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seal-writes-stuff · 11 months

Text

Word count: 2.2k

Warnings: graphic violence, kidnapping, one mention of frequent hospital visits, vague allusions to The Victory Project and everything that comes with it, Trauma

Summary: Alice Warren is a lot of things and you happen to love every single one. After she mysteriously disappears one day, it’s the only thing that keeps your rage and fear laser-focused.

A/N: Dear followers, today I offer you headcanons that nobody requested with a weird poetry vibe. Tomorrow? Who knows. Also I might’ve taken some liberties with how the simulation works, but hey. Hope you enjoy!

Alice is compassionate.

The first time you meet her, you aren’t looking for it – you aren’t looking for anything at all. Weeks after weeks of hospital visits have exhausted you completely, worn you down to the bone. You’re sitting in a cheap plastic chair in a long, bright corridor, not a single thought in your head; all you want is just to curl up in your bed and sleep for fifty years straight. Maybe you’d still wake up tired.

That’s when you hear her sweet, concerned voice, asking you if you’re okay.

You’d assume a surgeon working a long shift wouldn’t be the one to chat, but surprisingly, you’d be wrong. She really wants to know if something’s the matter. People rarely come here for some happy reasons, she tells you. Whatever you’re feeling, it’s okay.

You cry in her arms for what feels like hours – in the arms of a complete stranger who keeps reassuring you, never once noticing how you stain her work clothes with tears.

Alice is a good friend.

It’s been a few months. You can’t remember the time when she wasn’t your friend, can’t imagine a life that wouldn’t include her. You meet as often as you can, talking about nothing and everything, sharing the things you wouldn’t share with anyone else. It’s like you’re on the same wavelength all the time; you simply get each other.

You keep reminding Alice that she doesn’t have to see you every other day. After all, it’s hard to imagine a job more demanding than hers – you’d understand. And every time Alice tells you that it’s fine. That she loves what she does and she loves spending time with you.

“I’d go crazy sitting at home all day,” she laughs.

Alice is loveable.

You collect the moments you share like you’d collect rare flowers, saving them between the book pages for later. Alice pulling you in a dance in her living room, giggling as you end it with a twirl. Alice showing you her new sundress, asking for your opinion about it with casual intimacy. Alice clinking glasses with you, stars in her eyes.

You think your friend is beautiful. You don’t allow your thoughts to go further than that.

Alice is valuable.

The last time you see her, Alice is venting about her boyfriend – all valid things, you must say, you’d be venting too. Your advice to dump him becomes less and less humorous every time you repeat it. Anyone can fall on hard times - not everyone turns into an entitled leech over that. She tells you it’s okay. Deep down he’s a really good guy, and fights happen. That’s just a part of life.

You think that “deep down” must be quite deep indeed, but you don’t voice it. She clearly loves him, and if she chooses to give him that love then he must deserve it on some level. Either way, it’s not for you to decide.

That night, Alice is wearing her favorite skirt and a big striped sweater. A description burned into your mind as you have to repeat it over and over later.

Alice is gone.

It happens overnight – nobody knows where she went and nobody knows what might’ve happened.

No, she didn’t have any enemies.

No, she wasn’t acting any differently than she normally would.

No. Yes. No. Thank you, that means a lot.

You put up posters with her face every day and cry yourself to sleep every night.

Her boyfriend is standoffish. He’s never liked you and sees no need to pretend otherwise now. You’ve always hated him, didn’t you? You never believed in him. All you wanted is to see them, true star-crossed lovers, apart.

Time and time again, you try to mend that bridge just so you can have the hope of ever finding your friend, but her boyfriend isn’t having any of that. You chalk it up to his wounded pride at first, never denying him the right to resent you. Yet something bothers you about it nevertheless.

Something is off. That’s all you can say and that’s all that you really need

Alice is nearby.

It takes time. It takes effort. It takes an ungodly amount of unimaginably awful podcasts, but you finally get the full picture. It’s terrifying, it’s impossible and it doesn’t make any sense, but it’s the only option.

After a few days of rehearsing the whole things in your head, you follow Jack – you’ve finally managed to learn his name – to what used to be his and Alice’s shared apartment. For someone trying to conceal a brand new human right violation, this man is incredibly careless. He’s so assured in his invincibility that he doesn’t even bother with varying his routes.

You know what you’re doing is illegal, but it doesn’t matter at this point. Doubt is a luxury you can’t afford, not anymore. The law has failed Alice and her boyfriend has failed her too; you aren’t about to do the same.

The door has three locks, yet they’re so shitty that you manage to bypass them all with a few tweaks here and there – you’re lucky today. Jack must’ve gotten sloppier with time. Or maybe he never cared in the first place. Who knows.

Doesn’t matter.

You pass through the hallway and enter the bedroom.

Alice

right

there.

It’s a first time you’re seeing the device in action and, for a moment, you forget how to breathe. Gasping, you will yourself to look away from her, from what this despicable stain on humanity has done to her, and stare at Jack instead. He hasn’t entered the simulation yet, but he’s about to do it.

For just a moment, he stares back with fear and confusion in his eyes, and that gives you more than enough time to lunge for his throat.

