I Am Not Alice

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.’