Chapter 27 - Alone
Alice sighed, frustrated as she dropped her bags. She was back in the bunker, where she never wanted to be.
As all the lights came on, Alice dropped to her knees and burst into sobs. She never wanted to come back here. When she left, she thought she was gone for good, never to return, but here she was back in a place she never wanted to be. She thought she was finally free.
But here she stood returning. It seemed colder than when she was last here.
"Jarvis, can you...." her sentence trailed off as she remembered Jarvis wasn't here anymore he was gone. She was truly alone.
She didn't move, instead curling up on the floor in the same spot she arrived in. Jarvis wasn't there to tell her the time or to move. When she finally woke up a few hours later, she crawled to the bathroom then the couch where she cried herself to sleep, again.
When Alice woke up again, she didn't know what time it was. There was no moon, sun, or Jarvis to shine a light on her day. The only light that shined on her was the artificial official ones, which only saddened her. It made her realize how alone she was and how much the voice in the sky comforted her.
Resisting the next wave of tears Alice got up and retreated to the bathroom for a well-needed shower maybe the water would wash away her sadness and leave her emotionless.
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Standing in front of her bathroom mirror, wet and in a towel, she saw all her scars decorating her arms. Her shower did nothing but moist her eyes for more tears. "Jarvis, how do I look?" it was something Alice often asked when stepping out of the bath or dressing. His answer was always, "Beautiful Ms. Stark, no one can compare." he was definitely a suck-up. Now, there was no one to ask or answer, just silence.
"J-Jarvis? ....how do I look?" she teared up as she heard nothing.
No longer wanting to look at her hideous scars, Alice slid down to the floor. She thought over what happened, what led her short life to fall apart so quickly. It wasn't perfect, far from it actually, but she enjoyed the little bit of freedom she had. Now it was gone, and she probably wasn't getting it back. Her thoughts brought more tears to her eyes, but at the same time, she wasn't sad anymore. The tears were just there. She sat on the bathroom floor in nothing but her towel for hours, her body dried and cold.
It was as if something snapped in her, and her body began to move automatically. She was just watching. She was a passenger in her own body as someone else drove; she was in auditions as someone else staring into her life. She began to go through her cabinet, pulling everything out and looking for something specific. When she finally found it, everything made sense.
A razor. Clean, brand new, unused, untouched, it was something she had hidden a long time ago when she had told her father she would stop. He watched her throw all her razors away and lock anything else sharp away she had hidden this well.
Bad thoughts clouded her mind. It seems that she has once again hit rock bottom. But this time, it was quicker and harder.
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Sitting in the shower. The water running red in the drain. New wounds opened on her wrists. Hopelessness. Betrayal. Loss. Sadness. Regret. Pain. So much pain. Who would have thought she'd hit rock bottom this fast.