The Man Who Never Speaks

1. Hell Is Other People

"They told me all of my cages were mental
So I got wasted like all my potential
And my words shoot to kill when I'm mad
I have a lot of regrets about that."

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It was dark outside, a sight that somehow didn't give her the same peaceful feeling it usually did. She had been driving for hours and the sleep was terribly kicking in. Her eye lids were heavy and she would swear that the only reason she stayed awake was her fear of hitting a crossing deer if she wouldn't pay attention.

Even when today was supposed to be a new start for Alice, she felt everything but excited. The gloomy clouds above her and the trees hovering over the road, blocking the night sky wasn't helping her mood either.

If she looked out of her car window on her left side she could see a glance of the stars that gave only the slightest bit of light on the road that was so unknown to her. Barely the only thing she had seen from the airport was this never ending route, which was supposed to bring her to the town of Riverdale.

Alice had never been there before in her entire life, and yet she was chosen to stir the ship of this still mysterious and unfamiliar town to her. But no matter the circumstances, her heart had jumped a little when she heard she had been elected as mayor.

How that could have happened was still a mystery to her but she had stopped worrying about that very quickly. It was a job, one she had to take. In the end it gave her exactly what she needed— a fresh start away from everything and everyone she had ever known.

Even when the surroundings of the woods and the echoing sound of a river stream close by was making her shiver a little bit, she couldn't get herself to miss the West Coast. The universe had given her a second chance and she'd take that with open arms. Nobody would know a thing about her here— just the way she preferred.

And so, she couldn't be bothered by the fact that she was on her way to a home that she had never seen before, in a town at the East Coast that she was now the captain of, even when she had no single idea where she ended up. Ironically enough, she felt a little like Alice in Wonderland, only without a white rabbit for her to follow.

However, her journey to her new life was off to a rocky start as she heard a bang behind her, followed by her car leaning  to its right side as it kept on hitting the road over and over again. Alice instantly hit the breaks to stop her car from moving. To her fortune, she ended at the side of the road, her car safely out of the way for any other passenger.

She clenched her steering wheel into her hands, making her already cold knuckles turn white as she exhaled deeply. Great. She was in the middle of the woods in a town she didn't know and her car decided to act up. Once she had turned off the engine, she pulled on her car door to step outside and meet the damage.

"Are you kidding me?" She frowned and felt a wave of frustration hitting her as she looked at her flattened tire.

So much for a good begin of her so called fresh start. It was strange though, as she hadn't seen anything on the road that could have caused her tire to suddenly burst. Maybe she had been more tired than she thought she was.

"Great start, Alice." She mumbled to herself and leaned against her car before letting out an exasperated sigh.

Though, her luck seemed to be changing when another car was driving her way, the two headlights almost blinding her. Before she could even wave her hand for help, the car was pulling over as if it could sense that she stranded at the side of the road and had no idea how to fix her problem. She had a lot of talents, but fixing her tire was definitely not one of them.