker evenly playing the song he was singing inside. Over the running water, I even heard him. I heard it was "Sailor Song" by Gigi Perez. For a while that was my favorite song.

The thick panel broke into several jagged, uneven pieces with one swing of the hammer. He spun around suddenly, shock on his face, water falling from his hair and shoulders as the pieces of pane shattered at his feet like sheets of ice.

After the hammer, then the knife, that drove into his lean flesh like carving a ham. I realized my aim was off and instead of his chest, I'd stabbed through his left shoulder, hitting the bone of his arm, and hearing him grunt as he tried to say... something.

Hammer again, I swung over my other arm, smashing against his jaw, staggering him as the knife partly held him up. Some of his teeth clattered into the blood red water splashing on the shower floor as his feet shuffled over broken glass.

Pulling the knife out was too much effort, so I swung the hammer again toward the right side of his face -- the side not bruised and bleeding. He quickly raised his right arm to block mine, grunting like an animal, grabbing me by the collar of my shirt and pulling me into the shower as he tried to move himself out. Even like this he was still stronger.

My knees gave out as he threw me toward him into the water, my head knocking against the hard wall. The exposed bones in my neck cracked and I saw stars as I heard him groan and stumble out of the shower. I saw he was on his hands and knees, shaking the shards from his hands as he tried crawling for the open door.

I felt something rise in me as I watched him. It felt like a scream, from all the way in my stomach, drummed out from the hammering of my heart, that escaped my open throat in an inhuman moan as I lunged for his back.

He rolled in time to catch and throw me back to the ground beside him, rage in his eyes. I kicked, I swung, I gnashed my teeth -- everything I wish I'd done in the woods -- but he held me down. He drooled blood in between missing teeth, grinding with the only side of his face where the jaw was connected. He pinned my hammer hand down by the wrist, I could just barely reach to claw at his half-maimed face with my left.

He grabbed me by the shoulder, turning me onto my stomach, with my face against the white porcelain tiles. Then he pulled me by the hair and smashed my head down into it. He did it three, four times until I heard my skull crack. And it hurt.

I stopped breathing so hard and heavily. I could only see the bright white through the one of my eyes not mushed against the floor. I heard him breathing, sighing, slurring nonsense to himself next to my limp body. Resting.

I was so tired. All I wanted was to close my eyes, stay still, wait for it to be over. And I might've.

But I heard him grunt as he held one hand on the sink to stand himself up. I felt the metal hammer head rest heavily on my fingers. He stepped over me, gingerly, on the uninjured heel of his foot. He was trying to walk away. With all the strength in my arm, I ran the claw through his Achilles' tendon, hearing him wail as he fell back down to my level.

I pushed up with my arms as he shambled into the corner. I crawled up to him and pulled the knife from his shoulder as he kept trying to hold me back. I stabbed, aiming for his neck.

Not perfect, but I got it. Through the skin, the veins, but just missed the bones of his neck. The handle stuck out at an awkward, diagonal angle. I saw terror flood in his eyes, as one of his hands reached up to touch it, realizing where it was. He had a moment of instinct to try and pull it out before realizing he couldn't. He was dead anyway.

But I wasn't finished.

I watched his pretty blue eyes widen as I grabbed the knife handle with one hand and a fistful of his hair with the other. And I pulled and pushed on both, slamming the back of his head against the wall, each time cutting deeper and deeper, all the way through his throat like a broken paper cutter. He stopped moving, making noise, after just the second or third, but I didn't stop until the blade scraped against the tile wall, I saw those white roses painted red, and heard that rolling thud against the floor. I didn't look.

I breathed. I laughed. Then I got up. I found my glasses in his computer drawer.

I'm writing this now just so everyone knows. It’s important to me that people know, even if it’s too much to understand. Hell, I still don’t.

My name is Alice Wright. I’m the oldest of seven, the daughter of Eileen and David Wright. And I was seventeen years old when I was murdered. But it wasn’t the end. Not that it makes any difference, but underneath it all I do feel this pit in my stomach for Mrs. Miller, the Holloways, Little Alice...

Whatever else, it wasn't their fault. They didn't know. They were innocent, like me.

I'm going to walk out now. I'm done here. It's getting grayer and I feel myself slipping. If I can, I'll walk out onto the street where anyone can see me. Or at least see my body.

I don't want my parents to see me like this, but the thought of them never knowing, never giving up looking, is somehow so much worse. It'll hurt them, but then they can heal.

And I can finally let go. So I'll walk out.

And after that, well, it's anyone's guess.

"There was nothing wrong with my daughter, she was just a vibrant little girl who had a few nightmares and bit a couple kids! So what? When I was her age, I'm sure I did things much worse and turned out fine!"

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