]Having retreated from the scene out of respect for Guy and Mary, and to give them some private time to discuss the matters at hand, Alice crouched against the ground. Lost in thought, she scratched at the dirt with a small twig, drawing pictures of rabbits and the stuffed animals that she'd left in her room while she contemplated the matter...
Crouching there and placing her small hands on her knees, Alice felt gloomy as she started thinking aloud...
"I'm so stupid..."
Everything had suddenly changed for her when she met Guy. From the start, he'd saved her and stuck by her side no matter what... something that no one had ever done for her before. Suddenly she turned from someone useless, invisible, and unimportant....to someone that really mattered. Before then, Alice had never associated herself with having any value whatsoever...
To be honest, she was just grateful that someone was there to acknowledge the fact that she existed...that she was there.
But perhaps it was too much to ask that she could be the most important person in Guy's eyes. She didn't care what anyone else thought, it would be more than enough if Guy valued her most of all... but maybe she was being too greedy. Too full of herself....
After all...there was probably someone more important to him than she was. Could Mary be that person? Alice could tell that there had been something between them, but she couldn't quite place her finger on it...
Either way...she was quite fearful now that whatever she had between Guy and herself wouldn't last much longer.
In times like these, whenever she was feeling distraught, she'd look for her stuffed rabbit and hold onto it, whispering her thoughts...
But as she turned towards her daypack, she noticed that the plush toy rabbit was already catching onto what Alice was feeling, for it was unzipping the bag, opening it up, and crawling out on its own. It climbed onto the ground and, struggling to keep its balance, walked in a slightly unsteady gait(having a head that was large in proportion to the body didn't do well for balance, Alice thought mildly) until it stood directly in front of her.
It looked at her inquiringly with black button eyes.
"Maybe you should just forget about him," it told her simply, in a childlike voice.
Alice thought for a moment, biting her lip. "....How can I? It's because of him that I was able to change, even a little. He's the first person to ever tell me that I was important..."
"But it's not like you didn't know it before, right?" The rabbit replied, sitting down on a rock in front of her. "You always knew that you were important, that you were special. You are Alice, one of a kind, and for that you are valuable. I don't think you ever needed anyone to tell you that, because deep down inside, you already knew."
Alice shook her head, frowning this time. "No, that's not it... He's done so much for me, he saved my life, and he always stood by me. He's done more for me than I could ever ask for and..."
"And you're fretting over how to pay back this debt you owe him." The plush animal interjected in a matter-of-factly tone of voice. "You want to know how a useless person like you could help him in return. Am I right?"
Alice fell silent, thinking over this matter. The rabbit let out a small sigh.
"....To be honest, if you really want to repay him... I think you should leave him," it told her. "Let's be honest, you're no good in a fight...if anything, you're clumsy and you frighten easily. If anything, you'd just be a liability. Think about it. If you left him alone right now, he'd be free of a huge burden. He might even survive. Trust me. Think about it. "
Alice watched as the rabbit wandered back to the daypack and climbed back inside.
"Remember, you can always talk to me if you need to. We'll always be together. Unlike everyone else, I know that you need me and I'll always stick with you, no matter what."
The rabbit pulled the zipper of the daypack over its head and disappeared inside.
Alice spent the next few minutes contemplating what Woodsworth had said... was she unneeded after all? Maybe she was just being a burden to Guy...spare luggage, useless and cumbersome. If she were gone...maybe he'd have a better chance of surviving. In anycase...he had friends who were of more use to him...like Kallie and Keith. And...maybe that Mary too...
...Maybe Woodsworth was right. Leaving might just be the only way that she could help him now.
Alice didn't have time to contemplate the matter any longer, for her thoughts were interrupted by a scream that resonated from the direction she'd come from...
...
For the next several minutes she had hurried back as quickly as she could, for Alice was more than certain, as much as it could be her imagination, that it sounded as though Guy was screaming in pain. She feared the worst, but clung to with desperate faith to the hope that everything would be alright in the end...
She started to feel her eyes sting as she thought of what might be happening right now, praying that it was all just her imagination, or that the scream came from someone completely different... He CAN'T die. I don't know what I'd do. I don't care what happens to me, or if I survive this, he just can't die...
In her anxiety, she stumbled over the path, her clumsiness betraying her at the moment that might count the most. Her foot catching on a knotted root, she fell forward onto the ground with an impact that left her body temporarily stunned...
She was surprised and almost relieved to see that when she recovered from her ungraceful landing, Guy's face was there. How strange though, to see him lying on the ground... And at that point Alice knew something was wrong, and what was originally short-lived relief turned into a knot of cold horror...
