It had been a good day. She loved those moments in life when she managed to get everything done on time, or even faster. Dealing with official matters never went as it should, but today she had actually managed to push everything through. She'd paid the bills, opened a new savings account, and made a few transfers, all without standing in a single line. Terrorizing others with her energy had recently become surprisingly helpful.

  On her way back, she stopped for a proper lunch, then did a little shopping, and before she knew it, evening had fallen. Carried by the momentum, she also stopped for dinner. After all, except for Marcel, no one was waiting for her at home, so there was no rush. She could savor this wonderfully, exceptionally fruitful day to its very end.

  When she ran out of ideas on where else to go, she decided to take a long walk back to her increasingly less charming apartment. Halfway there, a group of scumbags, acting strangely, stepped out from a side street. They were on drugs; Alice could sense it all too well because of how unstable they were, but above all, immune to energy manipulation. For the first time in years, she felt a real threat. She was powerless against them, completely stripped of her usual line of defense.

  A large supermarket was nearby, so she turned toward it with relief. She didn't know if those guys had any strange intentions toward her, but in this case, she preferred to be safe rather than sorry. Something about this whole situation felt off. She had a bad feeling. She was already a few steps from the store, about to go inside, when she felt a strong blow to the back of her head. Then the world became an exceptionally quiet and dark place.

  She came to her senses, tied up and gagged. At first, she had no idea where she was or what was happening around her. The world spun to the rhythm of the throbbing in her head. Waves of pain imposed some strange order on her surroundings, but she couldn't understand its logic at all. Then her other senses began to activate. Her eyes told her she wasn’t alone, her sense of balance that she was in a moving car, her nose that there were unwashed junkies around. Her intuition, however, whispered for the first time that she would break her promise, and Marcel would remain alone in the apartment for a long time. She wondered if he’ll ever miss her.

  She didn't have much time. She gathered all her energy and directed it at the people in the car. She was about to send a wave of panic their way when she felt a prick. Someone stuck a needle in her and then injected something into her body. A white spot bloomed in her mind. What happened? The rational part of her understood immediately that she had been given some kind of drug, but the other part, the one that was her consciousness, the one that lived as her, kept repeating: This is impossible. Things like this happen in movies, on TV, in other countries, but not here, not to me, not now. This is some kind of mistake, all wrong… But the problem began to blur. The world began to blur. Her mind turned to jelly. Everything was happening beside her. She vaguely understood she was in a forest, but why and what for? She didn't care. Then she understood the world turning upside down. She was hanging upside down, though she wouldn't swear to it. Maybe it wasn't her hanging head-down, maybe the world had simply stood on its head? That thought amused her greatly. Her blood pulsed strangely, but that was funny too. Thump, thump, thump. She laughed at the rhythm of her own heart. It was so amusing.

  And then someone deep, deep inside her laughed. Only it wasn’t a nice laugh. Whose laugh was that?

  They held a knife to her throat, they were probably saying something, but she just laughed and laughed. But then she fell silent. That other laugh terrified her. She wanted to listen to it, to understand who was laughing like that inside her. When she fell silent, she felt a strange need to count down from ten to one. She started counting. She kept messing it up, had to start over several times. Finally, she succeeded.

  She saw a strange woman in her head, a little girl lying on the ground, completely unconscious and... and suddenly the image became horribly clear. Cut off from her drug-poisoned subconscious, she could now look at the world around her. Her body wouldn't obey, her mind had to split, or rather separate a conscious part, but she ultimately managed it.

  She was tied to some satanic imitation of a cross, upside down, not far from a large bonfire, somewhere deep in the woods. By the fire, she saw two girls and three guys. They all wore black clothes with pentagrams painted on them in white. They were all slightly drunk, slightly high, completely unpredictable. Alice tried to focus, to read their energy, but she couldn't. Too small a part of her mind was still capable of rational thought. Cut off from her subconscious, she couldn't use her power, couldn't direct it properly. What bullshit, she thought. Right now, of all times, when I need it the most.

