Alice woke up on her bed with cold sweat. Her room was cold, damp, and dark. The floor was littered with old clothes and other miscellaneous items, there were cracks on the walls surrounding her, and the only source of light came from her window. The girl was cold, she lived with ghosts of a distant past, worked with the silence of her room, and cried in the arms of nothingness. Alice stood up, no motivation in her movements, and stared at herself in a dust covered window; Curly black hair, skinny, and ill. She did not recognize herself. The window was bright, and outside that window was a world that she did not want any interaction with, yet it was exactly interaction that she craved so badly for. It was loneliness that consumed her, and it was her own doings that led to this overwhelming feeling of isolation. Alice wished to be in a different world, one where she is not chained down by society and have to live the way that she is right now; She did not wish to chain her neck with a rope. There are pills on the table next to her bed, and they look appealing. It’s 8 A.M. already, she should be going to school; Yet she does not. The girl stood there, trembling, sweating, her arms twitching, her heart pulsating, her cries deafening.
“Help me, help me, help me,” Alice stutters as she repeats to herself.
A mental breakdown. Darkness consumed her surroundings, endless voices whispered in her ears, telling her to do it, though she had no idea what “it” was. The girl was desperate to escape, and that was also when the pills caught her eyes. Its light-pink color, pleasant to the mind. Its scent, peach. Its consumption, needed. Alice rushed towards the desk with great haste, and gulped down 5 pills in an instant. The voices stopped, the room no longer dark, the terrifying visions that she had are now replaced with the pink fantasies of an innocent child. It was not long before she passed out on the floor.
Alice was a princess. She ruled a world filled with her greatest desires. A reality where everything was perfect. What surrounded her were love, joy, and a need for her presence. The girl was not ignored, she was respected by everyone, people desired her. The trees were green and purple, the sky had colors of peach, and roses filled the land. The princess felt a sense of joy unknown to her other reality, the reality that she did not wish to return to. Her room was large, spacious, and clean. She would go into the streets to be greeted by all kinds of joy and kindness, unlike that world. The girl would see trains filled with cartoonish hearts from inside pass by her, and if she were to jump and get hit by it, she would be rushed with a feeling of immense joy. People played with her in a school painted with positivity and white, and she was loved dearly by her family. As the day ends, Alice would arrive at the roof of her house, where she and her Prince Charming would watch unicorns and shooting stars fall from the starry nights. She wanted to be like the shooting star, an everlasting light falling from the infinite sky for all. The girl would stare at that star as she once again faded away from her dream world.
The floor felt cold when Alice woke up. She struggled to stand up as a sense of nausea hit her. It was 7 A.M., though it seemed like she passed out for a whole day. The girl no longer wanted to be in this room, so she put on her uniform and headed out to school. There were no signs of her parents like usual, and she did not have any breakfast either. A bustling city, yet no one had a care for one another. No one heeded her internal cry for help, no one cared enough to give her guidance, no one looked. The girl arrived at the train station, where she was met with the blinding headlights of an oncoming train; there was an immense desire to jump, a great desire to see if she would feel the same joy that she did in her wonderland. However, common sense got a hold of her, making the girl refrain from committing such actions. Alice got to class on time. No one talked to her, the only time where she was even mentioned was during attendance. She wasn’t bullied, mostly because no one noticed her. The girl was nonexistent, she was a thirteen year old girl who lived most of her life in absolute loneliness. No one would notice it if she was gone forever, but she wanted to be seen. She wanted to be just like that shooting star, she wanted for people to look at her, she was obsessed. As she walked back home, Alice started her first live-stream ever. Filled with anticipation, she stared intensely at her view count, and surprisingly, there were 5 people watching her. The girl gasped cheerfully, yet she knew not of what she should do. Therefore, she asked:
“What should I do?”
The responses were bland. Most of them either asked about the stream or said “whatever”. One individual, however, told her to run into the traffic, and so she did. Alice ran into the oncoming traffic as multiple pedestrians yelled at her to stop, but she didn’t stop. The girl was finally getting the attention that she desperately craved for, and she was not going to let go of that. Unfortunately, she did not get hit, or at least that was what she said to herself. Despite that, her view count was getting even higher, and to that she cried tears of joy; she even smiled for once after years. That night, the girl was met with voices and visions once again. Voices begging for her to do it, visions of her Prince Charming, awaiting for her on the other side. The girl could not stand up. She was tugging at her hair, screaming in pain as she wailed on the floor. Using her last efforts, the girl would reach for her pills, and chug them down.
