Chapter 1: In the Beginning

This wasn't much expected either

Alice nervously doodled foxes on her notes while her teacher droned on in the background about the American Revolution. The bell rang and the dread that had been building up all day finally gripped Alice’s stomach. Out of habit, she looked at the clock, then began to pack up her bag as the teacher reminded the class about the homework assignment that was due after the break. Alice shoved her history notebook in the center pocket, put her mechanical pencil in her watermelon pencil pouch, threw the pouch into the same pocket, zipped up her backpack, and heaved it over her shoulder. She waved bye to the friends that she had in the class, then snuck out the door knowing that she was about to walk into a conversation she didn’t want to have.

She descended the stairs two at a time and walked through the hallway until her locker came into view, or, at least, should have come into view.

Teresa was standing in front of Alice’s locker, fidgeting with her long, dark brown hair. Her light green eyes were scanning the crowd of high schoolers, no doubt looking for Alice. She tried to slink around a corner so Teresa wouldn’t see her, but it was too late. Teresa’s eyes lit up and she was instantly waving her arms enthusiastically and screaming at Alice across the hall.

There was no escaping now; she moved into a less crowded part of the hall as Teresa weaved over to her through the dwindling crowd of people heading home for the winter holiday. “Hey Teresa,” she said as the exuberant girl approached.

“Hey Alice,” Teresa responded out of breath. She sat there for a moment catching her breath, though Alice was pretty sure she was just exaggerating. “So,” Teresa continued, “today's your birthday, what are we gonna do to celebrate?”

This was it: this was what Alice had been dreading all day. Unlike her friend, Alice wasn’t an extremely social person; personally, she prefered to stay at home eating a gallon of ice cream while watching reruns of old cartoons, but Teresa always had other plans.

“I was thinking we could go out for ice cream, but we did that last year so I feel like we should do something different this year, we could do snow cones down at the park, but that’s where all the creeps hang out, so that’s also a no, Oh! What about a movie? We haven’t done a movie in ages!”

Left to her own devices Teresa could, and would, go on like this for hours. Luckily for Alice, Teresa had a shorter attention span than a three month old puppy, and she knew just the way to distract her.

“How do you think you did on the quiz in English?” Alice asked, interrupting Teresa mid-sentence in her plan to break into the zoo after hours and steal a penguin.

Teresa stopped talking, her hands came up to her cheeks, and she looked away nervously, “I totally failed it. There is no way I passed that test, for sure this time, there’s absolutely no way that test was a passing one for me.”

Alice laughed. “You say that every time, but it’s always fine in the end.”

Teresa was running her hands through her hair. “Well yeah, most of that time, but that test was really hard! I didn’t understand half the reading passages and I was guessing on almost all of the vocab. It was a disaster.”

Alice nodded like she understood. “Oh I’m sure,” she teased. “You’re always saying you failed your tests, so I’m sure that finally had to be the one.”

“See, you understand. Anyways, I gotta go do some stuff and some things, but mark my words little Miss Cathal: we will be doing something tonight, because I care about you and your life achievements.” She spun around then pointed finger guns towards Alice, “I will text you.” Then she slowly backed into the open doorway that lead to Mr. Nuesen’s science classroom for after school tutoring.

Alice chuckled to herself then slipped through the empty hall to her locker, she quickly spun the combination, 13-4-9, and the lock opened with a satisfying click. Alice opened her locker and shoved in her history book, a few of her spirals, and a binder, then pulled out The Great Gatsby and her math notebook, shoving them into her backpack. She slammed the door, clicked the lock back on, and began to walk away, but someone pulled hard on her backpack, almost making her fall backwards.

She regained her footing and spun to see who had tried to pull her down, but she was just confronted with a desolate hallway and a flickering light. She turned nervously and began to walk towards the front of the building. A female voice spoke softly behind her, whispering words that weren’t quite in her range of hearing, almost like someone was trying to speak to her from a different hallway. As she neared the front of the building the whispering grew harsher, but was still somehow incomprehensibly soft as it moved around behind her back.

She reached the side door and the voice grew silent. Alice stopped, letting her hand rest on the cool handlebar to the winter world outside, the voice remained mute. She pushed the door open, and walked out into the crisp air with her head down, instantly crashing into a warm solid object. She fell back this time and landed hard on the pavement, the door clamored shut behind her. Alice looked up and saw that she had crashed into a boy that looked about her age; he had medium length dark brown hair that had random curls sticking out in awkward places and brilliant blue eyes.

