Last Week, Chuck got us to make up a title each... and we posted it on his site in the comments section. This week, we get to pick out somebody else's title and use it. I had my pick of three I really liked...but I loved Tabitha Beth's title. The first few lines started up in my head and the story just led me along from there!
Enjoy!
They keep on calling
me that name.
Alice…
But that’s not who I
am.
I woke up in this
cell this morning looking around not knowing how I got here, or why, and now
some people came and bailed me out.
They were so
disappointed in me, wondering what the hell had gotten into me to make me do
what I did.
The problem is: I
don’t know what I did either.
So, I’ve kept quiet.
Stayed this way until they took me home – and what a home it is!
A mansion set back
from a quiet street with a long winding driveway. A lot of land surrounds it
and it seems that Alice is from a privileged background.
Looking down at my
hands, I see I’m dressed in Chanel and my shoes are Prada – only brands I had
wished I could afford – and I start trying to remember what happened the night
before.
‘Alice! We’re
talking to you!’
It’s dinner time,
and the mealtime talk has been boring so I’ve taken a great interest in what we’re
eating – lobster. For some reason, I know I can’t eat this as I’m allergic to
it, so I pick at it.
‘Oh, um… sorry.’
‘Aren’t you hungry?’
my Mother asks.
‘Yes, but I’m
allergic to lobster.’ I answer honestly.
‘No you’re not.’ Dad
says, ‘Eat.’
I take a bite and
almost immediately I can feel the hives start up all over. Just before I pass
out, I hear them screaming for an ambulance.
‘I’m not sure what
happened.’ The doctor’s muffled voice says from the corner of the room, ‘Alice
seems like your daughter, but for some reason, she’s also not your daughter.’
‘She’s been acting
strange since we picked her up from the police station two days ago.’ Dad says,
‘She’s been wandering around the house as though she’s never been there before.’
‘There is a scam
going around at the clubs lately; and it’s not pretty.’ The doctor’s voice
fades as I fall asleep again.
I wake up again to a
nurse by my bed. She notices me and smiled, ‘Hi. What’s your name?’
‘They call me Alice.’
I say, ‘But I am not Alice.’
‘Okay… what’s the
name you know yourself by?’ she asks.
I feel a smile creep
onto my face, ‘I go by many names… you can pick one if you want.’
She shuffled in her
seat, ‘Okay… I don’t know what you’re talking about, but give me a name to call
you by.’
I look straight into
her eyes and see her depression, feel it eating away at her being masked by
anti-depressants. Leaning over, I take her hand gently, ‘I am the dragon you’ve
locked out of your mind.’
Her demeanor falters
and she rises quickly, leaving the room. I hear a sob escape her throat just
before the door closes.
That felt good… I
make myself comfortable as the door opens and the doctor walks in. I spot
behind him the nurse on the floor with blood pooling at her feet and a pencil protruding
from her neck as people scream… the door closes… shutting out the sound.
He looks at me,
wondering who the hell I am, ‘What is your name?’
‘They call me Alice.’
‘You caused my best
nurse to kill herself by just talking to her.’ He said, ‘What is your name?’
‘I have no one given
name…’ I said, ‘And I didn’t cause her to do anything she wasn’t going to do in
a week or two. I just got her to cut to the chase. You do know she was popping
anti-depressants, right?’
Frowning, he takes a
seat by my bed where the nurse sat, ‘No I don’t.’
‘She was right on
the edge… so she prescribed herself…’
‘We’re talking about
you, not her.’
I smile, ‘Right,
because you want to know all about me.’
Like the nurse, he
shuffles in the seat, feeling uncomfortable in my presence, ‘Who are you?’
‘I am the dragon,
the keeper…’
‘…of souls.’ He finished.
‘You are not a
doctor.’ I grin, ‘I shoulda smelled you right away.’
He stood, removed
the lab coat that told me he was playing the doctor’s roll and revealed who he
was, ‘Now, we can help you.’
‘There’s more than
just you I have to kill?’ I slide off the other side of the bed, pulling out the
IV’s as I go, ‘I’m happy in this body, she strong, she won’t die easy – not like
the other one.’
‘Other one?’ he
asks.
‘Why do you think I
jumped bodies?’
‘Oh man, she was
dying.’
‘Stupid Hunters. All
you think of is killing things… you don’t think we want to live on.’
‘But she’s got a
family.’
‘Yeah, and they’re
loaded… wait until my family hears; and they’ll be jumping bodies just to
inherit their fortunes.’ I smile at him, ‘That’s how we survive.’
‘But I’m not a
Hunter.’ He says.
‘Says you.’
‘I’m not.’ He walks
towards me, ‘I’m your cousin, a Firedrake.’ He quickly reaches out to me and I hear and
feel the difference between a Human and my Dragon family, ‘Now, I can get you
out of here, but it’s going to be hard with your family standing by, Alice.’
‘My name isn’t
Alice.’
‘Well, you’ll just
have to play her for a while.’ He says, ‘And stay away from the seafood.’
‘I tried to, they
made me eat it.’
‘Trust me, I’ll get
your true family working with this one… you’ll all be together again.’ He says.
It’s been three
weeks and one by one, the Human family I chose have all be switched into my
Dragon kin. It didn’t take much; just a night out here and there and my family
slowly showed up in the mansion.
First it was my brother,
Daniel, who was swapped over. I first noticed him at breakfast one morning. He
looked up over the pile of croissants in between us and smiled at me. It was so
good to see him again! It wasn’t until afterwards that we met up at the stables
and talked.
‘How long until the
rest of the family join us?’ I ask.
‘Another week or
two.’ He says, ‘Our cousin at the hospital is working on it.’
‘Good.’ I smiled, ‘Soon
our kin will take over all the rich Human families throughout the world,
turning them into Dragon-kind. We will live again.’
