Classes are a waste of time but thankfully they go by quickly. When the last bell rings, I quickly make my way home to visit Mr Anderson.

His office is quite large but it’s mostly empty. The only thing of note here is that fan on the ceiling that looks like it’s about to fall off. Not my problem, I just hand him his dues.

“About fucking time,” he slowly counts the money in front of me, with a cigar in his mouth. “Good. Tell Ethan I’ll cut off his balls next time if he’s late paying rent.”

“Yes, sir,” I smile politely at him and leave immediately. That man is scary.

I open the door to my apartment room. I don’t bother going into the bathroom to check on Ethan’s body. I have to first deal with a particular intruder inside me.

I lie on the bed and close my eyes.

When my vision returns, I’m now surrounded by green meadows that extends as far as the eye can see. Alice is asleep in front of me, the chains still restraining her.

It’s a bit odd seeing her like this. I’m so used to seeing Alice with her resting bitch face on that the girl in front of me seems like a stranger. Alice now looks like a sleeping beauty, docile and kind. And it doesn’t hurt that she’s conventionally beautiful; pale skinned, hour glass physique and has long pitch black hair.

Now I have to get rid of her. In order to do that I need to get inside her mind to find out what happened to her. I’ve only done this with Benjamin when I first met him but hopefully this will work on her too.

I place my hand on her head and close my eyes. When I open them again, I find myself inside an aristocratic looking room. There’s a lot of antique décor around here, from that golden grandfather clock to the Persian rug that covers the floor. This places stinks with old money. Our ‘Ice Princess’ must be living a life of royalty.

I’m inside her mind, so all of this must be her strongest memory. Alice did say she couldn’t remember how she got killed and yet strangely, this room doesn’t look anything like a crime scene. I plop myself on the vintage couch. My word, it feels nice.

I soak in the room. Nothing seems amiss, no blood, no screaming sounds or negative vibes in the air. There’s a tea set on the table in front of me. I might as well pour myself a cup of tea. When in Rome, do what the Romans do.

Instead of expensive tea coming out the teapot, bloods comes out of it instead. I immediately drop the porcelain teapot and jump up from the couch. Why is there blood in that thing?

The room begins to tremor as though a small earthquake is passing through. Shit! The dreamscape is becoming unstable, meaning that Alice is slowly starting to wake up.

Time to stabilise this dream scene. I punch a hole in the wall, letting the pain simmer in my fist. The tremor slowly disappears and the scene is stabilised again. That hurt but forcing her mind to simulate the pain in my fist and the damage on the wall causes it to focus on this dream scene instead of waking up. Of course, this trick won’t work every time. That’s why I need to hurry up around here.

There’s no door leading out of this living room, so I only have this place to work in. I walk around just staring at the oil paintings hanging on the wall. There’s an old woman and man in separate potraits, probably her parents. There’s also a coat of arms above the fireplace. Is Alice part of some nobility?

Darn it, there’s not much I can work with here.

“Isn’t it an invasion of a person’s privacy to enter their mind without permission?” I hear Alice’s voice behind me. I turn to face her.

“That’s rich coming from you. After all, you’ve latched on my body without my consent. Now thinking about it, I feel quite violated.”

She clicks her tongue, “Well, if you just did what I told you in the beginning, I’d already been out of your body by now.”

“Victim blaming, you’re quite the ball of sunshine. What must I do to get you to leave my body?”

“Just do as I asked, give me control of your body so that I can figure out what happened to me.”

She’s crazy if she thinks I’ll just give her my body like that. Rule 3, don’t put your trust on others.

“Not happening.”

She sighs, “Humans are quite unreasonable.”

“While it does give me joy to meet another misanthrope, I do believe I’ve shown a lot of restraint. But I’m no Gandhi, if you’re not leaving peacefully, violence is the only option. At this point, I’m acting in self-defence.”

Alice folds her arms, “Do you know who I am for you to be even be threatening me? If you value your life, you’ll hand over the controls to your body to me. My family can bring a whole lot of pain to you.”

It’s clear that my disagreement with Alice will not be solved with a civil discussion.

“I must confess, I’m going to enjoy beating the living shit out of you,” I say summoning a flaming sword into my right hand. “Let’s tango, princess.”

Alice chuckles, “You honestly think you can beat me in my own mind?”

“I don’t have a choice, if I can thoroughly pulverise your mind into a gooey paste, you won’t be able to resist my will to get rid of you from my body.”

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Alice stares at the spilled cup of blood on the table. She then manipulates the red liquid into a spear.

The room fades away and we find ourselves in a large empty field.

This is going to be a battles of wills.

“I hope you’re ready to be defeated,” she says flatly. Without warning, she slits both of her wrists and blood just gushes out on the ground.

Is she suicidal or something? She must know that she’s not going to die here from doing that.

I stare uneasily at the large pool of blood she just made. It reminds of… No! This isn’t the time to think about that.

“Surely you’re not scared of blood, little one?” she smiles wryly at me.

I grit my teeth, she’s only taunting me. I need to stay focused on the goal. I lunge at her, closing the gap between us in less than a second.

Alice reacts quickly, evading my sword slash by ducking under my attack. This was when I noticed the pool of blood, which is right next to me, bubble vigorously. I leap backwards just in time before the vine like tendrils emerge from the pool to strike.

Using her own blood as a weapon, quite odd but creative.

It’s Alice who goes on the offensive and launches herself at me. She throws the spear at me but I shift to the side. Then I notice her all of sudden in front of me.

