Alice

Prologue

Some would state that immortality is a blessing, the ability to survive for eternity and observe as the world as we know it changes and shifts into new ages. Others would call it a curse, for doing this in its’ own right, denies you the opportunity to live life. Such a power, in my opinion, would be truly tragic, and painful, to have to bear. This is the story of a girl named Alice, a girl who would start life as any other, but wouldn’t end it as those others will.

The emergency ward was abuzz, today was a particularly busy day, it seemed that some higher deity themselves had decided to put the staff to work looking after seemingly endless amounts of patients and family. It was on this particular day that a child would be born, like no other the hospital had bore witness too, nor would it ever again. The doctor had just been called from his only break of the day for a particularly dangerous pregnancy. The mother had been in a poor state of health for some time, she had come into the hospital with no identification and no family, friends or spouse to accompany her, yet she had been around 8 months pregnant. She was a fair woman, with ebony hair and a kind demeanour, but she had never been willing, and most times able, to admit her identity to the hospital. After a few weeks the hospital just took care of her with no more questions, most of the doctors felt too bad for her situation, knowing that in her condition, she would very likely not survive labour.

By the time the doctor had arrived, the mother was already in her last breaths, all of the surrounding staff knew the unfortunate truth, and so did the mother, it seemed. They all worked in silence, apart from the mother occasional yelps, she was too weak for anything more. When the baby was delivered, it was cleaned and taken to the mothers’ side, for one last look at her darling child before she would leave this world for whatever lay beyond. The doctor came to the mother, asking in as quiet and peaceful a demeanour as he could muster, what she would like her little girls’ name would be. Only one more breath would leave her body, Alice.

And so it was, that Alice was born into this world with not a parent, nor a known caretaker or any safe plan for her life. She had been born into a cruel, unforgiving world filled with both atrocities and cruelty, yet also with kindness and compassion. This unique, human world of ours.

Having a child born with no formal identity is not easy for paperwork, legally she would have to be taken to an orphanage if no family were to assume custody, there were, of course, no known relatives that would come and take her home. So it was that, for a week or so, she was cared for in the hospital. When she was transferred to the local orphanage she was quite sickly, the doctors’ best guess was that some contagion that had lingered in the mothers body had been attempting to damage the young girl, although it hadn’t seemed to manage any real damage to her body, lucky, considering that illnesses at such a young age could easily cause death to most. When the orphan matron first met Alice, she was instantly in love with the girl, the matron herself had never had children, she had only ever had to look after the children at the orphanage, and although she was close to a lot of them, she could never take up the mantle of being their mother, it just felt disrespectful to the parents that had passed on looking after them. But she could not help wanting to care for Alice. The next few months of Alices’ life were lived under the careful watch of Bertild, the orphanage matron, if she saw so much as a spider crawl past Alice, she would move her to the next room.

It was that way for quite a time, as Alice grew, she was taught the most important of morals taught to us today, to care, to give, to not disrespect, Bertild really was an amazing mother, and it was unfortunate that she had never met the right person, she had only actually been working at the orphanage for three years when she met Alice, she begun work when she was merely 23 at the orphanage, and something about it had drawn her. She wanted nothing more than to care for the children, and to most who knew her, she was an amazingly considerate and kind woman. When Alice was eight, she learned the meaning of the word tragedy, through the worst way possible. Alice had been at the orphanage for the day, playing with the other children, when she overheard a conversation between a police officer and one of the maidens. “I’m so sorry ma’am, we understand that Bertild Gallagher had worked here, she’s just been in a terrible accident.” Earlier that day, Bertild had left for a local hardware store, she was heading to pick up some timber the orphanage had ordered to build their own garden shed. “Bertild had a frontal collision with a semi-trailer on the highway, the other driver had been heavily intoxicated and swerved into the oncoming lane, Bertild didn’t make it, my deepest condolences madam.” The maiden broke down crying, Alice wasn’t the only one who thought of Bertild as a mother. She was 34.

