Oh. My. Gosh.
Have you guys read Retrace 75? T-T My heart just got broken...
My poor baby...Alice...
And please review. Seriously.
Alice
My head hurt.
I didn't want to open my eyes, but I did. Slowly.
"Oh, the Stupid Rabbit's awake."
Seaweed Head.
"What…did you just call me?" When I spoke, my voice sounded hoarse. Not exactly the intimidation technique I was heading for.
"Alice!"
A moment after I heard the cheerful voice, a body crashed straight into me, hugging me with so much strength that I could feel my bones straining. "O-Oz," I choked out.
"I was so worried!" he exclaimed, ignoring me and gripping me harder. A moment later, he released me and grabbed my by the shoulders to look at me. "Are you feeling okay?"
"What…happened?" I asked slowly, trying to remember the past events.
"We met that Chain a day ago," Oz informed me. "After getting your memory back, you didn't wake up...until now..."
Memory…images of my sister and the man named Jack flashed through my mind, sending my head through a fresh wave of pain. That's right…I had gotten a memory back.
"Oz carried you back like a princess!" came Sharon's voice as she twirled past the doorway. "It was so beautiful!"
What's a 'princess'?
"Sharon…" Oz mumbled, sounding embarrassed.
"Anyways," Seaweed Head said, clearing his throat. "Now that you took care of a Chain, I guess you have some value to Pandora."
I glared at him, but he pretended not to notice. What a -
"Money," Oz said firmly, holding out his hand toward Seaweed Head.
Seaweed Head raised an eyebrow. I quickly scrambled next to Oz, replicating his hand motion. "Money," I said.
Seaweed Head snorted, crossing his arms. "Yeah...no way."
"But we got rid of that Chain on our own!" Oz snapped. "Isn't that your job? If you're being paid to do that, and we're a part of Pandora, we should get our pay." He looked at me in determination. "Isn't that right, Alice?"
I nodded. "Yeah!"
I barely heard Sharon squeal before she rammed into me and pinched at my cheeks. It was painful. "You are too cute!" she exclaimed while tearing my face off.
"Help...me," I coughed out.
"I think that's enough," Oz said nervously. "Alice just woke up. I think she's still a little dazed from the Chain fight."
Not really...it wasn't like I didn't fight Chains on a normal basis over in the Abyss. But seeing as how Oz was trying to get me out of Sharon's clutches, I didn't have a choice but to go along with it.
"Right," I said. "My head hurts."
That part was true, at least.
"Oh, no!" Sharon shouted. I winced. "Your head hurts? Hold on, I have some pain-killers in the kitchen." With that, she scurried out of the room.
"What are 'pain-killers'?" I asked.
I heard Seaweed Head sigh impatiently at my cluelessness, but I decided to ignore him. I wouldn't give him the pleasure of knowing I cared about what his useless opinion was, especially since so much had happened in the past day that I didn't want to waste energy dealing with him.
"You swallow them and it makes pain go away," Oz explained to me.
Hmm...Earth even has things for that?
"Her stupidity is mind-boggling," Seaweed Head muttered.
"What did you just say?" I demanded, leaping to my feet. It made my head spin.
"I said your 'stupidity is mind-boggling'," he repeated loudly.
Alright...as much as I wanted to hold back...this person was asking for a beating! I lunged toward him to give him a piece of my mind when I felt a pair of arms holding me back from around the waist.
Again. My human form is weak, so I couldn't break away.
"Whoa, there," Oz told me, his voice extremely close to my ear. I could feel his breath brushing against my skin. "Don't attack the person that's supposed to give us money."
My arms suddenly dropped from reaching for Seaweed Head as I felt my face beginning to heat up. My ear was tingling, even though Oz had stopped talking.
What was going on?
Seaweed Head smirked. "What? The stupid rabbit that bragged about being 'the most powerful Chain' can't escape a teenage boy?"
Ha. He was definitely asking for a beating.
"Let go of me!" I screamed, flailing my arms. "I'm going to kill this Seaweed Head!"
Oz, of course, wasn't going to change his mind that easily and just held on to my waist even tighter. "What's going on in here?" I heard Sharon exclaim near the door.
"This person is trying to kill me," Seaweed Head said, pointing calmly at me. "Or rather...this thing, since I don't think you're really a human."
How dare he! "I'm part human!" I snapped. "Don't look down on me!"
"Help me!" Oz demanded as I struggled against him.
"Gilbert, I think it's better if you leave," Sharon said calmly. "Good for all of our blood pressures."
Seaweed Head sighed, rubbing his temple. Was he seriously going to listen and leave? "Fine. Just get the stupid rabbit to shut up."