A running train with straps that looked like nooses from atop. The princess held onto those straps tightly as the lights began to consume her. A phone, ringing at the bottom of her feet. She approaches it, looking at the texts appearing on her screen. The texts were from her Prince Charming, telling her to jump from the train. The door opened, revealing the wonderland that Alice loved so dearly, yet it was passing by. The messages came more rapidly, slowly convincing her to truly do it. As she moved ever closer to the door, more people would appear to watch her, cheering at her, calling for her to jump out of that train, and she did. The princess’ body was split in half immediately due to the extreme speed of the train, leaving her upper body on the tracks, where it would be crushed by the wheels on the other parts of the train, but she felt no pain. Red Camellias came from where her blood should be gushing out, her dismembered body would sprout the most beautiful plants, and there would be so many people watching her with faces of glee, applauding her for her actions, calling her a legend. Her decapitated head would be held high by her Prince Charming, as if it was the most beautiful piece of art in this whole wonderland. It was the most wonderful dream.
Alice woke up on her bed. Her body felt warm, yet the room was bitterly cold. The girl rose from her bed to realize that her parents were home, though perhaps not anymore. However, she was not lonely. The girl had a goal now, and she was willing to risk everything for it. The cravings of attention, the need to become important, the desperation to have the lights shine on her, that was what Alice felt as she once again turned on her stream.
A bustling train station, filled with people waiting for their chance to get on their trains. There were 25 people watching her this time, awaiting her next move. Many were confused, some spoke to her about the previous stream, about how it was dangerous, about how it was great, about how she should do something even more exciting this time. A train was coming, one that slightly resembled the one that she saw in her dreams. Yet, this slight resemblance made her deluded, it reminded the girl of the sensations and feelings that she felt when crushed by the train in her wonderland. Alice ran towards the platform and tried to jump into the tracks, but she was met with a rush of old memories, ones that were hidden by the darkness that surrounded her. A child’s innocence, a bright future, a parent’s love, acceptance. These memories caused confusion, distress, yet there was a brightness once again. A brightness that would have brought hope to the life of this child had it not been for everything else to make it fade away in brief moments. The view count rose to 67.
Alice became distraught. The faces surrounding her were filled with worry, contempt, and confusion. She could not handle any more of those faces. This would not have happened if I just jumped, she thought to herself. As a man tried to approach her, concerned as to what she was planning to do, the girl ran as fast as she could away from the crowds of people that consumed her. They were similar to the traumatic visions that she would experience. It was not long afterwards that her battery died out and the stream ended.
The girl did not leave her house or eat for many days. As she curls into a ball in the corner of her room, the girl would try to discover her memories, only to no avail. Alice had forgotten about her family, she had forgotten about everything that had brought her joy in her life, other than her one and only Prince Charming. Who was her mother, father, friend, who was she? The princess giggled to herself as she came to realize that she did not have the answer. The giggle of a child can be innocent, cheerful, and heartwarming, but when it comes from a broken husk of what was once a normal girl, a sense of despair overwhelms it. The girl did not realize that she was slowly breaking down into pieces. She continued to giggle about her prince, her life, her streams, candies, stars, trains, and she would not sleep that night. Her eyes were dead as she slowly reached for her candies with her skinny hands. The princess gulped down the rest of her candies, knowing full well that this would be the last time she will ever need them, and her consciousness once again fades away from reality.
A balcony atop the garden of Eden. A silent prince, watching his princess with the kindest eyes. A dead soul, in need of her prince’s embrace. The princess slowly approaches her prince, and is met with a warm and comforting hug from him. No one gave her this much attention in real life except for her viewers. The prince whispered;
“Do it.”
The girl came to a realization. Those whispers that terrified her, the visions that petrified her, they must have come from her prince. They were messages, telling her to come to his world, yet it took so long for her to realize that. The princess was finally free, no longer bound by the questions and cries that deafened her. However, she did not know how to reach him.
“What must I do?” She begged for an answer.
The answer he did indeed showed her. The prince paced himself to the very end of the balcony, and let his body fall gently from it; the princess followed him shortly afterwards. They fell into the eternal sky. The garden seemed so far away, and they would embrace one another in the midst of clouds and shooting stars. They were angels, falling from heaven into the realms of the human world. This was the answer, and the prince would be the witness of the princess committing to this answer. She would have to suffer no further, she would finally be able to soar through the skies, she would become a legend. This ever-fleeting dream will become reality, and just as how the lovers painted their landing with roses, the girl will also paint her blank world with the same color.
The girl who knew not of her own name any longer woke up from her bed, filled with determination. There were no longer any pills, her world has gone pink, and she can no longer differentiate reality and hallucinations. The princess headed for the 13th floor, where the roof is. As she opened the door, the girl was met with a gust of wind, and in front of her was a blank sky, towering over the dead cities that were beneath her. She was disgusted. Her stream was on, 397 people watching her every move. However, she no longer cared, for she only needed to know that her prince was watching. The broken child no longer needed to read the chat, for she had already received her instructions. The only thing left to do was jump, and she did exactly that with no hesitation. There was nothing left for her in this world, and what awaits her will be her greatest dream. The sun shined brightly, the wind felt cold, and the view count continued to go even higher as she fell. She fell faster and faster as she waved this world goodbye one last time. Everything became rapid, tears came from her eyes, and the world became dark.
Yet, she had the brightest smile of her life as she fell, a smile of genuine peace, a smile that one could not forget, a smile.