Alice had always seemed to be naturally bright, and being enough so to understand most of the conversation between the two was utter cruelty to her, she understood what happened, yet took it upon herself to keep her tears to her bed. Years passed, and Alice never truly got over the accident. Her thirteenth birthday was particularly saddening. Alice had never really gotten along with the other kids at the orphanage, most of her time was devoted to studies or fictitious novels, she always loved Shakespeare and his knack for making nouns into adjectives, she had never been so delighted to see such a strange style of writing. So, come her first teenage birthday, she celebrated it on her own, with a pang of sadness in her mind.

“Oooh, Shakespeare!” Alice almost screamed, the voice had come from just above her left shoulder. What on Earth was somebody doing near her? It was almost unimaginable for someone to approach Alice. “My names’ Mary, pleased to meet you, Miss…?” Alright, this was a joke, surely, there had never been another soul in this world that had performed a proper introduction to Alice, and she’d wager there wouldn’t be another, what is going on?

“Erm, Alice. Pardon my asking, but what do you want?” Good start Alice, alienate human contact.

Mary, slightly taken aback by Alices’ response, was still quick to reply “I’ve seen you around before, I only arrived a few months ago, in and out of foster homes. Heh. Anyway, I was actually hoping you’d share some of your books with me, and nah, before you ask, I’m not telling you to, I genuinely enjoy a good read, and you seem to be the hands down expert around here, so I figured I’d come to you, and… here I am.”

That had been really quite insightful, who was this girl, as to approach Alice with resolve? Not to mention at 11:00pm on the night of her birthday, this had taken a completely regular day and thrown sense out the window. “You’re serious, aren’t you? Alright, to be honest I was just reading this for the sake of drama, it is my birthday after all.”

“It’s what? How old are you? Where is everyone? Why are you on your own reading Shakespeare?"

Quite a few questions for one breath. “From beginning to end? Thirteen. There uh… isn’t really any people to share it with. And because I enjoy it.” Well, pretty much covered all the basics there, but you could at least try to be a bit more warming to someone taking an interest.

“Alright alright, I won’t pry, but happy birthday none the less.”

Alice froze, happy… birthday? Five years since she’d heard those two words together, two words that brought her more joy in that instant than any paragraph had brought her from her books. Completely dry eyed, she stood up, turned, and hugged Mary.

Six years passed, and they had been the best of her life that she could remember, Alice finally had someone else to share her favourite books with, someone to talk to, to stand on equal footing with and laugh together with. Six years of having a real friend. And so it would be, that on her nineteenth birthday, she would end the night in tragedy.

It had been a full year since Alice had left the orphanage, legally an adult of her own accord. Apparently Bertild had left a substantial inheritance. Only Bertild herself understood why she cared so much for Alice, and it had been enough to leave her all of her modest wealth in life. Alice never did understand why someone would care enough for her to leave her anything, but Bertild had always been there for her as a child, and even after her passing, she was sure that she was looking after her from somewhere. This had left Alice just enough to rent her own place after leaving the orphanage, it was raggedy, not really in a good place of town, and downright ugly to look at, but it was hers. Tonight was supposed to be amazing, as promised by Mary, of course, Alices’ first drink, Mary had promised to take her home from the bar, and she trusted her, of course, it was walking to the bar in the first place. The streets weren’t exactly known for their generosity, and as it would turn out that night, Alice had every right to be frightened of going alone.

She was well on her way, already passed the halfway mark to the bar and had been in perfect view of bystanders and cars, tonight felt safe, for whatever reason, until she came to Anders’ street. Not a car nor pedestrian was in view, and not a sound came from any of the apartments in the cityscape. She knew, somehow, she knew that something was wrong with this street, but she kept walking nonetheless, at least, until she came to the first alleyway.

“Evening miss, out for a stroll on your own?”

“Yeah actually, I’ve also got a gun, let’s make it fun, you do a dance and we’ll see how many miss before one hits”

“Oh you’re a barrel of laughs, but I doubt you have a weapon, I’ll put this nicely, anything you got, phone, cash, cards, anything. Pass it here and I’ll be on my way”

He didn’t even see the first punch coming, but boy, did he feel it, connected straight with his temple. He’ll probably be feeling that for the next week, too.