“I’m so sorry,” he said, extending a large hand to help Alice to her feet.

“No no,” she replied, “It was entirely my fault, I wasn’t looking where I was going.” She sent a cautious glance back at the door. Still no voice.

“Something wrong with the door?” He asked, glancing around her to look at it.

“Not really, it can just get a little creepy when everyone clears out for the holidays,” she turned her attention away from the door. “You must be new, I’ve never seen you before.”

He was still looking at the door, but his eyes flicked back to Alice, “Uh, new?”

“Yeah, new student. Like, just transferred in or something.”

“Oh!” Realization dawned on his face. “No no no no,” he laughed. “I’m here on an assignment with the place I work with through my college. It’s kinda complicated, but, well, I guess what I’m really trying to say is that I graduated last year.”

“Oh, so you’re just a little older than me,” she didn’t know what it was about him, but she felt she could trust him. There wasn’t really any other way to explain it, other than he felt warm and fuzzy and dependable. It was something she’d never felt before. “So what, you’re like a substitute or something?”

“Eh, more like maintenance. I just help out where I’m needed and watch the professionals when I can,” he paused then extended his hand in greeting. “How could I be so rude? I’m Gale.”

“Alice,” she shook it and found his hand was warmer than she had expected against the cold air, especially since he wasn’t wearing gloves.

“Uh-lease? How would you spell that?”

“You spell it like ‘Alice’ from Alice in Wonderland.”

She couldn’t help but notice that his eyes had drifted back to the door while they were talking. She glanced back, half expecting to see something that she couldn’t believe; there was nothing there. “I should go. I’ve got, um, some stuff to do,” she smiled a quick good-bye and headed down the path towards her house.

“Nice to meet you Alice,” Gale called cheerfully after her, “I hope to see you around.” She forced herself not to look back as she headed down the path.

***

A gruff voice called to Gale as he watched Alice walk away from the school. His eyes left the girl and he turned to greet the man walking up to him. “Hey Jackson,” Gale said as pale redhead came to a stop beside him.

“Who was that?” Jackson asked, his eyes trailing after the small blonde.

“The most amazing girl I’ve ever met.”

Jackson laughed. “Don’t let Mandie hear you say that.”

“No, I’m serious. She’s just a regular person and yet she managed to completely ignore a Trap.”

“Fascinating,” Jackson responded with his usual flat voice, “Now we should get back to work.”

“You’re right,” Gale paused, “Did Chase finish clearing the building?”

“Yeah, he just finished his sweep, that’s why I came looking for you.”

“Good. I did a scan of the building right before I ran into Alice, but I didn’t sense anything major. So I guess we should dive in head first and see what comes after us. Besides, the sooner we get everything set up the sooner we get dinner,” he playfully slapped Jackson on the shoulder, then turned and headed towards the door.

“Isn’t that where the spirit was most currently active?” Jackson asked hesitantly.

“Yep!”

“And we’re just gonna walk straight in? No preparation, no anything?”

“Yep!”

Jackson took a deep breath, then gave Gale his best ‘you’re an idiot’ look, “Why?”

“Mandie has always said ‘what’s the point in being an exorcist if you’re not going to dive into any situation head first’,” Gale smiled playfully.

“I’m not an exorcist,” Jackson pointed out.

“True. But I am, and Mandie is, so you’re just going to have to roll with it,” Gale walked through the metal door. Jackson sighed then followed. The door slammed shut behind them.

***

After a mile walk along different roads and pathways Alice reached her apartment building. She walked up the stairs and went straight into her flat, hoping to have some time to relax before Teresa dragged her away for the remainder of the night. She set down her messenger bag by the dining room table and went to change out of her school uniform. She pulled on fraying jeans, an old grey T-shirt, and an oversized maroon hoodie that her mom had left her.

She walked over to her bag and dug around inside for the book she was supposed to be reading for English, but it wasn’t in her bag. Alice knew she had grabbed it out of her locker before she left the school, there was no way it could’ve fallen out, so where was it? She examined the contents of the bag closer: she had all her textbooks, her homework folder, her agenda, and the book she was reading on the side. Everything but The Great Gatsby.

Alice thought of where the book could be. A few minutes ago she would’ve thought the only reasonable answer to that question was ‘in her bag’, but now she wasn’t so sure. She couldn’t think of any place that it could be. There was a slim chance that she had left it at school, but that was only a chance.

