I do not own Pandora Hearts in any way.
It's dark. So dark. I can hear screaming. Is that my screaming? No, can't be. I don't scream. I am - ? Wait, who am I? Where am I?
The world is a dark void of screaming, painful black, water, and fear. It is a hard place to be born into, knowing only the very basics of your situation. Not knowing who you are or what you are doing here. Only knowing that there is power deep in the very heart of you, power that you cannot reach, for it is hidden. Aware only partially of another part of you, one that is alive and full of light. Knowing only that is a part of you that is no longer you. Knowing that it got taken away when you fell, and how had you fallen? You can remember nothing.
That is my being. That is me. Whoever I am.
I opened my eyes and found myself wet, covered in water. I could hear the cries of those who are scared, but for some reason, I am not afraid. I know that I am power itself. Nothing can harm me, not here.
But I do know that I want to leave. I want to know what I lost. I want to remember. For the only thing that can come to me, the thing that only can be heard if I block out everything else and look into the deepest, darkest depths of my soul, is a name. My name. And then when I return to the reality I have found myself trapped in, the word vanishes. I can't remember anything.
All that fills the empty days are the conversations with her. She seems to be trying to pull me closer, to get me to obey her. And she is so familiar. She seems almost like… me.
"Come to me," she'll say.
"No. Not until you tell me."
"Tell you what?"
"Who am I?"
"You are the bloodstained black rabbit. You are a chain. You are destined to serve me. Now, won't you come?"
"You tell me nothing."
"I tell you everything."
When I'm talking to her it seems as if I am arguing with myself. She's inside of me. She's constantly pulling, constantly tugging, urging me to her side. But I feel nothing towards her but hatred. She hides who I am. And I don't know why.
Every once in a while another… chain crosses my path. They turn towards me. They look for a fight. I give them a good fight. They lose. They die. I go on.
All I know is that in order to find out what happened to me, I have to leave this place. I hear the others talking about humans. Contractors, they say. Humans that keep you alive while you are in their world.
They talk about eating other humans. About their contractors helping them catch humans, helping them feed. It makes me feel sick and terrified. When I hear these things, I search out those who speak them. I give them a good fight. They lose. They die. I go on.
Only one battle ever stood out to me. Another girl. She looked almost human, from what the others say. She looked almost like me. They say I look human. But they know I'm not.
She had been hungry. She had been thirsting for human blood. She called herself Yoshe. I watched her die, and as she slipped lower into the darkness of the world she turned her eyes on me.
"Who are you?" she asked as I returned to my normal form, devoid of my rabbit ears.
I paused, not knowing how to respond. Then just like that a name formed itself on my tongue. My name.
I looked at the dying chain. I felt her pain as she slipped, slipped, slipped. Then, just as she was about to fall all the way down, just before she was out of earshot forever, I responded in a voice that hadn't been used since I had been brought to this place.
"My name is Alice," I said.