Twigs snapped.

Alice dog legged through the forest’s jungle. Mother nature’s obstacles; haughty vines, overhead branches and razor sharp bushes. Twinges sliced at the skin of her bare thighs, exposed nerves tortured by the gelid wind, the burning wine of blood slyly slithering down her legs. Shouts yelled behind her, stabbing dread to her sputtering heart. She didn’t look back. She couldn’t afford to look back.

“You fuck bitch! You come back now and we kill you!” A heavy Mexican accented voice angrily yelled behind her, faintly accompanied by the ruthless trotting of soles smashing down on the grass and twigs. Leaves rustled. Twigs snapped, twigs broken, twigs laughing. There were two of them. The deafening cry of a gunshot ripped through the air, the bullet whizzing by her ear and stirring the brain matter within her skull. Chasing her. I won’t look back. I won’t stop running. The lullaby of dissonance, feet in harmony, the corners of her lips widened in growing insanity. Alice felt the uncontrolled rhythm of heart guide her to new horizons, new horrors of her imagination. That if they captured her, she would be on tape, drugged and beaten up, inhumanly tortured in ways unimaginable to ensure that she would get an early ticket to hell. Delightful. Blissful. A clearing up ahead. A worn down house up ahead. Why not spend time with Ma? I’m tired anyways.

Barging through the door and into the interior of the house, Alice spun around and pushed any furniture she could find to barricade the door. Then, after barricading the front door, she hurriedly scoured through the rooms of the house to search for a weapon. A gentle melody. A knife. Where’s the damn kitchen? I’ll hide somewhere sneaky and kill them all. The gentle melody grew more pleasant and louder as she rushed out of the antique rooms, the wood beneath her feet creaking, nothing to be gained at all. It was time. Knuckles rapped against the front door (such gentlemen), kicks, shove, body slams against its poor wooden frame and rusty hinges. Time was ticking.

“Open the door! Hey! Open the door!”

Their voices were muted into a staticky silence as Alice had entered the kitchen, gently pacing around the island. On the island stood an active radio playing K-pop. The soothing harmony of those male vocalists. It wasn’t a weapon, but there was harmony in its melody. The melody drew her in. No, not harmony, I need a knife. A knife!

The radio abruptly stopped playing. A window shattered, soles heralded a distant thump on the floor and Alice’s heart sank. She spun around only to freeze at the dead space of the living room interconnected with the kitchen. Someone, no… A petite girl, her ears sealed off by the thick earmuffs of her headphones, walked up to her, gleefully smiling. Alice stood stiff. The strands of the girls’ flowing golden hair brightly bounced around, the rhythm of her footsteps swung. She looked down, touched Alice’s hand, delicately rubbing her fingers.

“W-what?” Alice croaked. She was struck by a strange, sensational pleasure.

The girl looked up at her and smugged in impish. It was then Alice could hear the relaxing Jazz exuding from her headphones, the piano hitting every note desirable for the human ear. Swing on the ride cymbal, the saxophone hitting it. Nice and easy. Harmony. Nice to meet you, Harmony.

Every.

Crotchet.

Counts.

“May Harmony be with you!~” The girl said.

“I’m Alice… Like, yeah…” Alice’s eyelids grew heavy. She thought about the men who were chasing her. She sluggishly swiveled her profile to the side to glance back. The two Mexican cartel members had dropped their guns and were breakdancing. Broooo what? This author is high. Life deliriously flashed before her eyes, memories taking her back to her father and mother beating her up. Woah. Thanks for that. Harmony tightened her feeble grip on her fingers. It felt like smoking weed. Ha. Her angry, Mexican father was definitely a cartel member. Harmony-chaan…

Reality became distorted.

“Oh baby, baby, baby oh!~” Justin Barber sang.

Alice jumped back on the bed, furiously blushing.

“What the fuck?!”

“Oh what’s wrong, baby?” Justin drew Alice’s chin in with a finger. Alice pulled back.

“I was just… I was running away! And I broke into this stupid house, and I met this girl-”

“From who baby girl? Maybe you shouldn’t break into houses next time-”

“And why are you here now?!-”

Alice paused as she studied Justin’s purrfect face. She coyly traced a finger down his chiseled chest and to his six pack.

“Olala...”

“Come on, baby girl. You wanna feel it, don’t you- Oh baby, baby!-”

“Fuck off.”

Alice hopped off from Justin’s bed. She ran out of his bedroom, into the hallways and out of the front door, her disoriented trounce causing her to hyperventilate. She looked around her new surroundings in a new disbelief, binging every scenery. Ugh. She forcibly calmed herself down. What should be the wooden stalks of trees and walls of thickets was replaced by the towering structures of steady houses, made out of stone and wood. It was as if she had been transported back into the medieval times. And of course, villagers spurred out of their houses in their old-fashioned clothes, conversing with each other along the way to their commute as they walked on the stone paved path.

The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.

Alice inhaled the mystical, bustling scent of your everyday acts of merchandise and looked at herself. She was still in her modern fit; she was out of fit. Justin too.

Wait a second.

Is this a fantasy? She gasped. Have I been isekaied? That’s impossible. A truck hasn’t hit me yet. No, what is happening!?