“Dang it,” she said under her breath, she was going to walk all the way back to the school just to make sure she had actually grabbed it and that it hadn’t fallen out anywhere.

She pulled out a pencil and a piece of paper and scribbled a note to her neighbor explaining that she was heading back up to the school. She grabbed her phone, wallet, and keys, and headed out the door. She locked it behind her and placed the note under the fake stone where she knew her guardian would see it when she went looking for the key into Alice’s apartment. After she was sure the note wouldn’t fly away in a particularly strong gust of wind she rushed down the stairs two at a time and headed back to school.

Alice walked quickly as twilight began to show in the sky. It didn’t take long for the school to come into her view. She walked up the same path that she had used to walk home, and soon found herself facing the old, red painted metal door. She started at it for a brief moment, then continued around the building to the front of the school where at least one door should still be unlocked. She was surprised to find that all the doors on the front were not only unlocked but open. She hesitated, then walked into the school.

Stepping into the concourse was like stepping into a meat locker. Alice squinted up at the air vents on the ceiling, tilting her head to one side. Were the staff seriously running the A/C in the middle of winter? She knew that the classrooms were usually kept way too cold, but this was just ridiculous. Alice rubbed her arms as she walked along the dim hallways to where her locker was. She opened it and, unsurprisingly, the book wasn’t there. She stood for a moment, thinking, again, of where it could’ve gone. She sighed, she’d probably have to get a new one. That’s when she noticed something odd, she could see her breath.

The hair on her arms rose as she inhaled the ice cold air deeply. Her body temperature noticeably dropped and her lungs began to ache. She puffed her cheeks and blew out, watching the white clouds flow from her mouth and nose.  It was cold, but it shouldn’t have been that cold in the building. Alice closed the door to her locker and fumbled with the lock, trying to close it with her frozen fingers.

The hair on the back of her neck began to tingle as she hurried towards the exit. Something was behind her, watching her, following her, she was sure of it. She could feel eyes on her back, moist and chilling; the feeling crept into her bones. Everything seemed frozen, a single movement would be enough to break the trance and destroy the illusion of false security. She caught a glimpse of a shadow on the edge of her peripheral vision. Did it just move? It couldn’t have, that would’ve been impossible. Even so,  she couldn’t bring herself to look. She didn’t want to look. She had to be imagining it, right?

She went from hallway to hallway, heading the direction she knew would lead her to the quickest exit. That’s when it happened. She felt something cold brush against her shoulder. She couldn't stop herself from turning to see if anything was behind her, but she just found an empty hallway with a flickering light. That light definitely hadn’t been flickering a moment ago. Alice’s heart fluttered in her chest as she picked up her pace.

She thought she could feel someone, or something, breath cold air down her neck but before she could focus on it every light in the hallway began to flicker. For a moment Alice was frozen in place, confronted by the reality of the lights. Then she blinked, and they were all back to normal. She rushed forward, eager to get out of the school, eager to get back home. Whispers sounded behind her back, ringing out with her footsteps in the emptiness of the school. Unlike earlier they weren’t on the edge of her hearing, she could make out the sounds, but they were gibberish.

The voices grew louder, or closer, or both, she couldn’t tell. Her icy breath caught in her throbbing lungs as she took a few steps backwards and turned to look down the hall she had just passed. Had something just been standing there? She could’ve sworn she’d seen a large shadowy figure down at the end, but now the hallway was empty. Something dark flashed a few feet infront of her, but was gone before she could turn to see it. Had the temperature just dropped more? She needed to get out of here.

Despite her best efforts, the halls continued on and on no matter how many turns she took. Whether it was three different turns or seven, she always ended up in a similar looking place. As time passed the cold seeped further into her body until her legs were comprised entirely of dull throbs and her arms were effectively non existent.

Alice didn’t notice until now, but she’d been running. Why had she been running? She slowed and came to a shaky stop, she couldn’t catch her breath and her heart felt like it was about to jump out of her chest. She collapsed to the ground, her warm tears prickling on her cheeks as they met the icy air. She wanted to give up, to just sit there and cry until someone, or something, found her. She’d never be able to make it out of this labyrinth, what did it matter if she died here?

The voices rattled with hollow laughter from every direction and shadows began to pull at her feet. Why didn’t she just give up? It would be so easy to let the shadows consume her, to give in to the darkness and fear.

Alice took a shaky breath and braced herself against the wall, “I’m not afraid of you.” Her voice was barely louder than a whisper, but the voices stopped.

What was that? They spoke in unison, their voices harsh and inhuman.

