Alice Isn’t Dead

My mother always said that my inability to ask for help would be the death of me. So when I was jumped and stabbed one night, it wasn’t a surprise that I never went to a hospital.

I remember that night very clearly. I was going to a movie theater, a local small one that was showing Silence of the Lambs. I had never felt particularly squeamish around dark topics. In fact, I would even say I had a proclivity for the grotesque and macabre. As a young child, I suffered from schizophrenia, causing vivid hallucinations and dreams. Then, when I was older, maybe thirteen, people always told me I was a sort of bait-and-switch. I dress in what most people would call frilly. Not in that girly-girl way, but I liked wearing old-styled dresses that went down to my ankles. So when peopled realized that I was indeed obsessed with the occult, they would often flee the other way, sometimes literally. Most people considered me a sort of witch, a taboo that no one would want to hang out with. For this reason, I was always a lonely sort of girl. So going to this movie, I was completely alone. This is important to the story, I promise.

It was about six o’ clock, if I remember correctly. I was walking down the sidewalk towards the movie theater. The neon signs were flickering on and off, either due to low budget, or, more enticingly, ghosts. My shoes made a faint, rhythmic tapping sound on the concrete as I approached the theater. I was nearing the corner, about a block away from my destination, when someone grabbed me by the hair. I was yanked in the other direction by whatever had just grabbed me. I remember turning around then, the person who had grabbed me was Kirk. Kirk was a kid who went to the same high school as me. He was a notorious bully and often picked on me for my unusual personality. I hated him, but I was too afraid to say anything, for fear my mouthiness might land me a large bruise. I remember saying to him:

“Please, what do you want? I’m just trying to see a movie…”

Kirk pulled something out of his pocket. I couldn’t see it much in the darkness of the street alley he had pulled me into, but he brought it closer to my face and I realized it was a Swiss Army knife. I started panicking. I had no idea what he was going to do with that knife, but I was afraid. Once he had pulled that same knife on a girl in my class. She had gone to the hospital, after he had carved his own initials into her chest. Kirk was a horrible person. I hated him, but I was frozen with fear. Kirk said he was going to make me pay. I asked him why, why he was doing this. Kirk didn’t answer. Before I had time to say another word, he drove my body into the ground, making me hit the concrete and knocking all the air out of me. I tried to yell for help but all that came out was a cough. Kirk knelt down and…well you can infer the rest.

He stabbed me with that knife several times. Twice in the chest and three times in the stomach. I felt the knife puncture my skin, and let me tell you, a stab wound is not like how movies portray them. The knife doesn’t go in smoothly, only a small amount of blood trickling out; no. When you get stabbed there is a moment where the skin has a little give, and then a sickening slicing noise, as the knife goes into you. Then blood spews everywhere. On the killers face, all over the victim as well. And the pain. The unimaginable, searing pain. I felt it rise through my entire body, making me black out, only a portion of my killers face still visible. I saw Kirk leave, wiping his hands on his black pants and then running away, my blood still on his shirt.

I was still breathing. I had been stabbed five times, and I was still breathing. I knew I had to get myself to a hospital. But at the same time…well. Didn’t the doctors already have enough on their plate? Didn’t they have patients to treat? If I go there, someone else could die while I get fixed. No, I can’t go to the hospital, I thought to myself. So I didn’t. For five minutes I lay in that alleyway, bleeding and crying and fighting the pain that had taken ahold of my body. I felt hot tears stream down my cheeks as my fingers twitched, my breathing becoming slower and slower. This is it, I thought to myself. Everything I’ve done in my life, it all led to this. I hope I go to heaven. And eventually, my breathing stopped altogether. Then it was just deafening silence.

But for some reason, I was still…alive? No, alive wasn’t the right word for it. Suddenly I was standing over my dead body, looking down on it. Blood stained the front of my dress, what once had been a lavender color was now a dark crimson color. I stepped away from my body, panic-stricken. I backed up against the wall, trying to get as far away from the corpse as possible. No, not the corpse. My corpse. My corpse, that’s a funny thing to think about, isn’t it? One moment you are alive, and the next you are not. There is no signal, no blinding light or angels. It’s just…one moment alive and the next dead.

Anyways, I had entered some sort of angelic state, I assumed. I was always a very religious girl, growing up in a very Christian family. So naturally, when I saw myself standing above my own dead body, I assumed I had been reincarnated as some kind of angel. Unfortunately, this was not the case. I backed out of the alleyway, unable to take my eyes off of my own cadaver. Eventually I turned the corner and walked out into the street. It was like nothing had happened. People were still going about their evenings, still walking and talking, completely unaware that a young girl had just been stabbed to death. It looked like time had passed though, maybe three hours. The sky was darkening, although the amount of pollution blocked out any sign of stars in the sky. I assumed someone would take notice to my bloodstained dress, but such was not the case. I walked aimlessly among the crowds, slowly wandering home. The truth was, I was afraid to return home.