You fly into a blind rage – one that you’ve never felt before and will never feel after. He tries to fight back, tries to crawl away, tries to plead, cry, scream; you can’t hear any of that. It’s all just noise, buzz in the air. You tear into his flesh with your bare hands, pulling it apart like a rabid animal. His hair is a perfect length to be wrapped around your fist.

You drive him face-first into the floor a few times before his body goes limp. You then do it some more.

You haven’t fought anyone since kindergarten.

You sit up and press your back to the bed frame, gasping for air. Your face burns and you can taste the metal – he must’ve landed some blows. Could be better, could be worse. You’ll live.

Alice.

With the shaking hands, you – gently, ever so gently – you take off her bounds and tie Jack up, just for good measure. It’s okay. They aren’t a part of the device anyway, not really. Those things that keep her eyes open, however, sure are.

What would happen if you just took them off? Would it hurt Alice? Would she survive? Would it cause some type of horrible, irreparable damage to her you can’t even imagine right now? You don’t know. Frank was careful to keep the details away from the general public – the only thing he, unfortunately, was kind of right about. His followers never questioned the inner workings of it all either.

So no way out but through.

Without hesitation, you put the second pair of these nightmarish goggles on, you stare at the changing pattern on the ceiling, you feel your mind go numb. It suddenly occurs to you that, as much as you’ve planned ahead, you really have no idea what you’re doing right now. You aren’t even sure if you’ll keep your memories or come out of this alive.

But there’s no point in wondering. Knowing the answers wouldn’t change anything. You’d try to save her anyway.

“Alice!”

She stands in the middle of a little-too-clean vintage living room, eyes wide, staring at you in numb horror. You realize that you must still be covered in blood – or maybe you aren’t, you’re so agitated that there’s no way to tell. Maybe you look perfectly normal right now. Maybe she’s simply scared of you because you’re a stranger in her perfect house, a stranger who snatched her perfect husband away.

You’ve thought that your tears have dried out completely months ago. For the first time tonight, you’re proven wrong.

“Do you… Remember me?” you ask in a shaking voice, stepping closer carefully. Alice is frozen in place, a weirdly vacant expression on her face. “Do you remember me at all?”

No response. You have no way of knowing what she’s thinking about, but at least she’s there. You’re grasping at straws, trying to come up with something, anything to say. Something that would convince her to let you help.

“Let’s get out of there. Please,” you plead. “If- When we get out of there, you won’t have to speak to me ever again. But please, let’s just-”

You don’t get to finish. Alice wraps you in a tight hug and you start sobbing into the crook her neck.

In a minute you’ll find out that Alice knows a way out – she’s had her own investigation while you had yours. In two minutes you’ll find out that at least one other woman here knows what’s really going on, always did. In five, you’ll leave this awful place behind, chased by a squad of things you aren’t sure are even human.

But right now, this very moment, is just for the two of you.

Alice is safe.

Time crawls at a snail’s pace, but after one day inevitably comes another. Both of you start therapy. Jack gets arrested – for some miraculous reason, you don’t kill him that night after all. The Victory Project comes under investigation; the details are kept under wraps, partly for “the benefit of the survivors’ mental and physical well-being”. You’re sure as hell there isn’t a thing in the world that can damage your mental and physical well-being even further, but there’s nothing left in you to fight this decision. This isn’t even an argument. It’s better to let it go.

You spend every night with Alice and she spends every night with you. You pour your hearts out to each other like never before. In a way, your friendship has changed fundamentally; in a much deeper way, however, it stayed the same. You cook Alice dinner when she comes home after a long day and she lets you sleep in on weekends. For a long time after the whole thing is over, she resents anything resembling housework. You can’t hold it against her.

One night, when you’re watching some endless TV-show - you’ve carefully curated your watchlist to avoid anything 50s-themed - Alice asks you point-blank if you regret it. The violence, the pain, the fear. If you regret hearing about him so much before everything went down, hearing Alice defend him as he was planning to take her life away.

Of course you know the answer. You’ve always known it: no, you don’t regret it at all. You’d go through it all a hundred more times if it meant setting her free. You’d search for months and years and decades if it meant finding her in the end. You’d beat this pathetic excuse of a man again and again, until there was nothing left of him anymore, if it meant letting her choose her own path.

And it’s not her fault that a person she gave all her love to never appreciated it. That’s on him. And Alice deserves none of his shame.

“But what if I left you?” she whispers, some unspoken urgency coloring her tone. “After… Then what?”

You look at Alice and she looks at you, her face illuminated by the TV. There’s a familiar, heartbreaking fear in her eyes that she can’t quite shake; worst of all, a completely understandable fear. You take her hands in yours.

“I’ve meant every word,” you whisper, brushing her knuckles with your thumb. “If we never spoke again, I wouldn’t do anything differently. I mean, I’d live a way sadder life, but that would be my problem.”

Just as the last word leaves your mouth, she kisses you as a promise to stay, to commit to you freely and without force. And you kiss her back, fervently, with endless yearning – as a promise to always find her, to always be there. To love and be loved generously, to love on purpose and to stay by choice.

And after what feels like forever, finally, Alice is home.

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