Chapter Text
Allyson considered herself to be pretty lucky. She had lived her whole life with minimal issues, save for the typical stress of school and whatnot. Her parents paid for her university fees, so she got to actually get a degree in music like she had always wanted. Her only real problem in life most of the time was her name having a couple of weird letters in it. In a way, though, it was almost annoying how well her life went. Nothing ever happened anymore. She had no doubts she would go down the same boring path so many other people did: Trying and failing to pursue her creative passion, then giving up and working at an office job until she dropped dead from stress.
As Alice laid on her bed, thinking about life for the who-knows-how-many-th time this month, her alarm began to blare. She sighed, sitting up and trying to turn it off as quickly as possible. If only she could turn the volume down, but then she wouldn't wake up on the days she actually slept until a normal hour of the morning. She stood and began to go through her typical morning routine, hoping she could get to her class early enough to sit around and write lyrics for a few minutes.
...unfortunately, seems like her luck had caught up to her as she walked to class. She tripped over herself on the way to class and wound up at the bottom of the stairs with probably several broken bones.
ow. owowOWOWOW. IT SHOULD NOT HURT THIS MUCH. DYING FROM A BROKEN NECK WAS SUPPOSED TO BE QUICK, RIGHT?! She couldn't see anything, and it felt like she was floating. Was this purgatory? Was she being punished for being too normal?!... Alice was mildly irritated by her lack of an ability to feel her anxiety in her stomach, but there were much more important things to deal with at the moment. Like figuring out if she was actually dead or not. If she couldn't feel panic, why could she feel pain?! It felt unfair, in a way.
That was when she heard a voice, echoing in the back of her head.
"...hello? Are you there?" A woman's voice. Somewhat concerned-sounding. If Alice could jump, she would have. She wasn't even sure if she can talk... but, might as well try.
"Uh. P-present, miss?" GOD. That sounded so awkward.
"Oh, that's good! I was a bit worried it hadn't worked..." The voice continued to reverberate in her brain. "Let me explain. You died, unfortunately. Normally, that would cause you to cease to exist, but... you showed up here, which means that somehow, you're connected to this place." Was this supposed to make any sense? Alice wasn't even sure where she was, or how she was both there and not-there. But the voice kept speaking despite her confusion. "So, I've decided that I'll give you a chance somewhere else! You aren't afflicted with the disease of the mind. I believe that you can make a change there in a way I had failed to... But, it won't be easy, of course. You'll have to get used to the rules of the City, and I'm not sure what would happen if anyone figured out that you came from another world... But you'll be fine, I know it! Good luck!" the voice finished speaking with a cheery tone, as Alice's vision faded from pure darkness to a blinding light.
She started to cry out to the voice. "Wait- waitwait, hold on- I'm not ready yet! None of this even makes sense!..." By the time she could finish talking, she opened her eyes to see the sky above her again, a bit brighter than it was before. She sat up, desperately hoping it was all just a dream and she was still on campus. No luck, though. The buildings surrounding her were unlike any that she'd seen before. She stared down at her body, still the same as it had been before she had died. This was... a lot to process. So, being Isekai-d was real, and it happened to her. God was probably real too, apparently. And was a woman. She was in an unfamiliar world, apparently there was some 'disease of the mind', and she couldn't let anyone find out she wasn't from here.
...well, the best place to start was finding out just WHERE she was, right? She vaguely remembered the voice talking about a city, so she was probably somewhere there. If she could find some kind of map, or a way to ask a resident about her location without raising suspicion, that would be a useful bit of knowledge. She began to stand, wincing as her legs cracked a bit. Either that was just from having awful knees, or her injuries from her fall hadn't fully healed. Hopefully it was the former.
Ignoring the slight pain in most of her limbs, Alice began to walk around, looking for anyone around who she could maybe ask for information. Most of the people around seemed tense or hurried, and she'd rather not bug someone that didn't seem at least somewhat calm when she didn't know anything about the world she was in. For all she knew, they could speak a completely different language that she didn't know. She would imagine that the voice from before would have told her if that was the case, but then again, that woman barely even told her where she was being sent in the first place, or why she was given another chance at life.
Alice was startled out of her thoughts by someone tapping her on the shoulder, jumping and turning to face them. They were a somewhat androgynous-looking person, a little bit taller than her and wearing a white cloak of some kind caped over their body. They looked at her for a moment, before beginning to speak.
"...ahem. Sorry for troubling you, miss, but you seemed... confused. I'd like to ask why, if you don't mind?" They tilted their head slightly at the end of their sentence, fidgeting with a slip of paper in their hand.
