As everyone probably knows, Joker no Kuni no Alice belongs to Quinrose, not to me.
The OC used in this fic belongs to serima in her awesome fic The Mad Hatter's Daughter. You guys should check it out. :D
NOTE: THIS IS IN NOT ASSOCIATED TO SERIMA'S STORY. CLARA'S PERSONALITY IS NOT LIKE THIS (or at least not completely like this), AND THIS DOES NOT HAPPEN IN HER STORY. THIS IS LIKE... A FANFIC OF HER STORY.
The song used in this belongs to the band We Are The Fallen.
"The night is alive with the smell of insane
It's reaching for me and it's calling my name
I beg for silence to drown out their weep
How did this asylum become where I sleep?"
Clara Dupre's mind spun around as she lied down on her cell. She couldn't sleep. That place… The prison was making her extremely sick. Even though she was alone there, she felt as if the place was actually crowded with people disturbing her, calling her name, making her go insane slowly and painfully, even though the building was completely silent.
Ah, that silence… All of those feelings were basically a consequence of that deathly silence she wasn't used to. She had grown up in the Hatter mansion. She would always hear gunshots, or Elliot arguing with the Twins, or her father giving orders to everyone, or her mother's and her aunt's sweet voices trying to comfort her.
She had heard all of those noises since she was born. She always thought she would love some silent peace at least once, but that silence wasn't peaceful. It was insane, suffocating, deathly, excruciating. And that claustrophobic cell only made things worse.
Why was she there? How did she get there? For how long had she been there? Her thoughts were so confusing that she could barely remember what she was doing a few minutes ago.
But then, she remembered.
"So ashamed of waking
All my life you failed to keep me safe
My whole world's forsaken
Won't let you destroy my faith again"
Her father, Blood Dupre. He was the reason for all of that to be happening.
Truth is that Clara had never been too fond of her father. He was always so busy with his work, and in the few moments he gave her attention, he didn't show any kind of emotion, as if she was just a nuisance, just an annoying child he couldn't bare but with who he didn't want to be impolite.
But still he had always said he wanted to protect her. That would've been good, if he had known how to do it right – but he didn't. All he did was keeping her locked up inside that Mansion, only going out to visit her aunt through the rose garden. How come he never noticed that would be even worse? Thanks to the world he had built for her, she had had such a naïve life, her thoughts of the outside world had been just a mere dream…
A dream that ended drastically when she finally found the truth. The truth about the faceless people, and the clocks, and the roles, and everything.
And that was when she got lost, and when Joker started visiting her in her dreams… And when she was imprisoned.
"All my questions have no answers
Locked up from the world outside me
Mommy, come get me out tonight
All my questions have no answers
I can feel the fear inside me
Mommy, come get me out tonight"
She didn't have anything against the rest of the family. She knew that Elliot and the twins would probably be fired, or even killed by Blood, if they told her or showed her something. She didn't feel resentful of her mother either. Alice had tried many times to freed Clara from that mansion, the first prison she had lived in. She had tried to give her daughter the real answers for all of her questions… But Blood would always stop her from doing anything.
Not even against Joker himself she felt something bad. She knew he only existed because of her own fears, because she had let herself get lost. None of that would have ever happened if she wasn't so weak…
Or if her dearest father hadn't locked her up from the world.
Clara sighed, looking through the bars of her cell, but seeing nothing but darkness. She had never been one of those kids to be afraid of the dark, but that darkness was just like the silence, it was different. The girl held her knees against her chest, curling up in a ball against the wall. Where was her Mommy now to save her and give her the answers she wanted?
"So close I almost can taste my own grave
My moment of selfishness caused by your pain
Almost threw this life you gave me away
In this institution for you now I pray"
She hoped her mother was alright. She had no idea how long it had been since she had been imprisoned, but it would be weird to not find her anywhere in the mansion or in the rose garden. "Protective" as her father was, he would probably be freaking out two seconds after hearing that his precious little girl was nowhere in his territory.
The idea of her father going mad for her disappearance almost made her smile. She would love to see that, even if just to see if he would show some emotion. She couldn't remember the last time she had seen him do so. The idea of Blood Dupre running around, his eyes full of despair and anger for missing little Clara made her feel somehow well.
But then she thought of her mother. Her mother would probably care much more than her father, and if the situation got to the point when Blood would let his despair show, she couldn't imagine how Alice would be. Oh, no, she really didn't want that to happen.
And what if Clara died, how would they react? For some reason, all she could see was her mother crying desperately and her father staring at her tombstone with his usual poker face on. That idea made her heart hurt, not for Blood's reaction, but for Alice's. For the first time, she felt thankful for not having anything harmful close to her. If she did, she would've probably done something already. That silence, that darkness, that environment – it was all contributing to the depressive atmosphere that had made her want to kill herself several times already.
"Forgive me
With wings adorn me
So I can fly"
It would be too selfish of her if she committed suicide, or even if she just harmed herself. She knew Alice would never forgive her for doing so… For giving up. She would be never be forgiven for being weak and giving up. Even though her mom would probably think it was her own fault, Clara knew that, deep inside, Alice's thoughts would be of what a coward her daughter had been. And, if afterlife existed, Clara's spirit would never find peace then – or at least not until her mother died too and she could explain what had happened.
Clara suddenly heard a noise outside her cell and watched as a dim light approached in the hallway. She sighed heavily, already knowing who it was – or who they were. She didn't need to keep staring at the approaching light to know that the Jokers were coming to see her. She had learned to identify the subtle feeling of uneasiness that came along with those two, especially Black.
She closed her eyes, feeling strangely calm. Even though she tried to deny those wrong thoughts, she had a secret hope that they would kill her already, so all of those suffocating sensations would be over and she would be able to rest in peace without feeling guilty. She knew she was only being selfish, but she couldn't help it. She was Blood Dupre's daughter. It was her nature to be selfish.
She heard the Jokers' voices, but she didn't make an effort for her brain to identify the words they were proffering. All she wanted was some peace… A kind of peace she believed she could only find in death. She knew she was being lazy for giving up on her life so easily, but the time she had spent on that prison had taken away all of her will to live. Maybe the silence and the darkness had consumed her, making her go insane? She didn't know. All she knew was that she was weirdly comfortable with her position at that moment, as long as the sound of a gunshot marked its end.
Clara heard the noise of someone preparing their gun, a sound she could easily identify after almost 16 years hearing it all the time at home. She couldn't help but let an almost unnoticeable smile appear on her face. Her end was coming. Peace was coming.
"Please, forgive me for giving up so fast, Mom", she thought, a mere second before the loud sound of a gunshot broke the silence of the Prison Realm, silencing the sound of Clara's beating heart forever.
Welp. I hope you guys enjoyed this.
As I said before, this does not follow the same line as serima's story, only in a few details. In her story Blood is NOT a bastard with no emotions and Clara is NOT a lazy, selfish coward. This situation does NOT happen in her story.
One of the reasons why I posted this is for getting some tips on English writing, since English is not my native language, so if anyone noticed confusing parts or grammar mistakes, please tell me on the reviews. Of course, you guys can review it if you like it, too. :D
(and no, I DON'T know why the Jokers killed her in the end. I just didn't know how to end this, so I killed her. It's been a while since I last killed a character. ouo)
