{Ithelyn}

Now that I had a little more time to think, it became ever clearer to me that something was decidedly wrong with Alice. If I was being honest, then I wasn’t even sure anymore if Alice was entirely human. Never before had I seen a person with a soul just like hers. Even the souls of spirit and changelings were slave to the whims of time. Every soul changed and twisted throughout the years. And without enough nourishment eventually every soul died.

At least this was how it should go... normally. From what I had seen of Alice, it seemed as if she was trying to defy every thing I knew about the norms of magic. Not only was she a very troubled person, much of her personality was also apparently build out of erratic spitefulness and hostile jealousy. But despite what the literature said about that topic, her soul wasn’t at all turbulent. In fact it would have been more accurate to say that her soul was overly stable.

Normally when a person was guided by erratic thoughts and self doubt this should have to be mirrored in the way their soul was behaving. A calm and collected person had a steady and constant soul while someone struggling with their feelings and emotions tended to have one that was unstable and volatile. And the worst part of it, the weaker a soul got the more likely a person was to commit suicide.

Now in Alice on the other hand, I could see none of this! Instead her soul was entirely stagnant, as if the spell placed upon it had halted the conversion of mana to Essence completely. The only problem with this was that I knew it couldn’t be true. Her soul was so small, like a grape compared to a melon... if the spell denied it any and all regeneration it should have faded and ultimately splintered a long time ago.

I could have continued wondering about Alice’s particularities for hours on if a stranger hadn’t interrupted us. Out of the corner of my eyes I had seen her come from a crossing hallway. At first I hadn’t thought much about it but then that filthy harlot had dared to run straight into Alice! Clenching my teeth was all I could do to keep my self from snarling at the cow. I would have wondered about my sudden possessive behaviour had not something else attracted my attention.

At first I had chalked it up to a random quirk of Alice’s body odour, but ever since this morning my sense of smell seemed to have grown stronger. I had already figured out a little bit about my condition that might help me along the way. Most people I had met smelled mostly the same, with their scent being more flavorful the more magically attuned their souls seemed to be. And here was the problem with the girl before me.

Her scent – no matter how good it might have been – was almost completely covered by another smell. I had only noticed something like that with two people today. The one being Alice herself, who smelled nothing like other people but instead had a sweet, heavy air around her, somewhat reminiscent of death and decay. Maybe grave flowers? I wasn’t quite sure yet... The other oddity had been the white haired girl in the train today, Freya was her name, if I remembered correctly. With her it had been different, she still smelled like the others but with an earthy undertone... almost like wet dog really.

Now this girl though... her I had disliked right from the beginning. Not only was she a literal sexbomb but she also entirely failed to show of her body in the way it deserved! If Alice had that kind of body, she wouldn’t leave out a single second showing it off to the world. This girl though... not only was she wearing clothes that from their smell hadn’t been washed in weeks, she also reeked of sex. I could barely breath because of the scent of pheromones and ejeculate that clung to her.

It actually took me a while to realise that she didn’t smell of sex because she had just been fondling her pleasure muffin. Instead her scent seemed to be of the same origin as Alice’s. I could almost swear that it was their souls that produced the peculiar smells. Yet when I tried to take another sniff to confirm my suspicions, something far more concerning caught my attention. It smelled of blood and freshly spilled blood at that. I had no idea how I could tell the difference, but I did know where it came from.

{Alice}

My mind was more agitated than ever before. I wasn’t sure if had to do with the spell-work on my soul breaking down or something else but the voices were louder than they had been in years. Sure, I had been dealing with them all my life, so long in fact that they had just turned into white noise; just another part of life on most days. Well, today was most certainly not most days!

Not only had they literally begun speaking to me, but they seemingly managed to somehow pick thoughts and secrets right from another person’s mind! And that – I was very much certain – was not normal modus operandi for a witch; especially not a shitty and incompetent one like me. But even if I wanted to ignore them, it didn’t make them any less real. Not even the pain from my palms managed to distract me from their insistent whispers anymore. They were literally all surrounding, where ever I turned, where ever I looked, the treacherous voices were there too. I truly, TRULY hoped that getting a familiar would make the voices stop. Well... the voices and the other things.

I always had been a moody child sure, but I rarely had been violent. Now though? Now I wanted to scream and claw at anything that stood in my way. No matter if friend, for or just an object in my way, my mind was starting to see everything as an enemy. Just now I had to stop myself from kicking away a garbagebin just because it stood a few centimetres in my way. I could have obviously just walked around it but the very act of walking alone managed to make me inexplicably irritated.

And then there was the shit going on with my body fucking body! At first it had been a simple annoyance but now it irked the hells out of me. It didn’t make sense, but I HATED it; I literally hated my own body! Everytime I looked down, I just wanted to puke; I wanted to take the first knife I could find and start chopping. Maybe if I cut off all that disgusted me I would feel normal again? My skin no longer felt like it was really my own. Instead I felt as if some freak had shoved my body into some sort of perverted human suit and sown it shut. It took all of my mental control not to scream out and rip into my flesh. Thankfully Ithelyn had called out to me just before I got another bad idea.

“Alice... your hurting yourself. Your hands, I can smell the blood. I know you aren’t bothered by pain, but please...” She seemed genuinely worried about my well being and not a second later the voices told it to be true... and also way too much more!

“Argh! Shut up in there!”

“Wha-.” Ithelyn looked at me in confusion.

But before she could continue, I immediately interrupted her. “Not you Lyn! It’s  these damned voices in my head!”

“Voi...ces?” She didn’t seem entirely convinced.

“Yessss! VOICES! Ah... that came out a lot harsher than planned.” I couldn’t help but sigh. Next to the wall I could see Dia creep away from the two of us. “Hells be damned. No matter, Lyn, let’s just go do that stupid ritual. I... I’ll tell you about it later, about... everything.”

“Alice! Wait up!”

“Yeah?”

I already wanted to let out a snarky comment, but Lyn managed to cut that off right from the start, when she took my hands in to hers.

“Alice. I understand that we only recently met. I don’t expect you to just trust me like this, especially after what I have done. But I am speaking nothing but the truth when I tell you that I have fallen for you. Not only that! I want to make right by you. I want to be there for you no matter what happens, simply because of the idiotic fact that I... I love you! I have know idea if there is such a thing as fate or premonition but hells, I really fucking adore you. So... yeah, what ever you have on your heart, I’ll listen to it!”

“I... I...” The words never managed to leave my mouth.

“It’s okay. Today is obviously hard for you. You were right, let’s just go do this stupid ritual!”

Leading me by the hand she skipped ahead and all I could do to was follow behind. And because of her I managed to leave all the monstrous thoughts and dark deeds I had contemplated right here in the dark hallway that had spawned them. I hoped that they would stay right there never to be seen again but as with so many things, wishes are dangerous things. They tended to go wrong more often than not.