She punches me right in the chin, sending me way up in the air. If she thinks I’m just going to let myself fall to the ground and have her finish me off, she’s got another thing coming.

Whilst in the air, I imagine a pair of wings and soon they emerge from my back. I remain in the air while staring down at her.

“Come down and fight me, coward!” she shouts at me.

Nope, she’s got some home turf advantage here. There’s no need for me to use medieval weaponry really. I click my fingers and hundreds of bazookas pop into existence around me. All of them pointed at Alice.

All’s fair in love and war.

With another snap of my fingers, hundreds of missiles are launched in her direction. A huge black smoke forms as they plunge into Alice.

A portal then opens in front of me. Thousands of black bats come out and attack me. Well, there are too many to fight and so I fly the hell away from there. But these bats are quite persistent. The few that do manage to catch up to me, use their sharp fangs to take a bite at me.

I simply swat them do death. Alice has a messed up imagination, using bats of all things to fight.

I look down on the ground to see the ground shaking. The dreamscape is becoming unstable. Maybe I should have just stuck with medieval weapons. But I have to finish this quickly.

The flaming sword in my right hand changes into a lightning one. I stop fleeing the bats and turn to face them mid-air. Time to electrocute these winged rats.

I slash the sword in bats’ direction and a wave of electricity washes over them.

One by one, the fall on the ground. I fly down to the ground and run to the dust cloud where Alice is supposed to be.

After a couple of minutes, the dust clears and I find Alice on the ground, bruised and bloodied. She’s unconscious. However the tremors increase in intensity.

In her current weakened state, I should be able to use Soul Banishment to cast her out of my body. Just as I am about to use it, shattered glass is sprinkled on the unconscious Alice. That one bat on her body turns into a green scurf.

I hear a low rumble of a car engine nearby.

I take a step away from Alice. My subconscious, its betraying me.

I shake my head. No, not now. This can’t be happening now.

Rain begins to pour down and Alice lays helplessly on the ground, shivering.

This is nothing more than a trick. I raise my hand once again, determined to cast Soul Banishment. That’s when a screeching sound blasts out of nowhere. I drop to me knees, covering my ears.

I shouldn’t be reacting like this. This happened so long ago. Why is my mind bringing old memories into this dreamscape?

I can still remember that day like it was yesterday. It was my eighth birthday and it was raining hard outside. And yet I still insisted on going out. That green scarf I saw on Alice, it was identical to my mother’s. I don’t understand…

“Young Master!”

I look up to find myself back in my room. Benjamin stares at me, concerned.

“Is everything alright?”

“Yeah, just an unforeseen event,” I say to him shaking myself awake. That’s when I notice that my face is wet. For crying out loud, I can’t believe I actually cried in my sleep. I wipe the tears off angrily.

This is no time to go soft. I have too many pressing issues to deal with. I’ll deal with Alice later, I have a body to get rid of.

I enter the bathroom and walk over to the tub. There’s barely anything left of him now, just a liquefied brownish slush that has a consistency of motor oil with brittle bones floating on top. The bathroom stinks of ammonia even though the window is wide open. The odour is truly assaulting my nostrils.

I grab a pair of gloves and drain the bathtub.

Afterwards, I collect all the bones and teeth in a black garbage bag. It’s a good thing I haven’t eaten much today.

Time to destroy the DNA. Instead of using chlorine bleach like an amateur would do, I clean the tub using oxygen bleach powder. It always puzzles me how people can look up on the internet that bleach can remove traces of blood but don’t actually read carefully about which types of bleach are better. Stupidity is the best path to get yourself in jail.

I spend a good hour scrubbing the bathroom clean. Now even a surgeon could perform a surgery here.

“What are we going to do with the bones, master?” Benjamin asks.

“Crush them and throw it at the nearby lake.”

“Will you use your uncle’s car to drive to the outskirts of the town?”

I shake my head. “No, that’ll look too suspicious. My uncle never lets me drive his car so driving it now will arouse suspicion.”

My stomach churns. A sickening feeling of hunger overcomes me. I haven’t eaten today. And yet the idea of chowing down any food item in the house nauseates me, all thanks to Alice.

“Master, are you well?”

“Do I look okay to you!?” I shout at him

Benjamin’s face turns apologetic and he is about to say something but I cut him.

“I’m sorry.” I say to him as I straighten myself up. “That was uncalled for, my problem is with her and not you.”

I manage to make myself a sandwich but I only took one bite before feeling like throwing up again. At least I got something inside my stomach.

--

The next day.

Before leaving for school, I check myself in the mirror. I look awful. I’ve barely had a full meal and my sleep cycle has been thoroughly destroyed thanks to Alice. If I try to banish her soul from me again, I’m not certain whether the events of yesterday will happen again. I guess I have to consider the second option of finding out what happened to her. But I’m not giving her control over my body.

When I get outside, the sun is unusually distracting. Damn, I really need some sleep.

I arrive at school just as the first period bell rings. The first class today is maths, with Mr Rodriguez. Wonderful.

When Mr Rodriguez enters the class, the whole class falls silence.

He stands in front of us and looks around. His eyes stop at me. He frowns and ignores me after. It’s as though he just caught sight of some vermin and wishes to not to look at it no longer.

“I have news from the Steward family,” he begins speaking. “As many of you have noticed, Alice was absent from school yesterday. A stellar student such as herself wouldn’t miss a day of school. The bad news is that she was in an accident.”

The class erupts in a murmur. Many turning around to reveal their shock to their friends. Of course, this is not news to me. I already knew she was dead.

Mr Rodriguez continues. “The good news is that she’s alive, although in a coma.”