Guy's head was missing his body, which lay some distance ahead, quite mutilated thoroughly and left a completely unrecognizable and disgraceful mess along the overgrown path... And not far from Guy's remnants, Alice faintly recognized Mary...
Though to be honest...Alice could care less about the dead girl right now, even what appeared to be a dead fetus that was also nestled amongst the remnants...
She was frozen, caught between the border of horrifying realization and the denial that such a thing could have happened. Backing away, shaking her head, thinking, No....no....no... No. ...her mind reeled from the scene of carnage, her blood started running cold. All of a sudden, she felt sick, her head was spinning with an intense dizziness she hadn't felt before. On her knees, she started swaying back and forth, before collapsing completely.
This wasn't happening...she refused to believe it. She refused to accept it... Guy WASN'T dead. He CAN'T be dead, they were supposed to get through this somehow. TOGETHER.
"Guy....please...say something. Talk to me...." she begged, staring at the severed head in front of her. "You know I can't hold up my end of the conversation, but you never minded talking enough for the both of us! So, say something! Just talk to me, say anything. Even looking at me would be enough... just acknowledge the fact that I'm here..."
Tears were falling onto the ground now...
"...Because I AM here... I exist... I'm me... I'm here, I'm alive. I'm real. Until you came along, I never even had that kind of reassurance. From the start, you acknowledged the fact that I exist, so why not now....? You're not even looking at me..."
It was true, as much as she was staring into Guy's lifeless eyes, he seemed to be staring off hollowly into space... not looking at her.
Her breathing started to slow, and her sobs began to subside. ...So it was true, he wasn't going to say anything. He wasn't going to look at her. He wasn't going to acknowledge that Alice was there, begging him to come alive again and give her the reassurance she'd been starved of for the most of her life...
...It simply wasn't going to happen.
Alice's eyes went hollow. ....Well...if that was the case....
Slowly, gently, she reached out and picked up Guy's head and cradled it in her arms, holding it for awhile and not caring that the blood from his neck was getting all over her sweater, and the sleeves of her hoodie. Closing her eyes, she held him like that, forehead against his, though his skin by now had gone cold.
This wasn't what she wanted, but if she couldn't have anything else...
Still holding Guy's severed head, very carefully, she went over to the daypack and opened it up. Carefully, she placed Guy's head inside, so that he was safely nestled amongst the paraphernalia that was already inside...
And that was when she noticed the white rabbit resting inside, perfectly still and unmoving, black button eyes that stared in an innocuously curious, attentive expression... She had known this rabbit for years. Her father had given it to her when she was small, and it was the first thing she had ever treasured... Whenever she felt lonely or upset, she'd talk to it, and it always seemed to listen. She'd hold it tight during a thunderstorm, and she brought it with her wherever she went. Up until now, she couldn't imagine what she'd do if she'd lost it.
Frowning suddenly, she picked up the rabbit...pinching it by one ear, as though it were some repulsive, vile, disgusting object.
It hung limply by its one ear, dangling rather helplessly a few inches from the ground.
"So I should leave him alone? That's the only way I can help him?" Alice asked it bitterly. "....Don't make me laugh."
Alice stood up, throwing the plush rabbit against the ground. It fell limply against the ground with a slight bounce, it's soft, round, fur-covered form squishing slightly as Alice stepped on it, grinding it into the ground rather viciously with her shoe.
"I don't need you anymore."
She left it there, turning back towards the daypack, and the contents inside...
With a severed head in it, the inside of the bag was starting to reek slightly with the scent of blood...
Looking at the head, Alice tried to smile a bit. "Well...I think we have to go now... I don't think it's safe here anymore..." She could hear people approaching from somewhere.
She closed the bag, pulling the zipper over the decapitated head, slowly, carefully. "Don't worry. I think we'll both be alright if we stick together..."
Alice stood up, the daypack on her shoulder. She turned to leave, not knowing quite where she was heading, only knowing that she was leaving. She gave the mutilated corpses on the ground a wide berth, wrinkling her nose in the slightest of disgust...and then turning away to walk off without a second thought. No matter what, she had to move on. No matter what happened, she simply had to take what she had and make the best of it....right?
No matter what, we'll be alright. As long as we stick together...
She wandered off, adjusting her shoulder to the heavy weight of the daypack. The abandoned plush rabbit, now ragged and covered with a grimy footprint and missing one eye, lay covered in overgrown weeds, left forgotten among the rotting corpses.
[Continued onto an elsewhere]