I was confused and scared, and I knew my parents didn’t even know that their baby girl had just been killed! I was freaking out. But slowly, surely, I made it to my small apartment, the steps of the building still the same as they always were. I eventually made my way to the elevator, stepping in with people who barely took notice of me. It was as if they were simply staring right through me. I waited patiently as the lift made its slow journey up to the fourth floor where my residence was. I opened the door to my parents apartment.

My mother and father were talking, they looked concerned. “Alice hasn’t returned from the theater yet” they said. “I hope she’s alright” said my father, wringing his hands together until his knuckles went white. I felt tears sting in my eyes as I watched my parents talk, unknowing of my death just a few hours before. It’s agony, y’know. To watch your own parents cry in front of you. Suddenly all the confidence and idolization you had put in them melts away, and the real them shows through. It’s sort of comforting as well though, to see their human side.

They put out missing posters the next day. Filed a missing persons report and waited. I watched them cry and hug each other, I watched my own parents devastated by my disappearance. A couple days later they found my body. My parents were even more grief-stricken. My mother was weeping day after day, while my father became reclusive and started drinking again. All the while, I could do nothing but stand at their side. My mother and father never noticed me when I comforted them, and that made me sad.

Over time my parents grew older and older. I watched the entire thing through. My mother died of cancer at 80. My father died a couple years after that, from alcohol poisoning. I was sad, but there was a part of me deep down that was relieved. I wouldn’t have to see my parents mourn anymore. Part of me thought they would return, like I had, but they never did. Day after day I waited patiently by the sofa. Days turned into months and into years. Eventually a new family moved in. They had a little girl, her name was Daisy. She was a sweet girl, only eleven at the time. I took a liking to her, as I could sort of see myself in her. She was bookish like I was, had a proclivity for ghost stories and Victorian-era culture. I watched her for a couple months from the door of my…her…bedroom. One day I got too close.

Daisy noticed me for the first time. I had never, ever, seen anyone acknowledge me since my death five years ago. No one ever. But Daisy somehow saw me. I explained my name was Alice, and that I had used to live here before I died. She said she had heard about some ghost stories from her friends about me. She also told me that my dress was pretty. After that we became fast friends. I was Daisy’s imaginary friend, and for a while that was all I needed. But then I began to become jealous. Daisy was always hanging out with her family, her mother, father and brother. She didn’t spend as much time with me anymore. One day when I asked, Daisy simply said that her family was real, and that I was not. I became resentful of Daisy, making things in the house subtly worse by moving items and breaking things without the family knowing. Daisy of course, knew everything. After that she stopped talking to me completely. And I felt sad. I was no longer resentful, I just wanted my old friend back. Daisy was the only person I had been able to talk to in years, in my whole life practically and now she was gone too. I had never had a real friend in my life, but the moment I got one I immediately pushed her away. I began to cry. I cried for days, just like my parents. I now understood the pain of losing someone dear to you. I watched in agony as Daisy laughed and played with her family, day after day after day. Eventually I began devising a plan, a way to get Daisy to be with me forever.

When the time finally came, and the night was right, I executed my plan. Daisy was asleep in her room, snoring softly from the other side of the hallway. I slowly walked to the kitchen, and took out the biggest kitchen knife that the family owned. Quietly, I walked to Daisy’s brothers room. I opened the door slowly, making sure the boy didn’t wake up. I walked over to the side of his crib. The boy was maybe about three years old, still tiny. I inhaled deeply. I stabbed him. He didn’t cry out or scream as I had anticipated. He just died. Bled out just as I had. I looked down at the blood soaking my palms, I looked at the blood soaking the crib, dripping slowly onto the floor. And for the first time in a long time, I smiled. I went to the next room, and stabbed both the adults. Their blood looked the same as well.

The next morning when Daisy woke up, she thought everyone was just sleeping late. Even her brother, who usually cried in the mornings, was quiet. I watched as Daisy ran to her parents room down the hall, excitedly yelling that she had woken up earlier this time. I watched as she pulled open the door, only to see the horrifying sight in front of her. Her parents bodies, both dragged to the front of the bed and propped upright, showing off the stab wounds that adorned their stomachs. I watched in satisfaction as she cried out in horror, bursting into tears. She sobbed and hugged her parents bodies. She turned around. I think Daisy knew that I had done this “Why? Why did you do this?” She cried out at me. “To be with you forever” I replied “And now there’s no one in our way”.

Daisy left me soon after that. Now I have no one again. So, dear reader, would you like to be my friend?

Credit : Baby_Teeth