Into her words, I slowly torture myself.

ALICE

I never dared to let a single word escape from my lips again. The still atmosphere didn’t crack in between. Instead, it got colder. The breath we exhaled froze in chilled mist.

Something smells crisp and ozone-like tang outside. I smiled to myself. The incense of snow. Soft lacy flakes are drifting straight down. I take a shaky breath and tried to calm the raging pain swelling inside my chest. It was also in a day like this he found me battered to death. The snow has embrace me in its chilling hands and I’m willing to offer my life. Just to have a taste of death my years with my Aunt deprived me to feel.

But that desire was quenched by his stretching hand. By his tender smile. By his warm touch I helplessly long to feel in my skin again. My Aunt defines my existence as thin as an air. As worthless as mud filled paper. As stinking as rotten garbage. As meaningless as disgusting maggots.

She drilled how worthless and undeserving I am for love. How unworthy I am for the euphoric bliss. How unholy I am to take hold of that feeling inside my heart.

Love is a luxury you don’t deserve to have. A blissful wish that is too beautiful for you to dream about. Don’t seek for it, don’t yearn for it. A good for nothing trash like you don’t possess any qualities that deem you worthy for it.

I know that. I know that. I know that. But even so…was it so wrong of me to want only him? I didn’t desire to be loved. I know my limits. I know my worth is as little as microbes in dirt. Despite that…despite all that…

Can’t I stay with him?

Am I…so spiteful that merely wishing for him to be with me deserves a lifetime torture and regrets? Was it so wrong to harbor such feelings deep deep down in my soul.. that the punishment requires his life?

The clouds are dark. But someone still has the sense to pinned the sun in the sky. As if mocking the people who are afraid of light that the sun will never cease from shedding light in this dark barren world. That no matter how much we wish for tomorrow to never come, the sun will still rise. Prayers, dreams, wishes, offerings, just to get the time to stop from ticking… are deemed useless by this unforgiving small ball of fire.

I am one of those people the sun mocked. For the two years I spent with him I wished for the time to stop. When his hand brushed my hair I wished for the needle in the clock to stop moving. When his hot lips touch mine and a spark of heat erupted in my stomach, like a piece of log shatters to ash in a fire, I wished for Fate to let us stay together like this…

Just a little longer…Just a bit more. I will give up my hatred for my Aunt, for massacring our entire family, for torturing me senseless for ten years, I’m willing to let it all go…if it means I get to stay with him forever.

“What are you doing?” Four words uttered in a question pinned me back to reality. I turned sharply to the only living person I am with in this cold sullen cabin.

The boy, with his intense electric blue eyes is studying me. His attention is stuck in the sketchbook I gripped in my fingers. At the shabby pencil I clutch in my palm. I cocked my head to the side.

“Drawing.” He raised his eyebrow and my breath got caught in mid-air. His expression… his bottomless eyes takes in a small hint of light in its features. There’s a trace of enstrange humor in his eyes. One I didn’t see in him for the last hour we spent sitting in this couch.

“You’ve been staring in the window like a statue, your fingers never moved in the surface of your sketchbook and you call that drawing?”

I glance down to my sketchbook, found not a single trace of my pencil dirtying the white sheet and narrow my eyes in the slightest. If only my lips can trace back the smile it used to wear I would have done it by now.

The door suddenly creaked open and the groundkeeper, with his parka jacket with fur hoodie, snow boots and black ripped jeans stepped inside. Snow caked the bonnet in his head, the sharp curve in his shoulders and even the side of his shoes.

“Oh? You’re awake.” He removed his jacket and hang it in the coat rack standing beside the door. I looked down to the bag of plastic in his hand. Smelled the crispy smell of freshly grilled chicken inside.

I’m up on my feet, pat the black tights the groundkeeper lends me to wear after a shower this morning. The boy has his tights to wear too. Same black in color. It suits him. It matches the charcoal of his hair.

Kenneth loves black too. But his police uniform is blue. And he hates it. He hates his superior barking orders to him. But he doesn’t hate his job. He’s willing to become a pet for his superiors, as long as he can see the smiles of gratitude and hear the word of thanks from the people he helped with.

Can I… feel the satisfying feeling he felt by then? If I use the power of strings, if I matchmake people to their fated partners... And they became happy because of my efforts…can it bring me closer to him?

Will it let me connect to him? Even if we don’t exist in the same world?

A white string floats in my nose and rest it’s thread on the tip. Nowadays, it’s rare to find pure string like this in people. It’s always black. They fill their heads with nothing but hatred, envy and insecurities to others.

They hate their friends if they achieved more accomplishments than them. They envied others who possess the things they lacked. They felt insecure in every small thing like branded clothes, higher income, more internet attention…

They never stop to appreciate the beauty of trees fighting against pollution to purify the air they breathe. They never bother to notice the efforts of the clouds to carry the heavy weight of water just to give them rain. They don’t understand the hardship of people who are left groveling in the dirt just to have something to put in their plates, to feed for their families…

I can never understand. Why people are so fixed of catching the attention of others, they begun to neglect the riches offered to them from the moment they wake up.

I didn’t notice the groundkeeper has setup three plates, three set of silverwares, three glasses of water for us to have our lunch.

“Kid, you’re leaving right? It’s better to stuff your stomach with food before leaving.”

I open my mouth to protest but the whispers of the groundkeeper’s inner mind swept over me. Saying,

‘For the last time, let me do this favor. I know I won’t see you again. And even if I’ll miss the little earnest kid who kneels in front of her loved ones grave.. I don’t have the right to stop you from leaving. Please accept this meal as my thanks.. for keeping me company for the past four months, for letting me forget my loneliness.’

These words left me hanging in thin rope. Left me scouring for my tiny pieces I scattered all over the place. No, it wasn’t like that. I averted my eyes. Its supposed to be me. I clench my fist. Who should say thanks… I am the stranger who entered your territory. Who’s too miserable to be left alone I couldn’t give a damn to anyone who’s miserable like me.

It should be me… who’s supposed to offer my thanks, for taking care of me without expecting anything in return…. I moved to the wooden tattered seat the groundkeeper prepared for me, for us. He gave me a spoonful of rice and roasted chicken I stuffed the food in one gulp.

I wonder why… my heart is bleeding in gratitude but my eyes can’t express any of these bottled up feelings.