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  "...but when we untie her or lay the cross down, we can fuck her," said one of the girls. Judging by her behavior and appearance, she was the most unstable person in the group, but also the one who held the strongest position here. "We'll all fuck her, one after the other."

  "And with what, fuck? You don't even have a dick!" yelled some guy with long, greasy hair, whose body probably hadn't seen a shower in weeks.

  These words angered the leader, who finished her beer and smashed the bottle. Holding the neck in her hand, she said furiously, "With this. I'll shove this shard right up her cunt and watch the bitch bleed out."

  "You're sick," laughed the bald one, not hiding the admiration in his voice. "You're a sick bitch. I like that."

  "Fuck off, you scumbag." The leader looked at Alice. "Get her off that cross already and let's get to work. We'll carve something on that pretty face of hers later. Fucking commercial whore. Probably sucked off more than one guy, the fucking slut, and now she's gonna get what she deserves so good she'll fucking croak."

  "For the whores of our Lord!" roared the bald one and, with a wild cry on his lips, ran toward Alice with a knife. "We're gonna have fun now, bitch. Just scream loud when I'm fucking you. I don't like it when bitches are quiet."

  "Listen..." The other girl, who seemed just as terrified by all this as Alice, wanted to say something. "Maybe..."

  "Shut your mouth or you're next," snarled the leader, and that ended the discussion.

  Alice couldn't move. Her body was just a shell, completely devoid of feeling, left somewhere far behind her. This feeling was neither pleasant nor exciting. She couldn't comprehend the phenomenon of drugs, even though she was aware that others experienced it completely differently. And on top of that came the knowledge of what her new friends had actually planned for the rest of the evening.

  She tried once more to direct the energy she possessed, but this time toward cleansing herself. Nothing happened.

  "Help me," she whispered, feeling them lay her down near the bonfire and start cutting her clothes off with a knife.

  She couldn't tell if the message would get through. Maybe the drug had damaged her brain enough to completely cut her off from the Not-a-Doctor? Another thought suddenly came to her. Maybe he’d planned all this because she had become useless to him. Maybe someone else had already taken her place. How pathetic it all was... So very pathetic. She was so very pathetic.

  The bald guy punched the one with long hair in the teeth, thus winning himself first rights to the girl. He had just started unbuttoning his pants when it hit Alice that she wasn't even capable of trying to defend herself against all this. She couldn't even decide if she felt more humiliated by the situation itself or by having to ask for help from someone who might never appear. God probably never loved her, but now He was making it pretty clear. She knew she would die young, but this young, and like this? The fucking bastard must have had a seriously sick sense of humor.

  The bald one had taken out his equipment and, slobbering like a mindless animal, was approaching Alice, encouraged by the wild screams of the other degenerates. Alice decided to do everything in her power to hurt them. Even if she died in the process, even if it was the last thing she ever did, these motherfuckers would pay for what they had done, were doing, wanted to do to her. It didn't matter. They would all pay.

  She gathered all the energy she could possibly accumulate and... helplessness clawed at her throat. Her subconscious was thrashing in convulsions, trying to fight the drug. It fought valiantly, but it couldn't manage on its own. Maintaining consciousness was already costing her too much strength, let alone cleansing herself. Sure, the process had already started, which under these circumstances was a truly outstanding feat, but she would need at least another half hour. Where the hell was the Not-a-Doctor? Alice understood it was the end. She retreated deep within herself, escaped into unconsciousness, but before she lost contact with reality, a tall woman stood in her path.

  "Go back there," she said and smiled coldly.

  "Alter ego," her consciousness sighed. "Why, of all times, do you have to fight me now?"

  "You brought this on yourself, so you pay for it yourself. Be a witness," said the alter ego and forcibly pushed Alice back.

  The girl saw reality again. She could no longer play the heroine. The bald one was just cutting her pants open; she was moments away from being raped. She howled in despair, but her unconscious body only let out a quiet moan. She felt something inside her break, shatter into a million pieces. The world was a vile place. Pity she hadn't realized it sooner, hadn't abandoned her rigid principles earlier. The world didn’t deserve anything better than ruin.

  This was the end.

  She broke. She heard it clearly. She broke and turned to dust. So why was she still here?