The cold walls of her dingy little cell swim into vision as she wakes, immediately struggling against her bonds.
"Wow, already? You're a strong one, alright," a young, insulated voice tells her. Alice calmly looks to the rafters to find a shadow staring back at her.
"You don't know the half of it" she replies, never lowering her gaze.
"Actually, I do," the shadow retorts, stepping off the rafters. It falls through the air with an unnerving mixture of grace and clumsiness, a mixture that can only lead to one thing: danger. Her stomach churns like butter when it drops to the floor, steeling herself for the harsh snap of its legs on the black and white concrete. It doesn't come, however. The only noise the shadow emits is a soft grunt and immediately straightens its legs. One word flings itself into Alice's head. Ghoul. It invades her brain like a bad smell, causing her to involuntarily wrinkle her nose.
Wait.
It is a bad smell.
After deducing it, Alice can easily trace the rank odour back to the shadow standing only seven or eight feet away from her. The stench of rotten fish pervades her being and she fights back a retch. She is too late, however, and her display draws a laugh from the shadow.
"So, you do smell me," it muses, its face still shrouded in darkness.
"What's it to you?" she retorts, making a valiant effort to keep her face stern and fight the creeping fear in her gut. The figure seems to become irritated at her calm and steps out of the shadows. Alice's eyes widen at the visage before her.
Her captor is a stout guy with scruffy purple hair falling to around his shoulders and a black mask covering the bottom half of his face. His purple eyes study her with an odd mixture of humour, interest and fear. Alice detects the apprehension that hides behind his cool demeanour and, as always, takes advantage of it. She leans close to her captor and bears her teeth, eyes wide and crazy. The young man furrows his eyebrows and takes a small step, not much more than a shuffle backwards, but it works. He's now afraid of her. Alice takes this opportunity and tries to lunge off the chair, only to find her arms bound behind her by thick iron cuffs. Cursing to herself, she turns her gaze back on the man, releasing her kakugan despite the hunger dwelling in her stomach. The whites of her eyes flood with a consuming blackness that swallows them whole, replacing them with a sinister uncertainty. Her captor is undeterred from her bloodthirsty visage, continuing with a task he is obviously uncomfortable doing.
"Listen, your fancy new eyes may impress your stupid English friends, but not me" he tells her, planting his hands firmly in the folds of his parka jacket "now you're gonna tell me how you turned yourselves into ghouls"
Despite the danger, Alice finds it in her to laugh. It's nothing, just a small chuckle, but her captor scowls in absolute hatred at her and stalks forward, his engineer's boots clunking on the polished marble floor.
"You think this is funny?" he growls "I could end you with a thought, so you better start talking."
"Look, I have no idea how we got turned into ghouls," Alice replies, her amused demeanour replaced by one of weariness "I woke up this morning, tried to eat breakfast but I threw up, and then the others said the same..." she trails off, looking up at the masked figure before her. He seems to think over her story for a moment, then the punch flies out of nowhere.
Alice gasps in surprise as her captor's fist flies out of his pocket and connects with her nose, so fast the usually perceptive girl doesn't even see it coming. She gags briefly, unable to catch her breath as the man leans close to her.
"You think I'd believe that for a second?" He snarls "You insult me!"
Alice responds in her usual way, of course, by launching her forehead straight into her captor's. The pain is staggering, but she pushes through it to witness him fall backwards, howling in pain. Warm blood drips down her face, turning her vision red. Through the haze she sees him scramble to his feet and wipe his own blood from the quickly-healing wound on his head. His hands clench into fists once more and he delivers a hail of blows to the tied-up girl. Each punch is an explosion of hurt, burning Alice to the core as she cries out in pure pain. As tough as she usually is, her body has become weak with hunger and the punches hurt more than they should. Still the punches keep coming, accompanied by an endless stream of abuse from the cloaked captor.
"You bitch!" he cries, slamming a fist straight into her gut. Alice doubles over, blood bubbling from her mouth in thick, violet streams. She splutters, not really making any sound.
"You made my head bleed!" He screams like a frightened child.
"It's okay, you have a thick skull anyway" Alice retorts, barely able to speak through her wheezing. Unfortunately, her trademark response only infuriates her captor more. He stands tall, his face a mask of murderous intent.
"That's it!" He roars and his body begins to change. From his upper back come two constructs – almost like wings – forming from a fine purple dust that floats around him in its shape. Alice easily recognises the ghoul's appendage as a kagune and a whole new wave of terror washes over her.
He's going to kill her.
A frenzy overtakes her and she madly struggles against her bonds, praying to break them. Her attempts are futile, however, and she finds herself cowering away from the monster before him. The ghoul's wings change yet again, becoming more solid, being overtaken with a diamond-like material that give them an almost majestic quality. The look in her captor's eyes unnerves her more than anything this ordeal has offered. They become windows into the ghoul's irrational and angry soul, letting her know that there is no point in trying to reason with him. Instead she coughs up another mound of blood, the thick liquid tainting her white shirt as his kagune begins to tremor, the ends of the wings morphing into long spikes. Alice shuts her eyes, waiting for the final blow that will end it from the one opponent she couldn't talk down with her insults and quips.
But it never comes.
Alice opens her eyes slightly to find herself empty in the large room. In the distance she can hear faint shouts and objections from who sounds like her captor, but as far as she can tell she's unhurt. From the kagune, anyway.
She leans back and breathes a sigh of relief, wondering about how her friends are doing.