Alice
My name is Alice. And that's it. Just Alice.
I come from a place that is dark and filled with scary things unimaginable to the people of Earth. I don't mean to sound like a creepy alien but…it's true. It is a place of horror and once you venture in you can never get out…
…At least, that's what they tell you. It's totally untrue, of course, because otherwise how would I be sitting inside a classroom, looking out a window and seeing light? Of course, I think of this so-called "school" as laaame - why the heck would it be ordered to have a bunch of kids go to a building every day to sit down and learn geometry or the history of Japan? Useless. But if this place could make me look normal...there's no harm to it.
There was a new kid in class, but I didn't really care. I didn't care about anything, if you think about it. Because I was running out of time. So while the class was gossiping and he was being introduced, I wasn't paying attention.
I was absorbed in staring at the sun through the window next to me – something that didn't exist in my "home" – that I didn't even notice that class was over and we were being dismissed to lunch. Instead, I was glued to my spot, watching the yellow orb in the sky. "Um…Alice, was it?"
I slowly blinked, silver spots streaking across my vision. I stared for too long again. I turned my head and looked up, spotting the new kid standing next to my desk. He had blond hair with tufts that fell over these brilliant eyes with the color of emerald. And he was smiling. As I blinked, he kept on smiling. How could his mouth not get tired? And the strange thing was, it didn't look like a fake, plastered-on smile: it looked like it was real. I glanced around: the classroom was empty except for us.
"Yes, it is Alice," I answered belatedly. "Did you want something?"
There was a reason I didn't have friends and was isolated in class. It was because they thought I was introverted and antisocial. They thought I was a witch and if I spoke to them, I would curse them. They thought that if they touched me, I would transform into a wild animal and maul them. It was funny.
"I just thought I would say hi," he said happily. Oh my gosh. You could practically see all these little pink flowers around his head. It was really creepy. I edged toward the window to get as far away from this freak as possible.
"Oh. Hi, then," I answered in broken syllables, willing him to go away.
Of course, since the whole world is against me, he just smiled even more, if that was possible, and said, "Hi! I'm Oz Vessalius, and I was born on September fourteenth, which means that I just turned fifteen a few days ago! You seem like an interesting person, Alice, and I would really like it if we could be friends! I probably won't be here long, chances are I'll get kidnapped or something, but for however long I'm here I hope we'll get along!"
Oh my gosh…this kid was a freaking monster. I was getting nervous. I never got nervous. And he was seriously scaring the daylights out of me. "Sorry," I said quickly. "But I don't plan on being friends with you."
I thought for sure that it would make him run away like a discouraged puppy. But instead…
"Oh, you are soooo cute!" And he reached out and ruffled my hair like I was some kind of dog or something.
"Don't touch me!" I snapped, seriously losing what little nerve I had.
He was still smiling. How was that possible? He was supposed to be scared of me…surely he noticed how my classmates treated me? "I know we'll get along very well in the future," he told me brightly. Then he strode out of the room.
I slouched in my seat. What was going on? I was afraid of a flowery, blond kid. There were way more things to be scared about…
I come from a place called the Abyss. Back in the day, people on Earth would think of it as a prison – and that is exactly what it is. It is a warped dimension of monsters called Chains that take horrible forms. There is no light. Darkness rules in the Abyss, and over the Chains.
Nowadays, people don't even know what the Abyss is. It has been wiped away from the memories of every single being on Earth. But not from my mind, oh no. Because that is where I come from.
Because I am a Chain.