"Oh- yeah, it's no problem. I'm, uh, kind of lost... don't really know where I am right now." She stumbled over her words. Back at home, no one would bother to ask her what was wrong, so she couldn't help but feel a bit suspicious, but maybe that was just how people were here. Still, even if that was the case, it felt a bit awkward.
"...I see." They didn't seem surprised by this at all... was it really that obvious? "Did you have your memory wiped by someone? I heard they can have that effect if done poorly."
...they have memory wipes here? What a convenient excuse for her not knowing anything about this world, then. A poorly-done memory wipe that effectively lobotomized her. "Yeah, probably, I don't know..." she mumbled, barely audible.
The cloaked individual nodded. "Well, you're in the Backstreets of District 16 right now. I would recommend finding somewhere to stay before nighttime, so you don't get swept away." None of these words made sense to Alice other than that she shouldn't be outside at night. She could somewhat guess what the Backstreets were, but what did they mean by District 16?
"Uh. Huh?" was the only response she could give. Now that seemed to cause the person to show some kind of emotion on their face- an expression of slight bemusement and irritation at her sheer stupidity, probably. They sighed, before returning their expression to that of calm neutrality.
"You can relearn it later. I can give you shelter until then, if you please." They didn't wait for a response after finishing their sentence, turning around as if they automatically expected her to accept. Well, she didn't exactly have a better option... Alice gave a silent nod of acceptance and followed behind the stranger. Their interactions were mostly positive so far, so they were probably safe to be around for at least a day or two while she got used to everything, right?
As they walked, the person began to speak, though not turning to face her. "While we're on our way, would you mind telling me your name?"
Alice tried leaning around to catch a glimpse of the person's face, wondering how much they were really paying attention. "Alice. And you?" Frankly, she was a bit confused on why they hadn't introduced themselves first, considering they were the one who offered to help her.
They were silent for a moment before responding, never slowing their pace. "It's not that important for you to know. You can call me anything... provided it's not insulting." They added the last part on after a few moments. Alice wasn't really planning on calling them anything 'insulting' anyways, but it was pretty smart of them to say that anyways. Not that it would stop most people, but still. She wasn't sure on what to call them, so she decided to just avoid names for the moment.
They continued to walk in silence for a while longer, with Alice trying to ignore how loudly-violent this place was. It wasn't like they were passing dead bodies every few seconds, but there was a lot of aggression around them. People arguing, the occasional splotch of blood on a wall.
She was pulled out of her head by the stranger stopping. "Here we are."
The two stood in front of a typical apartment building, albeit a bit run down and somewhat different in texture from the buildings Alice had seen before. The other person walked up to the door, gesturing for Alice to follow them. She looked at the building for a moment, before following them inside.
The stranger silently led Alice up the stairs to their room, hurrying her inside. She wasn't really sure why they needed to rush, but she'd rather not annoy them too much when they were being so oddly kind. They shut the door behind them after both of them were inside the room.
"Pretty small room, huh..." Alice mumbled, sitting on the floor. There were chairs, but she didn't really feel like using them.
She watched as the stranger moved around the room. They turned on the TV in the corner, but didn't put anything on other than static, and sat across from her.
"What's with the TV?" She couldn't help but ask. It wasn't exactly normal to waste power on background noise, was it?
"...there's no real reason, I just had to turn it on," the stranger said, once again fidgeting with a piece of paper. They sighed, putting their hand in their pocket. "Alice. What do you remember about the City?"
Ah, right. She was supposed to know something, anything, about where they were. "Uh... nothing. At all."
"Hm. That explains it." They were looking at her oddly. "So you don't know anything about the Index either. I see why you would trust my kindness now."
...Alice had no idea what they were talking about, but she got the sudden sense of dread that always came with knowing that one had fucked up. "Huh?" She barely even got to express any bit of shock before they had stabbed her.
"This took a bit too long. I almost ran out of time." The stranger twisted the knife in her stomach, and then pulled it out. "I would apologize, but anyone who deserved an apology would have seen this coming. Consider it a mercy, alright?"
Alice couldn't breathe. Of course. She should've expected this, huh? Maybe she really did get sent to hell, given that she died in less than a day. She laid there on the floor, her entire body in pain in a completely different way than the last time she had died, though not exactly any better. Did she really have to die so slowly this time? She could feel her head getting number, at least.
It didn't really take too long for Alice to bleed out.
And then she found herself waking up on the ground again. She quickly sat up, noticing the lack of pain and looking around. Sure enough, she was back where she had first appeared in the City, with only phantom pain and her own memories to show that she had ever died.
"...ugh. This really is hell, huh?"