White Noise (ON HOLD)

Chapter 3: Alice in Wonderland

Sage

I dream of Alice and Wonderland. I'm Alice, the girl with no worries or devils trying to chase her, following a rabbit all around.

And now I'm Dorothy, trying to find the long way home. Following the yellow-brick road to the wizard who can change my future and my life forever.

But maybe Dorothy wanted to stay in her fairy tale, and her imagination just kept her from it. Brought her back into the real world.

And maybe that's me, too, trying to steer away from the demons festering in my soul. Maybe I should embrace it.

But the rest of the human in me tells me not to.

In my sky blue dress and my blonde hair pulled back with a black headband, I tiptoe towards where I had seen the white rabbit last, and stumble upon a hole. About the size of me, actually.

I lean down, searching for that white rabbit that had me curious, and accidentally slip on the loose dirt where my hand had been.

I fall into the abyss, not knowing what to expect.

I keep falling, and falling, and falling . . .

I wake with a start, the dream I'd had sweeping away from me before I can remember what it had been.

It must be past midnight. A dribbling thought of choking the life out of myself with my own hands comes, but I push it away. Nothing more reaches me, and for that I am grateful.

I try to bob back to sleep, but my eyes have focused and refuse to close.

I struggle to sit up and lean against the wall behind me. The monsters that have taken control over my soul haven't come back.

I know for sure that they will. Maybe today, tomorrow, but this is the longest it's been without multiple suicidal thoughts entering my already destroyed mind.

And I don't know if that's what I really wanted.

They are the reason why I am so unwilling to forgive, so unwilling to feel, and if I start to, I wouldn't know how.

I might go back to killing innocents.

I had killed only because those same demons had told me to. And I trusted them, not knowing what else to do. I was too trusting, too insecure, too . . .

Worthless.

And I'm like Alice in Wonderland, not knowing which path to take. The Cheshire cat is the beasts wedged inside my throat. My past is the rabbit I'm chasing round and round and round.

Alice was my favorite character when I was younger. And now I seem to be becoming her.

Only worse.

And there will be a change in how my story ends.

I'm still not afraid of dying, and I never will be. It's just a matter of who's stopping the beat of my heart.

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I'm dozing off when I hear the rattle of the cell door opening.

Same as always, a hooded figure walks through the door at a slow pace. But they don't hold a plate of mush in their seemingly pale hands.

Instead, this one has a hand fisted and the other open. And I can tell something is clutched between their fingers.

It's what I have been waiting for, is what a whispering voice in my mind says. The single thing I need.

Another, deeper voice comes in. Jump on them, they say. Watch the life drain out of their face as you hold your knotted fingers around their neck. They deserve it the most, they've stuck you in here.