“Jesus, you’re a fighter, that’s alright, so am I.” With that he pulled out a flick knife, and jabbed Alice straight in the stomach. Quick move. Alice was quick though, and being raised in an orphanage got her around a fight fairly well, she knew straight away that she was hit, but you don’t stop moving unless you want to die. She quickly judged his stance and saw an opening, not a very large one, but an opening nonetheless, before you could make another breath, she was going for a jab into his rib, she would likely cop a shave from his knife for this move. But he would feel the after effect. Turns out it was more than a shave, he managed a full swing at her right shoulder, with most of the blade connecting, she wasn’t getting lucky here.

“Miss, you’ve got a fair share of damage on you, and I’ve got a bleeding eardrum, how about you take a quarter, run to that payphone, call an ambulance and let me relieve you of your possessions?” He was a psychopath, she was certain of it, he had already dealt grievous bodily harm to her, and was making smug remarks. She was scared out of her mind, and she knew what tonight was likely going to end with, but she was going to fight. Alice was nothing if not brave. A flurry of hits is all that can be used to describe the next few seconds, all from her left hand, mind you, none of them a light tap. The assailant was left almost disorientated, he hadn’t prepared for such a strong unarmed fighter, but he still had the knife, and she hadn’t been able to loosen his iron grip on the blade. Three stabs were made to her chest in that last attack she made, and all of them hit vitals, unbeknownst to either. Although Alice began feeling their effects shortly after, when she fainted.

Waking up from something like that is disorientating to say the least. In fact, Alice was almost certain it was a dream, you don’t just get stabbed five times, all likely in important areas, and wake up the next day. Although the knife holes and copious amount of blood in her T-shirt were news enough without the missing purse. It didn’t take Alice long to come to all of this in realization and check for wounds… Not a scratch, in any of the positions, in fact, she felt perfectly fine, apart from the obvious aches of sleeping on the pavement of an alley.

“Excuse me Miss, are you alright? Have you been sleeping there all night?” Her thoughts were interrupted by a man in a lavender jacket and blue jeans, he just looked like an innocent bystander.

“Yes. Wait, no, maybe, I have no idea. Sorry, but I really should be leaving” With that, she was sprinting for her apartment, leaving the man stunned at the sight of the blood. Alice, though, was not able to think clearly about what was happening, only that Mary would be worried sick. Not two minutes had passed before Alice was fumbling for her secondary key to her door. She didn’t take long to find it, and she was into her apartment and at her phone before you could yell her name. Twelve messages, all from Mary, all becoming progressively more urgent. This was going to take some explaining, maybe she should just leave out the mugging part, it might be easier to explain a slip and a knock on the head…

Three and a half years since that event, and she’d still never quite lived it down. It was hard to explain, but she also didn’t feel much different from that time. Of course she had learned more, as all of us do, but physically, she hadn’t aged a day. Not another soul noticed, but to Alice herself, it was disconcerting. Mary had always had her suspicions about that night, but she was a good friend, and good friends don’t pester their mates about things like that unless it involved physical harm… there hadn’t been any harm brought to Alice that day, had there?

Today had actually been an almost spot on regular day, Alice had spent the day with Mary in the library, they had just found some of the older entries of a long-running book series, and had borrowed them out to start on after their respective shifts (Alice had signed on at the orphanage along with Mary, the administration had taken a liking to their case of having been brought up there, and understanding what it took for the children to behave and do their schoolwork). Although the day wouldn’t work out nearly the same as it had been heading towards.

It had seemed so peaceful for the last few hours of their journey home, Mary had moved in with Alice when she hadn’t been able to keep up rent on her own place, so they lived together as flatmates. But it was in those last few hours that Mary would collapse, and fall into convulsions. As Alice called for an ambulance, and people clambered around the scene, Mary just watched, she had known this was coming for some time now, and she was eternally sorry for not telling Alice, it was bad enough that she was going to die, but she knew she was leaving Alice on her own, and she wasn’t sure that Alice would be able to cope with life on her own.

