Vulnerable - Part 1 - Love Makes You Weak
Summary: Alice knows what it takes to survive at the orphanage. And it takes a lot.
Alice watched the group of girls huddled in the other corner of the room and rolled her eyes. Two of them– the youngest two– were the newest at the orphanage and they were not dealing with their situation too well. They'd been crying all day and it was starting to get on her nerves.
If they did not stop soon, the people in charge were going to come in and deal with them in their own way.
And a part of Alice wished they would– put everyone out of their misery.
She could hear slightly what the two older girls who were sitting with them were saying and it made her roll her eyes again. She knew they were just trying to make things easier for them to help them get through the night. But this was not the kind of place where things get easier and the younger girls needed to come to terms with that sooner rather than later.
This was not a place for fairytales, for princesses getting rescued by handsome princes, of ballrooms and music and dancing. This wasn't a place for happy endings. The sooner those girls understood that the better. Spending the night filling their heads with fairytales was doing no one any good.
Alice got up, pushing herself off her dirty mattress and marched over towards them.
"Stop it," she hissed at the eldest girl who was leading the storytelling session, "stop filling their heads with nonsense."
The girl turned around and glared at Alice. "What's your problem?" she said, "I'm just trying to help them get through the night."
"You're coddling them," Alice growled at her, "you're making them weak. This is not the place for that. They'll get killed within a day."
The two younger girls gasped and started whimpering again.
"If you're going to help them then teach them something useful," Remi said, "not this bullshit."
"This isn't bullshit," the other older girl argued, "and having some hope isn't wrong."
Alice shook her head at them. "These fairytales aren't real," Alice said, "no one is coming to save us and filling your heads with this stuff only makes you pathetic."
"We're not pathetic."
"You're weak," Alice said, "hope makes you vulnerable. These… feelings… love makes you weak. You cannot afford that here… or anywhere."
Alice turned around to walk away. Looking over her shoulder at them one last time.
"Love isn't real, anyway."
