Anybody But You

38

Chapter Thirty-Eight

Vibe: The Tradition by Halsey

Although her memory had failed long ago, when Alice had first woken up in this world, she had written down every single detail she could recall of Prince Narcisse's death on to the paper. Because at the time, she felt certain it would be key to her revenge.

The time, the place, the where, and the how. She wrote it all down in excruciating detail.

Narcisse would go down to the little room in the dungeon, where Alice laid chained and bound, almost every night in the beginning. After he got bored of her as the years passed, the visitations slowed down and the chains decreased. While the room was furnished and supplied with everything Alice needed and servants would come clean her and dress her into pretty little dresses fit for a living doll, it was still a lonely hell made just for her. A doll house that pretended well that everything in her doll life wasn't twisted and sick. If she looked perfect, no one would notice the wounds bleeding her out from the inside.

Everyone knew dolls couldn't bleed.

That's why, when she happened across the key to the chain around her ankle, Alice had run to the very top of the highest tower in the castle. She knew she couldn't really escape the royal family, not unless she was dead.

So she stood at the gaping window, staring at the immense depth below for what felt like hours as she balanced between life and death with an image that contrasted hauntingly with her thoughts. In the end, with a pounding heart that desperately wanted to survive for reasons she couldn't comprehend, she couldn't jump. And so, the living doll, even with the key to her escape, made her way back down to her doll house.

What was the point to escape when she'd already been turned into something that was far less than human? Dolls were meant to be played with and abandoned. What right did she, a doll, have to taking a life that she no longer even owned? Until she deteriorated into nothing and became something new, this life would never be hers.

Alice very soon realized that going down, was harder than going up. The palace was like a maze and Alice quickly lost her way. She was scared, alone, and trapped in what felt like a snare trap—like one wrong turn and she'd find herself maimed. The palace was an ugly, evil place, filled with ugly, evil people that found her presence to be hideous—a doll should never move on its own.

Her heart was almost beating out of her chest when she heard the enclosing foot steps. Without thinking about it, she ran into the first door she could see. At the sight of Narcisse slumped over his desk taking shallow breaths, Alice, with her mind in a dizzying panic, hid in the cabinet. From the crack between the doors, she watched as the three knights came into the room.

"—wake up soon. Should be wearing out." One of the men finished whispering, making The two other knighted men nod in unison.

Alice was scared as she held her breath. She practically felt the malicious intent from them as they gathered around the prince. Was she supposed to do something? Try to stop them? What was a doll supposed to do... sit and watch?

"Wake-y wake-y, prince." One of the men, leaning down to be face level with Narcisse, sang with a menacing laugh.

Narcisse slowly came to, his dark eyes glazed over as he tried with a struggle to raise his head. He mumbled unintelligently, pannickedly.

"Look at you," the knight behind him grabbed his hair, yanking his head up, "It's almost like I'm your precious princess—controlling your every move." He laughed before letting his head go as it crashed onto the hard wood of the desk.

Alice had heard the rumours spread by Narcisse's mistress, Lucy, before—that Alice was behind everything the prince was doing. Controlling him as if he was a puppet and she was his puppeteer. How ironic...

"Grab him and let's go—"

Just as one of the three masked knights went to grab the prince, Narcisse seemed to have fought off some of whatever was in his system—his hand clenching a sharp writing tool before stabbing it into the exposed soft area right below his jaw. Either by accident or good aim, the pen must have been angled down at just the right spot as it slashed and raptured the artery in his neck.

Blood went everywhere.

The blood pressure pumping within the artery spraying the fluid out of the small slash until red covered the room, prince, and two stunned knights. Even Alice's face and blue dress had gotten sprayed by the bright red liquid as it shot out, making her desperately try to wipe it off—smearing it all over her face instead. As the blood pressure diminished and the thickened dark blood began to gush out onto his armour with each pump of his heart, the profusely bleeding man gargled wet noises of his death horrifically as Alice clamped her hand over her lips to keep from screaming.

Everything after that moment was a blur. Narcisse tried his best to fight the enraged man pulling him out of the chair and towards the door by his arm. Still weakened by the drugs, he stumbled. However, in seconds he managed to grab the dagger hidden at his side as he used the weight of his fall to pierce the weapon into one of the knights chest guards—the dead weight of Narcisse shoving it into the man's heart as they both fell to the ground.

Alice, terror stricken as she stared in awe as Narcisse, even in his weakened state, managed to kill almost every intruder, slipped her heel that had been on her dress—causing the cabinet to move, alerting to her presence.

Narcisse's dark eyes seemed to catch her wide blue ones through the crack, distracting him for one second too long as the last remaining knight—so overcome with madness—grasped his hair; pulling his head back. Within a blink of her eye, Alice watched, with a scream stuck in her thickened throat, as the knight's sword swung down and sliced deeply into the prince's exposed neck.

As the room was once again painted in red and he had stopped choking on his own blood, the crowned prince fell to the ground dead.

~*~*~

A.N.

Lowkey love writing bloody things. So fun and gross. Hopefully you were okay lol

Thank you for reading!

God I love Halsey. This song is *chefs kiss*