As the ambulance arrived, Alice was reduced to tears, she wished for nothing more than a way to protect Mary from what was injuring her, as they always did for each other in the orphanage. There was nothing to stand up to this time, nothing to fight, nothing to laugh in the face, nothing but pain and tears. The trip to the hospital seemed to take less time than the initial attack had seemed to last. Alice had insisted on riding in the ambulance with Mary, to look after her, the crew were not going to hesitate even if they’d wanted to, they’d seen this look on peoples’ faces a million times before, and understood it completely. Mary had calmed by this point, and was visibly weaker, it was almost as though her strength was being pulled away by an outside force. All Alice could do was stare into her eyes and silently reassure her that she was going to be okay. All Mary could do was stare back, so desperately wanting to tell her what had happened, and that she had made Marys’ life bareable even from the moment they met in the orphanage, Alice had been a true friend.

Upon arriving at the hospital, Alice was pushed aside as Mary was rushed into the xray room for diagnosis. All that was left for Alice was to sit in the waiting room and hope to whatever deity there could be for a miracle. No miracle would come that day. Almost an hour after, a nurse came into the room with a grim expression, and a heavy heart.

“Miss Alice I’m told, Mary has been suffering from a Cyst that has evolved in her brain for some time, a few years, from what we can gather. We managed to hold a conversation with her for some time, and all she wanted was to talk to you. I’m so sorry miss, but she likely won’t survive the night, would you please speak to her? We’re not certain of how long she’ll be able to stay in consciousness.” The news almost destroyed Alice. The only other person close to her, the only other person that mattered was going to pass tonight, and Alice couldn’t do a damned thing. As much as she wanted to scream, and punch down a wall, she held back the need, in favour of caring for her friend in her final hours.

“Hey… Alice… I’m sorry… eh…” The words would hardly form out of her mouth, she was visibly weak, and she just seemed to be draining as time went on.

“Mary I-“

“I’m sorry Alice… I’ve been… this way for a while… I just didn’t know… how to bring it up” Somehow she felt it, Alice knew that something had been playing on Marys’ mind for quite some time, and she could do nothing but tremble under her own weight.

“I’m so… sorr-“

“No more, please keep your strength, you’re all that matters in this room, and you’re going to survive this, please, please survive this” With that, Alice lost it, she cried in silence for hours, holding Mary as she slipped in and out of consciousness. 11:00pm, the same time they met, was the last time they would see each other alive. The heart rate monitor cut, and Alice shivered. This was it, the last thing that mattered is gone, and she has nothing to live for. The night was Sombre, after that. The nurses had come, and unhooked all of the equipment attached to Mary. Alice had hung her head, holding Mary for some time after she passed. Alice stood, and left the hospital in silence. She knew where she was going, and she was not going to falter, this was the end for her, the end of her chapter, and she only hoped that such a story would not be repeated to another, she didn’t want anyone to feel the pain she did, and so she would leave this planet.

She stood atop the city bridge that connected the east and the west of the sprawling metropolis. And thought about everything that had happened in her short life, the unexplainable, the sorrowful, the tragic. She had conveniently avoided thinking of the good times, the joy she had felt, no, there was no place for that thought in her mind, there never would be again. Her mind came to only two people, Bertild, whom she had never been given time to connect with, yet whom she loved. And Mary, who had been a caretaker and almost big sister for ten years. With that last thought, she threw herself from atop the bridge.

Darkness Envelops

Chapter One

So many thoughts pushed through her mind as she fell, even the ones that she had kept at bay from atop the bridge. Thoughts of despair and loneliness were accompanied by thoughts of acceptance and love. The despair coming from the hopelessness of her life, but the love coming from the years she had spent feeling somewhat accepted in the world. Alice had never truly felt at peace with her life, but through most of it she at least had someone to depend on. And even now, as she fell, she wondered if it was the right choice. Would she have been able to find new people? People as wonderful as Mary and Bertild had been in her life? Not that it mattered now, she was quickly plummeting, headfirst, to the end of her own life. At her young age of twenty-two. The impact with the water was… strange, it was strange enough already that she hadn’t come out of consciousness, but it was stranger still when she hit the water and begun feeling and hearing the cracks of her bone. She had hit head first, so the first bones to absorb impact would be in her head and neck, meaning that she should’ve just snapped her neck. She begun feeling her nerves reacting a second later. No pain in the world could equate to the feeling, it was the worst pain she had ever felt, and almost certainly the most shocking. The strangest part still came when the pain begun to fade away, and she begun to feel her environment, she had just been feeling a pain greater than any she could imagine, and already it was dissipating without a trace. She was now feeling the coolness of the ocean as she drifted to the bottom, the impact had winded her, so she didn’t have any air to help raise her body, nor did she care. She drifted and drifted for what seemed like hours, downwards. It had only likely been about thirty seconds since she jumped from the bridge.

