How long ?
How long since Alice and Mirror entered the cursed staircase ?
Alice had an idea, thanks to her still mostly underdeveloped sixth sense.
Three weeks.
Three damn weeeks.
Twenty-one days.
Thanks god, there were other spots were one could drink, otherwise Alice would have died a long time ago.
But thirst was far from the only problem Alice was facing.
Hunger, exhaustion, her fever worsening... Alice was barely able to keep going.
The worst thing by far, however, was the mental pressure.
The desire to give up.
Being in a mostly unchanging environment, with limited ressources, in the darkness... it was infuriating, maddening.
Alice felt as if she was trapped forever, and fated to die in that place. Without Mirror's helpful behavior, Alice would have never been able to go as far as she did.
Even then, all of this was hard to endure.
Sometimes, Alice even let Killer control her body, to forget how tired she was. To not let herself give up.
When Killer controlled her body, everything was simpler...
But currently, Alice was the one in command.
"Why are you so slow ?" asked Mirror.
Alice smiled... Her friend was a complete monster. Despite the fact that she did not ate anything for two weeks, Mirror looked... surprisingly fine.
She recovered from her harsh fight against the twenty two Two Mouths quite rapidly, and was able to use the power of the Name Seer without meeting a wall like Alice did previously.
This reassured Alice.
No matter the challenge, Mirror would be able to overcome it... Right ?
"I'm not slow, you're the one who's too fast !"
"That's the same thing, actually."
"Not at all !"
Mirror smiled.
"You're like the little sister I never had."
Alice frowned. This felt like Mirror just said what she thought out loud.
"Aren't you full of yourself ? You're barely a month old, technically. You're the little sister, not me ! Actually, you're just a baby !"
"That's the kind of thing a little sister would say."
"How do you know that ? You never had a sister, Mirror !"
"See ? You keep being petty about that sort of stuff."
"I'm not being petty !"
"From what I can see, you are."
Alice found Mirror's whole speech ridiculous. Her, Mirror's little sister ?
Unbelievably stupid !
Alice changed the subject, as she did not want to think to much about weird ideas.
"Anyway, for how long are we going to stay in that creepy place ?"
"I'm not sure... But Brandon will not be able to maintain this strange spatial trap for too long. In less than a week, we will be out."
"That's some good news right there."
"Good news ? Alice, I, no we, are going to have to fight this... thing. And it's not going to be as easy as killing a bunch of mindless monsters."
"I trust you. You will not lose, right ?"
Mirror didn't answer immediatly.
"Alice... in the unlekely case where I die, you have to promise me something."
"Promise you what ?"
"Don't try to kill yourself. Don't pursue revenge. Don't obey the Godess of Light. Don't try to find a way back to Earth. Don't try to find that Temple of Light Nikoletta was talking about. Don't follow the footstep of the other Lightbringer."
"Why should I try to find, then."
"Happiness. Search happiness above all else."
Silence.
"Okay, I can promise you that."
"That's wonderful ! Now I can tell you that..."
Mirror stopped in the middle of her sentence, and suddenly collapsed on the stairs.
Alice sighed.
"Again ?"
The first time, she had been extremly worried, the second, a little... but this was the fifteenth time, damnit !
Why did Mirror recieved so much visions, while she wasn't even able to use the Name except for her Sixth Sense ? That was so unfair !
Well, at least now, Alice could take a small break.
She sat down on the stairs, looking in the darkness below with her eye.
The desire to just... touch the damaged side of her face was stronger than ever before.
Her fingers caressed the ravaged flesh.
She paused at the spot where she once had a eye.
Now, there was nothing but the dreadful mark left by the Two Mouths.
"How did I even survived that..."
Her urge to scrape her scar was tormenting her. Alice knew it was a bad idea, but resisting was hard. Very hard.
She begun gently stroking the scar, slowly at first, but her speed increased over time.
Alice scratched the left side of her face, until blood came out.
Black blood.
Even though she was unable to see it, Alice knew it. Her Sixth Sense was telling her that, no screaming her that something was wrong with the color of her blood.
Her blood was black.
"How strange..."
"It looks like you finally got some kind of illness." commented Killer.
"What kind of disease make your blood black ?" wondered Alice.
"Don't you have an answer somewhere in that head of yours ? Aren't you supossed to know everything, Seer ?" said Killer, sarcastically.
"You're being annoying..."
"You know what ? I think your problem isn't even caused by Brandon, or this place, or whatever. Otherwise, why doesn't it also affect Mirror ? Why doesn't affect your Sixth Sense ?"
"I don't know ! Why are you so aggresive today ?"
"I know. The problem isn't your Name, it's you. You have the mentality of a broken person, of a victim. It's time for you to... Wait, what are you doing ?"
Alice exiled Killer's voice in the corner of her mind, tired by how annoying she was.
Or he, Alice knew next to nothing about Killer. And Killer herself seemed confused about that topic.
Alice waited a full hour, lost in her thoughts.
Mirror woke up in sweat, breathless.
"So ? What did you learn ?" asked Alice.
Mirror stayed silent for a while, and then she said:
"Your scar..."
"What about it ?"
"Black Blood."
Alice froze.
"What does that mean ?"
"The blood. Black. Is your blood... black ?"
Alice was confused.
"Kind of ?"
Mirror paused for a bit.
"That's not good."
"Why ?"
"We will meet Brandon soon. Very soon."
"What ?"
Mirror stayed silent.
"Mirror... please, I beg you, don't keep an important secret from me."
"I'll explain everything I can once this guy is dead."
"It's a promise ?"
"It's a promise."