A sliver among the silence. A Dirge, ring.ring.ringing. Yowling and howling. Meat and teeth. Fangs and frenzy.

Alice sees (and that is wrong and not right and she sees and knows and cries because it's happening againandagainandagain) through eyeless sockets. Glimpses on the periphery, she has no eyes and cannot move them. Something in the corner of her socket, glass and bone. A pressure on her chest. She cannot breathe! But she does not breathe. Cannot even try to pretend, there is nothing but sound and silence, darkness and light that isn't and shouldn't - cannot be.

Something is close and she is herself. Alone. The Wraith does not writhe.

There are whispers and worry, a tongue, thick and barbed, caressing her ear. Cackling breath, snapping teeth shred promises, with each breath she cannot - doesn't need to take.

Fear, dark and deep, claws at her throat with spindly fingers, rushing upward, outward. Her throat collapses under the onslaught, exploding in a shower of meat and blood. Sinew and sweat. She swallows the screams that never want to stop, choking on them because there is nowhere for them to go.

Suspended in the moment, visited by terror.

She cries, soundlessly, blood seeping passed bone and shadow, maggots eat at her insides and she feels a map of scars under her nails.

From the moment she is rent nearly to pieces by two hell hounds, until nearly 600 nights later, there is no escape the singular regard of the weight on her chest.

The Doll, fights and dies and accepts. Peace in oblivion, freedom in terror.

Alice wakes with breath on her face and blood on her lips.