As she floated down, she felt the feeling of choking for air, but as she drank in water, and filled her lungs with it, she didn’t fall unconscious, instead, she felt strangely at ease, even though she was consciously drowning, she still had full control of her limbs, to the point in fact where she could move herself through the water. Her brain slowly began to make the connection that it did not need air to function, which was in of itself shocking. Although Alice couldn’t know this, her body was rebuilding itself as fast as the lack of oxygen was damaging it, with no apparent reliance on any sort of energy to fuel the regeneration. It was the science of cell regeneration in the works, but it was closer to a miracle. As Alice begun to realise these things, the more she assumed it was likely a nightmare than anything. She figured she would see if she could swim to the surface, and take stock of herself when she rose.

She coughed and heaved out a gallon of water she had taken in whilst underwater. She had initially sunk into the water quite a ways. And had been pulled very far through the ocean in her absence of mind, so when she rose out of the water to find that there was no visible land around her, and all of the sound filling her ears, the cars, the trains, had been replaced with clashing waves, she was shocked. How long had she been in there? Is she just reimagining the landscape in her dream? With these thoughts she began to use what moonlight she had on that night to examine her limbs. Firstly her arms, not a scratch, in fact, she even had a normal colour to her skin. Not a trace that she had been drowning but a couple of minutes ago. She felt around her neck for stiffness, or pain, bruising, throbbing, anything to indicate damage had taken place. Nothing, not a scratch, nor a lump, bruise, not even a sore spot. This had gone from the most tragic night of her life to the most confusing.

Alice quickly began to realize that she was stranded in the middle of the ocean, as far as she knew, without any assistance in yelling range. She began to swim as fast she could, and as she swam, she didn’t feel exhaustion in her muscles or her bones as she should. Of course, she hadn’t taken notice at the time, because she hadn’t had much physical exertion for a long time, of course she could feel pains and throbs that hit like a shock, and left quickly when she would swim or sprint, but she never really felt completely worn out, or exhausted. Her line of work was tiring, yes, but it had always been a mental tiredness that had exhausted her at the end of the day.

By the time she had found a shore, she was mentally exhausted. The amount she was trying to process that had occurred in the last 24 hours was far too much for her mind to handle. As she closed her eyes and laid her back on the beach in the night, she brought her mind to the most recent of the occurrences. All that she had just survived, with naught a scratch. She wasn’t entirely ungrateful, if any of this were real. To check, she tried pinching herself, still felt the small jab of pain, she was well awake. But she didn’t feel any pain in any of the locations that she should have following the jump. Alice began to think, had her body healed the damage caused? It wasn’t a completely alien thought, she had thought the same about the night of her mugging, but had brushed it off, because the possibilities were impossible. That, she had chalked down to simply falling, knocking her head and imagining. But this could not possibly be imagined, she was still in full consciousness and had naught a scar from the event. Was she going to do this in future? She didn’t feel she had aged a day from the time the attack took place, has her body been regenerating itself ever since? Her mind started to get ahead of itself, would it continue to do this in future? Would she simply survive and regenerate any harm brought too her? Would she ever be allowed to die, when she felt ready? Tonight had been too much, halfway through her fall she had decided that life was still worth living, now she had found that she may never stop living it, that she may never stop seeing the cycle of friends passing on without her. It was far, far too much on her mind, she drifted out of consciousness.

A feeling of intense, burning agony shot through Alice, she began to feel a pain worse than what she had experienced at the end of her fall, it was absolutely excruciating. It felt something close to burning and being torn apart, but neither were actually happening. She was certain this was a nightmare, she remembered drifting into sleep, and didn’t remember waking up. When she tried to fight herself through the pain to move her arm, she couldn’t feel an inch. It was as if her body was tearing itself apart, and she couldn’t do anything whatsoever aside from feel all the pain come to her. It wasn’t long before the pains subsided, and she only felt a ghost of what had been there beforehand.

