FP's Fun

Chapter 5

"How is this happening to me?" The real Alice asked from the bed, her body growing weaker and weaker by the minute.

"How is what happening to you?" Fake Alice wondered, stepping closer to the bed on FP's side. She crossed her arms over her chest, looking down at the handcuffed woman. "The coyote? Or the fact that you lost your mind?" She laughed. "Because let's be honest, you lost your mind a while ago...before you even came to the cabin. Before you even met FP to be quite honest." She laughed again. "No, really though. Isn't it obvious? You're delirious. You're starving, you're under a lot of stress, you're all alone here, and your dead husband is lying beside you as a coyote watches him, getting ready for dinner. Why WOULDN'T you lose your mind?"

"How did he get in here?" Alice's voice cracked.

Fake Alice leaned over, resting her hands on her knees to look the real journalist in the face. "How do you think?" She gave her a moment. "Just think about it."

"The...the...the door." She realized.

"That's right." Fake Alice stood up tall again. "Your procrastinating husband never fixed the goddamn door, so you had to leave it open and now you're about to become dog kibble because of it." She shook her head, turning to walk into the bathroom as she looked at herself in the mirror. "Hm! I look great!" She played with her golden locks for awhile before looking back to real Alice on the bed. "You on the other hand...could use a bit of a facial."

"Are you fucking kidding me right now?" Alice laughed to herself. "If you're gonna be here, you could at least be helpful! Don't sit there degrading me and the way I look."

"But isn't that what we do, Alice?" The Fake one wondered, walking back into the bedroom, leaning a hand up against the bedpost as she continued. "We judge people all the time. It's a part of our snarky attitude. We're popular for it." She said proudly. "No matter how much it hurts people's feelings, we go right ahead and say shit we don't really mean, because it makes us forget all the pain. It's our way of punishing ourselves for what happened."

"What happened?" The Fake FP suddenly appeared on Alice's side of the bed.

"Nothing!" The real Alice demanded, glaring at Fake Alice. "You two need to get a grip and find a way to get me out of here."

"Well...first of all, you're putting yourself in danger by being that close to a dead body with a coyote sitting over there." Fake FP pointed at his dead body beside her, then to the wild animal in the door, taking a nap.

"Well, yeah, if I could go somewhere else right now, I would, Genius. Thank you." Alice sarcastically responded with a dramatic eye roll.

"He's not saying that YOU need to relocate." The Fake Alice raised an eyebrow and the moment real Alice blinked, they were both gone.

Mrs. Smith-Jones began to hyperventilate again as she realized what the Fake Ones meant. Her hallucinations were annoying and dreadful, but surprisingly helpful and she hated herself for what she had to do. She took a moment to cry as she sang to herself, feeling a torturous pain she'd never felt before. She sang a lullaby she used to sing for her babies to fall asleep as she continued to let her tears fall. "Goodnight my angel, now it's time to dream. And dream how wonderful your life will be. Someday your child may cry, and if you sing this lullaby. Then in your heart there will always be a part of me." When she sniffled and finished the song, she bent over as far as she could to kiss FP on the forehead and used the little strength she had left to kick his body off of the bed and onto the floor, as far from her as she could.

The coyote stood, tilting its head to the side for a moment before it made its way over to the corpse. "No! Hey!" Alice shouted at the beast while he found a good place to bite. "No!" Alice sobbed once more as the coyote took a bite of her husband and moved back over to the door. The remaining human gagged as more tears escaped her stinging, tired eyes.

"You did what you had to to survive, Alice." The Fake Alice reappeared, this time sitting at the foot of the bed, criss-cross applesauce, mirroring the real Alice's legs.

"Don't worry. I'm not mad." Fake FP sat beside her, his face inches from her own. "As long as it saves you, that coyote can eat all of me."

Alice let her head fall as she cried some more, shaking her head. "I don't...I don't think I can do this anymore." She sharply inhaled, letting out a violent sob as she looked back up to them. "I can't-can't do thi-this anymore. I wanna d-die."

"No!" Fake FP abruptly stood up from the bed. "You're not giving up, Alice!" She shouted aggressively. "You're not a quitter! You've never been! Come on, Ali!"

"Wh-what did you just call me?" The real Alice stopped crying for a moment. "No one calls me that. Not even you. Only one person in the world has ever called me Ali and that's-"

"Alice..." The Fake Alice interrupted her. "Whatever you do, you need to stay awake. One snooze and there's a chance that undomesticated dog over there makes you his breakfast. Stay awake."

"How do I stay awake?" Her eyes began to droop with exhaustion.

"By talking to us." Fake FP demanded.

Wh-What do we talk about?" She wondered, sniffling.

"Well, you could start with that secret you owe me." Fake FP crossed his arms over his chest once more.

"That's up to you, Alice. Don't let him force you into anything." Fake Alice crawled closer to her on the bed. "Just like you let him force you into these cuffs. Now look at where that got you. Men are constantly causing female problems by forcing them to do something they don't wanna do, don't they?"

"Hey!" Fake FP walked around the bed, closer to the bathroom. "I didn't force her into those cuffs. She could have said no."

"He's right." The real Alice nodded. "I could've said no." Her voice squeaked as she felt tears resurfacing. "I SHOULD have said no." She agonizingly shook her head, looking down.

"Alice, that wasn't your fault." Fake Alice replied, leaning in to get closer to her. "Okay? What happened at camp was NOT your fault."

"Camp?" Fake FP wondered. "What camp? What is she talking about, Alice?"

"Nothing!" The real Alice snapped with her head still down, her disheveled hair covering her face. "She's talking about no-nothing." Her voice trailed off and her vision blurred as her eyes disobeyed her, beginning to shut.

"No, no! Alice!" Fake Alice shouted, snapping her fingers in front of her face. "Stay awake! Stay awake. Alice..." Her voice began to grow muffled and the real Alice's hearing began to go as her eyes closed even more. "Stay awake."

Everything went dark.

A/N: Okay, guys. The next chapter is going to contain some REALLY heavy stuff. So if you don't want to read anymore that's fine with me. Just know that this is your TRIGGER WARNING for NEXT chapter. Thank you for sticking around as long as you did. Love you all. MWAH!