He walked to the door. "Are you a coward?" I screamed after him. How could he just walk away from this? "Running away, are you?"
"Alice!" Oz said in a begging voice. "Please, stop!"
"And what kind of a manservant are you?" I turned my head as much as I could to look at Oz. "I told you to let go of me! Why are you not following orders?"
Seaweed Head stopped at the doorway, turning around to stare at me in contempt. "Please sedate that thing," he told Sharon before leaving the room.
"This is why I told you to stop," Oz told me.
I grumbled for a moment. I didn't want to admit it, but maybe I shouldn't have been so intent on strangling Seaweed Head. My headache had tripled in the process.
I was lying back down on the bed, my head throbbing slowly and painfully. "It's all because you were being annoying," I insisted. "If you just let me punish him when I wanted in the first place..."
"Okay, okay," he complied, sounding amused. "It was my fault. Now will you please take the pain-killers?"
The main issue with the so-called 'pain-killers' was that they were this little capsule-things. If I swallowed them, it seemed like they would choke me. And I couldn't take that risk.
Could you imagine the humiliation? The most powerful Chain in the Abyss, being murdered by a couple of...of 'pills', as they are called. Tiny little things.
"I won't." I said.
"Come on. It's for your own good. Are you going to be able to do anything with that headache of yours?"
That was true.
I hurriedly sat up, clutching Oz's arm. He was sitting on the edge of the bed, holding a glass of water in one hand and the evil-looking pills in the other. "Are you sure they're not going to kill me?" I hissed.
He laughed. He laughed at me! Like it was my fault for being paranoid! "Don't worry," he said, placing the pills in my palm. "Just put them in your mouth and swallow them with the water. It's simple. Don't think about it."
Simple...for him, maybe. He was all human. I couldn't say the same for myself.
I didn't want to seem like a coward in front of him, though, so I tossed the two pills into my mouth before hurriedly glugging water.
It was not a nice experience. I thought I was being suffocated. From the inside of my throat.
I took giant gasps after the evil pills slid down my throat. "Are you okay?" Oz asked, but he didn't sound worried at all. I glanced at him to find him barely stifling a grin. He thought this was funny!
"I'm not laughing," he said, his voice shaking. "Honest." He cleared his throat. "Anyways. Let's have a talk."
"About what?" I asked grumpily.
"That memory."
What - oh. That memory. It was silent for a moment.
"I don't know," I said quietly. "I've only got two...counting the one I didn't even see, but you told me about. So I can't put any of it together."
I felt Oz staring at me. "It's okay," he told me. "As much as it's probably bad for society...there are bound to be more Chains out there with your memories."
"But..." I swallowed before saying, "How many Chains can there be? People have countless memories. For each Chain to only have one..."
I was starting to have doubts. That was bad. Maybe it was because I was shaken by the memory I had just gotten back.
My sister had never been a nice person to me. She showered me with the constant "I love you"s, but all of those were either too sweet-sounding or filled with poison. After thinking about it, her "love" for me was more of an obsession.
So in that memory? Where we held hands and smiled at each other?
It wasn't nice.
It was scary.
A moment later, I felt Oz's hand on the top of my head. "It'll all work out somehow," he told me brightly.
For the second time that day, my face felt hot. The heat seemed to be spreading directly from where his fingers came into contact with my head. And my ears were burning this time, too. What was this...'embarrassment'?
...Why? Why was I feeling...embarrassed?
"I almost forgot!" Oz exclaimed. He got to his feet. "I'll be right back!" He hurried out of the room.
I stared after him, the heat not leaving my cheeks. As soon as he was out of sight, I slapped at my face, fruitlessly trying to make its temperature back to normal.
Something was wrong with me...
"Ta-da!"
I glanced up to find Oz standing in the doorway, holding up a red-and-white striped box triumphantly.
...Meat.
I was so eager to get to my food that I got tangled in the blankets of the bed, tripping myself in the process.
I don't know what happened, but the world spun and spun and spun until I collapsed noisily on top of something...unusually soft?
When I lifted my head, I was on top of Oz.
Somehow, in the few moments while I was falling, he had thrown himself right underneath me.
"Are you okay?" he asked.
"O-of course I am!" I said, wondering why I was stuttering. And why my face kept on heating up until I felt like the skin would burn off. "G-good job, manservant! You c-caught me j-just in time!"
That sounded stupid.
He blinked at me for a moment before a smile spread across his face. He reached out a hand and poked my cheek with a finger.
"Why is your face red?" he chuckled. "You're not falling in love with me, are you?"