“Lady, may I ask what peculiar fabric you are currently draped in?” A grandma, hand perched on her cane, reached out to her.

Oh.

Ignoring the grandma, Alice blankly stared at the carriage led by a horse, traveling down the path. Peace and harmony for a few seconds. Peace atlas. Then screeching dissonance. Oh shit. Something is wrong. Something is very wrong. Alice turned to the exacerbating commotion and her jaw dropped. Five hundred trucks came racing down at her, a whole ass drag race, tail for tail, occupying the entire width of the path. Alice stumbled back and screamed.

“No… no, NO!”

She closed her eyes.

Nothing.

A void.

God help me.

A cherubic voice faintly called out to her.

“Why… you… house!”

I can’t hear you. I’m dead.

“Why did you… the house!”

Wat.

“Why did you leave the house!1!11!!”

You meant that house? You mean because I left that house, I was hit by five hundred fucking trucks?! Alice’s eyelids slammed open. Harmony-chan was sternly staring up at her, her puffed cheeks and pout interrogating her, her slender hands on her hips. Alice placed a hand to her throbbing temples, contemplating on what the hell she just witnessed. Christ. Was that meant to be some sick wet dream? She anxiously tucked her dark strands of hair behind her ear. Harmony-chan pinched Alice’s cheek, dragging her out of her introspection.

“Ow- Okay, stop!” Alice angrily smacked Harmony-chan’s wrist off. Harmony-chan gasped in shock and stumbled a few steps back. She gently massaged her wrist with puppy eyes, her brows melancholically sagging. She looked like she was about to cry. Alice immediately regretted what she did.

“Okay. Sor-”

“Put your hands fuck up!” The first Mexican cartel member had aimed his gun at her. Barrel glinting, muzzle baring the void of death. They stopped breakdancing?

Harmony-chan and Alice put their hands up.

The second Mexican cartel member whistled.

“At who?” Alice said.

“The fuck do you mean by who?” the second Mexican cartel member said.

“Me or the girl?”

Fucking pedophile, she bit back her tongue.

She placed her hands on Harmony-chan's shoulders. Harmony-chan tilted her head. Take her. Not me.

“Fuck shut your mouth up before I…”

The first Mexican cartel member was about to finish his sentence before he noticed something was off. Silent footsteps of a professional killer… Listen. No, multiple of them. Conscious, whirling rotor blades of a helicopter. Dissonance, dissonance, dissonance.

Footsteps.

Harmony-chan tackled Alice to the floor.

The chatter of heavy gunfire reverberated throughout the kitchen.

Several soldiers had stormed the kitchen, entering from multiple entryways, their assault rifles blazing at the two cartel members. The first cartel member screamed as the first bullets tore through his stomach and then blasted a gaping hole in his head. Brain matter splattered on Alice’s cheek and hair, and she jolted. She curled herself, holding back her primal tears and screams. She hugged Harmony-chan tightly, squeezing for all her warmth. The second cartel member slumped on the island after receiving a chatter of bullets, his speech slurring delusionally as his body collapsed next to Alice.

Before she even knew it, a pair of hands tried to pried her off Harmony-chan.

“LET GO!” A soldier screamed into her ears. Something hard smashed against Alice’s temple and she loosened her grip, crying. Fuck that hurts. I just want to live.

“I-I’m sorry! I’m sorry! I’m s-sorry!”

Another soldier moved to yank Harmony-chan out.

“NO!” Harmony-chan screamed, bursting into tears. She clung onto Alice's sleeves. “I-I don’t wanna go back! I-I don’t…”

Oh yeah? Go! Go back... Go...

Alice began to hear the trickles of Jazz slipping from Harmony-chan’s headphones again. How she craved such wondrous harmony from this sophisticated genre. How about we switch to rock next time? Lofi? Anything. Alice giggled. As long as there was a form of harmony...

A cold, dissonant voice churlishly whispered in her ears.

“How inadequate.”

Her scratchy voice set off a bomb in Alice’s head. She pushed Harmony-chan away, sat up and looked at the deadpan girl, who was donned in a suit and whose long hair was tousled, standing on top of the island. Everything about her appearance, her pompous attitude as she looked down at the mortals below them, was unpleasant.

The soldiers had frozen...

Alice calmly spoke.

"Are you the one who hurled five hundred trucks at me in my wet dream, you little piece of shit?”

“...Did I?” The girl’s eyes slowly widened in lousy surprise and she scratched her chin with a finger.

The soldiers raised their guns at her.

The scratchy music got louder. The tempo got faster. Allegro. Vivace. Presto. Clashes of pitch, notes distorting the fabric of reality, the Earth’s balance tilting out of kilter. Bebop. Dizziness got to Alice’s feet, and the soldiers staggered as they searched for their balance. The dissonance got to her head. The harmony got to her head.

“R-Relax,” A soldier said, perspiration visible and slick on his face. “We don’t have to do this.”

Harmony-chan coldly stood up and faced her.

“Well well well.” She planted her hands on her hips and scoffed. She snuck a surreptitious, sharp glance at Alice. “Hmph! We meet again, Dissonant-chan-”

A soldier spun his gun around and fired at Alice.