3/Giving up

How much time had passed ?

How much time had passed since Alice and her wierd new friend fled from the harrowing giant mirror ?

Alice had frankly no idea. Even though the forest of glass was a very well lit place, there seemed to be no sun above the island, and no day-night cycle as well. Therefore, finding how much time had passed was very hard.

However, Alice was sure of something. She was thirsty. Very thirsty.

She was so thirsty thinking of anything other than how thirsty she felt had become an extremly hard task.

Alice threw a glance at her companion.

The other Alice, the one that passed through the mirror, was now somewhat of a friend to her. A friend she didn't trust at all, sure, but a friend nonetheless. When you are alone with another person for a long amount of time, it's always easy to grew closer to that person, and, as a bonus, the other Alice was the person that understood Alice the most, because of their shared memories.

The other Alice was looking at the statue of the woman wielding a sword and a shield. She was probably searching for some sort of meaning, some way to get out of this cursed island.

"I should just call you Mirror."

Mirror replied without looking, still inspecting the statue.

"Is it that hard for you to call me Alice ?"

"Alice is my name. Not yours. It feel weird to me to call you by my name."

"Well, whatever. Call me what you wish, I couldn't care less."

Both girls stayed silent for quite a long time, and then Alice asked:

"Do you think we're going to make it out of here alive ?"

"I can't predict the future, you know."

Alice sighed.

"I'm going to sleep. Wake me up if you find something."

The young girl laid down on the dirt, trying to find some sleep. This made her obviously defensless, wich meant that if Mirror wanted, she could probably hurt or even kill her.

It wasn't that Alice trusted Mirror, rather, she was too tired to care. Besides, she was probably going to die anyway.

Alice's sleep was a peaceful one. Her dreams were sweet, and it was a nice break from all of that nonsense going on in her life.

When she woke up, she saw that Mirror was digging the ground in front of the statue with her bare hand, removing huge pieces of dirt at an impressing rate.

Alice watched her clone, bewildered, and rubbed her eyes. Was she dreaming ?

"What the hell are you doing ? Are you insane ?"

Mirror stopped digging, and looked at Alice with an excited expression.

"I found it ! I found our way out of this cursed forest !"

"Really ?"

Mirror was grinning from one ears to the other.

"Look at this statue. Don't you notice anything peculiar ?"

"Hum, no, not really."

"The way she hold the sword ! Don't you see ? It's pointing downards ! To the ground ! The escape is below our feet !"

Alice looked at the statue closely. The woman of glass was pointing the ground with her sword, just like Mirror had descibed. It was such a small detail Alice didn't really notice it before, especially because the mere sight of the statue made her uncomfortable.

"Mirror... I'm sorry to ruin your fun, but I doubt the statue is really showing us a way to escape. It's probably just that the statue was made that way. If it was really telling us to find something in the ground, it would have a shovel, not a sword."

"Oh, shut up." interrupted Mirror. "First of all, my name is Alice, not Mirror. Second of all, I explored all of that damn island and found nothing. This is my last hope. Our last hope. Do you want to die that bad, Alice ?"

"I don't want to die. But it's not like I have a choice. There is no way out of here. What are you trying to do by digging a hole with your bare hands ? Do you hope some kind of treasure is hidden there ?"

"I don't know what is buried here, but I'm sure there is something."

"There is nothing. There is no way out of this forest, nobody will ever help us, and we will die of thirst here like two idiots."

"You're pessimistic."

"No, I'm realistic."

"You gave up didn't you ? That's why you're so calm. You already accepted death."

"Yeah. I gave up."

Alice was honest. At some point, she lost all hope to ever get out of the forest of glass alive. When was that point ? That was hard to tell. What was sure, however, was that Alice had longed passed it.

Mirror's voice was strange. It sounded like she was sad. But why would she be sad ?

"Alice...Do you know how..."

Mirror stopped talking all of a sudden.

"Do I know what"

"Nevermind."

Mirror got up and walked towards Alice. The young girl saw tears in her clone's eyes. Why was she crying ? Alice had no idea.

When Mirror was just in front of Alice, she stopped walking... and punched her.

The punch was nothing short of extremly powerful considering ot came from the fist of a thirteen years old girl. Alice felt more pain than when it was her mother hitting her. It was as if it was a full-grown adult man hitting with all his strenght, and not a young teenage girl.

Needless to say, the punch did some serious damage.

One of Alice's teeth fell on the ground, and her whole body was flung back violently. Her head seemed like it was spinning, and a lot of red blood was splattered on the brown dirt below.

It hurt like hell.

Yet, when Alice looked at Mirror's eyes , she saw no hatred.

Worry, exhaustion, dispair, sorrow, anger, madness... there were all of these things in Mirror's eyes. But Mirror didn't hate her. It was the opposite. She wanted Alice to live, and thus was angry at her for giving up.

She was crying as well.

Alice thought a bit about Mirror. She might not trust her very much, but she had to admit one thing.

There was nobody else to trust. Mirror was the only other human being with her in this hell.

When Alice opened her mouth again, it wasn't to ask why Mirror punched her. It wasn't to criticize Mirror's action. It wasn't to call her crazy. It wasn't to make fun of her for thinking there was a way out.

Instead, Alice made the fakest of smile and said in a recomforting and childish tone:

"Hey, let's dig that hole together, okay ? I am sure we will find a really big treasure down here !"