Luna had been stargazing that night, observing her sky. Every star she had plotted out before her banishment, she still loved every inch of her night sky, even if parts of it were made out of rage and hatred for her sister and kingdom. All of it came together in a canvas she still adored. The book she had with her had plotted out certain constellations and given them names. Having known that ponies cared enough about her sky after she had been gone to mark out parts, and observe the sky on dark nights was enough to lift her spirits to the heavens above. Her adoring for her sky quickly turned to fright when she started seeing flashes and cracks in the sky, all appearing almost as a lightning storm. Though there hadn’t been a cloud in her sky that night, so that couldn’t be right, what was happening? Some extreme form of teleportation? Luna followed the cracks and shocks in the sky to their origin, it had been quite close to herself. She quickly threw her book into a saddlebag she had mounted and took off, flying towards the occurrence. Upon arriving, Luna laid eyes upon a most unusual happening, bouts of electricity were discharging into random trees in the middle of a forest, and an object appeared to be lowering, quite rapidly, into the forest from the middle of the freak electrical storm. Luna shot as quickly as she could manage towards the epicentre, being an alicorn, it was her duty to ensure the safety of her kingdom. And if something with a terrible power were descending to cause damage, she would be the first to stop it. What landed in a cry of agony was the last thing Luna expected. She stared at the creature, it was a peach colour, no coat of fur, and it was writhing in agony. Almost as soon as it started crying in agony, it stopped, and stared back at Luna.

Alice had never seen a horse in person, let alone one that was flying. She had been raised in a city. But she knew that’s not what they looked like, it was just the closest comparison she could draw, the proportions were all off, not to mention the horn and wings. What really threw her off was the look on the creatures’ face, it didn’t show fear, or resentment. Instead, it showed wariness, and even a hint of compassion.

“H-Hello? Are you alright? I’m not sure if you can understand me, but I’m going to come to you, and I’m going to see if you’re alright.”

Alice had been more than shocked to hear those words, let alone see them leave that creatures’ mouth, she was curled into a ball, she was freezing, and the pain that had come onto her had left almost as quickly as it had arrived. It didn’t take her long to realize she wasn’t covered. Whatever she had been caught in must have burned her, badly, it was understandable that the heat would burn more than just her skin. And so she kept wrapped around herself to preserve any warmth she might have, although partly because she was embarrassed. Alice decided to respond to the creature as it came closer. “I’m freezing, you don’t have anything I could use to cover up, by any chance, do you?” Alice realised she should probably be more cautious around a completely new life form that could form words, but at this point she didn’t particularly care, besides, if it wanted to kill her, it might have some trouble doing so.

Luna was shocked, the creature could speak, as well. But she was quick to react. “I actually have a blanket here, you can have it, if we’re on equal footing, I would like to move you. The lightshow you displayed there was nothing short of staggering, and I have no doubt that more will be coming to investigate soon. If you were to ask me, meeting a new species at the epicentre of a major display of electrical energy is dangerous, and I’m not sure that they would act to you in the same way I would”

Alice was too tired to try to fend on her own, and the mention of “others” was enough to put her off any rational thinking. As soon as Luna landed, she had the blanket out of her saddlebag and being pulled around Alice using the magic from her horn. It didn’t take her long to move Alice onto her back and start moving. With the creature on her back making her unable to safely use her wings, Luna begun galloping away. Considering that she rarely moved athletically on her hooves, she was fairly agile, and was far away from the scene caused by the creatures’ arrival before long. When Luna judged they had reached a fair distance, she moved to find a safe clearing. It wasn’t long before she had found a small area fairly well hidden by the forest canopy with a relatively comfortable floor of grass. Luna was visibly weakened from the days’ events, and so had set herself and Alice down. Upon looking at Alice wrapped in the blanket, she began to realize just how different this creature really was, she had red hair and a slightly light peach coloured face. The bone structure of the creatures’ face was nothing like that of her own. It looked like it had drifted to sleep at some point on the ride, and Luna could hardly blame her, Celestia knows how she managed it on a trip like that, but she knew that she would be stressed for sleep after causing such an event. It didn’t take long for Luna to drift into sleep herself.