31 Lost

Alice stood up, she felt a dull pain in her back where the soldier hat hit her with some kind of projectile and a sharp pain where she had hit her head. She wiped away the blood that was flowing in her eyes and looked around for an escape route.

That was when Alice saw the small girl cowering in the entrance of one of the houses about two meters away from her. The girl had big sky blue eyes that were looking at Alice in fear, her arms hugging her knees and her whole body trembling. Her silvery-white hair was covering parts of her face and she wore the dirty remains of what may have once been a beautiful dress.

"Hey, you have to hide fast, they are raiding the whole city and one of them is right behind me!", Alice said to the little girl. Her head hurt and she couldn't think straight enough to realize that that girl too was a trespasser and she shouldn't care about her.

When she didn't get any reaction, Alice frowned. She walked closer to the girl and looked her in the eyes, telling her: "You have to run! I don't know what they are going to do with you if they catch you!"

That generated a reaction in the girl, although not the one Alice hoped for, instead she started trembling even more. The girl looked at Alice like an afraid animal. At that moment, Alice could hear the footsteps of the soldier on the roof. Not thinking long, she took the girls hand, pulled her up and started to run. She hadn't realized it before, but the girl had to be even younger than she thought, at least one or two years younger than herself as she was barely over a meter tall.

"Hah, taking care of someone else when you can't even get away yourself, are you actually an idiot? Well, then it will be over soon at least.", saying so, the soldier jumped down into the street and followed after Alice again.

It didn't take long for the girl to stumble and fall. Not able to overcome herself and abandon the girl to save herself, Alice pulled her back up and continued running. But after not even five meters the girl fell again.

The soldier was getting closer to them every moment and Alice didn't know what to do. Realizing that the little girl would never be able to get away on her own, she didn't even bother letting her run by herself anymore and simply threw her over her shoulder. It was much easier than Alice would have thought, the girl was very light.

Like that, Alice saw hope again. Although a little slower than when she was alone, she could run much faster than before this way.

But alas, it still didn't take long for the soldier to catch up with her. Alice despaired, she couldn't let herself get caught here, she had a place and family to return to. She had lost the first and given up the second, on this third chance, she could not lose them again.

Even though the memories were still faint, Alice had remembered parts of the time were she caught Dick. She had remembered how strong and fast she had become when she had used her mantra, but also the anger, how she had become like a wild beast only driven by a single goal.

She had always suppressed those dangerous emotions deep inside of her and tried to avoid situations that would trigger her mantra in fear of becoming unable to control herself and hurting her family. But she realized, that strength was something she needed right now, if she had it, she would be able to get away.

She wished for speed.

She hoped for strength.

She yearned for power.

Like a hot flame, her anger flared up, eating away at her mind. The pain in her back and head started disappearing and her mind became clearer. She could feel herself becoming faster and the girl on her shoulder felt even lighter.

'Why was she even taking that girl with her? She was the reason why she almost got caught by the soldier! Maybe she should just run away on her own?', Alice thought.

She became angry at the girl for slowing her down.

'But it was that soldiers fault in the first place that she had to run away! Why couldn't they just leave them alone? They were just trying to survive somehow! Maybe she should try fighting him?', she thought.

Alice became angry at the soldier for chasing her.

'But I won't be able to win in a fight, that's just impossible, I can't even get away from him! I thought I was strong, but in the end, I am still weak!', Alice thought.

She became angry at herself for not being strong.

Slowly, ever so slowly, her thoughts started to drift off in the constant struggle to keep her anger under control.

...

Alice woke up, her head was hurting like never before. She opened her eyes, or at least she tried to. She panicked for a moment when her left eye didn't open. Only when she rubbed her eye with her free hand did she realize that her eyelids had been glued together by the dried blood that covered half her face.

The little girl was sleeping in her arms. Alice tried to remember how they ended up like this. Up to the moment where they started to run together she could still remember clearly, but after that everything slowly became blurry and unclear.

She didn't know what happened exactly, but Alice was happy that she had at least not hurt the little girl, or else it would have all been for nothing.

She carefully put the girl down as to not wake her up and looked around. They were sleeping huddled together in the corner of a small house. The roof and one wall were largely broken and everything that could once have been furniture was only scraps left of.

Or in other words, she didn't have the slightest idea where they were right now.