“I’m not afraid,” she said a little louder that time. Something had changed, it was like a dark cloud over her emotions had been lifted. For the first time since the first flickering light she felt the warm glow of confidence, but the voices only laughed.

Alice forced herself to stand, leaning against the wall for support. “I’m not afraid!” Her voice echoed alone into the darkness that surrounded her. The voices were gone and warmth quickly crawled back into her body. Alice wasn’t going to just lie down and disappear, she’d never given up in her life, and she wasn’t going to start now. Fear and doubt still pounded in her stomach, but she forced herself to continue through the labyrinth.

As Alice continued forwards the few flickering lights stopped and that shadows that had moved on the edge of her vision vanished. She could finally catch her breath, a weight was lifted off her shoulders as she took control of her emotions. She wasn’t afraid, and every time she repeated it in her head she believed it more and more.

After awhile she ran again, determined to find the way out. She ran for what seemed like ages, taking every turn she came too until she finally hit a crossroads. She stopped, until now there had only been two choices, either straight or turn. Which way should she go now? Forwards, left, or right? She knew neither direction was likely to help her get out, but she couldn’t afford to let doubt creep back into her mind. Without another thought she turned to the right and started to run again.

Turn left.

Was that her voice? It couldn’t have been. She didn’t sound that young, did she? Had it been one of the voices she’d heard earlier? They hadn’t sounded human then, but that didn’t mean they couldn’t, right? Alice didn’t want to risk it. She continued to the right and, after a few seconds, ended up back where she started. Without hesitating she sprinted to the closest turn and tried to recreated the path she’d taken before. Whether it was luck or just pure determination, she ended up back at the crossroad within a matter of minutes.

This time take the left.

The voice sounded angry so, not wanting to further anger anything trying to helping her and wanting to escape as quickly as possible, Alice turned left. She ran straight for a long time, waiting for the voice to sound again, but there was nothing but silence and a rising feeling of apprehension. The next intersection came up and Alice strained to hear anything as she turned to the right.

Stay straight.  

Alice exhaled as she changed her direction and headed straight. Despite her growing uneasiness, she couldn’t stop herself from feeling happy. At least she knew she wasn’t alone anymore, someone else was trapped here too, and they were trying to help her escape.

Alice followed the directions again and again, hoping that the maze would soon come to an end and that this voice wasn’t actually leading her deeper inside. After a while the voice fell silent; turns came and went, but it never spoke up, so Alice continued straight.

She slowed to a stop as she came to a place she had never seen before. The area had the same bland design as the rest of the school; old tan floor tiles, tan paint, and red accents. But it was unlike any place Alice had come across in the maze. The room had a circular shape with nine different hallways that all led into darkness, including the hall she had just come from. Hope fluttered in Alice’s stomach, somehow she knew that this was the end. Call it a gut feeling, but she was certain, all she had to do was choose the correct door and then she’d be home free. But she had to remind herself that she wasn’t out yet. She was still trapped.

Close your eyes and count to seven. The only path that remains is the way out. Unless you go backwards that is, but if you do that I’m not helping you out again.

Alice hesitated, her new found hope had little effect against the concern that had fully gripped her stomach. What if this voice really was trying to trap her here forever? It’s not like there was much she could do about it now, but still, what if? She needed to calm down, she’d never have gotten this far without the snarky commentator guiding her. She took a deep breath, either way it was too late to change her fate now, then closed her eyes and began to count.

“One.” She could see a bright light through her eyelids.

“Two.” A warm breeze began to blow against her.

“Three.” It felt like the air in the room was becoming heavier.

“Four.” A faint rumbling sounded in the distance.

“Five.” The heat and sound intensified.

“Six.” The gravity in the room threatened to pull her to the ground.

“Seven.” Everything was silent. The rumbling stopped, the heat and light disappeared, and the gravity returned to normal.

Alice opened her eyes. The room was dim and empty, except for the lone pathway that remained in front of her. This was definitely the way out, she could feel it deep down. She didn’t know how she knew, but she did, and the feeling was liberating.

Despite the dull pain in her legs and the burning in her lungs she sprinted out through the remaining corridor. A moment later, Alice began to see a bright light at the end of the dingy hallway. She couldn’t see what lay beyond the opening, but she kept running. It only took her a few seconds to reach the other end, she stopped after she passed through the light into the darkness.

What just happened?

She realized where she was and turned hesitantly to see what loomed behind her. The old metal door that she had gone out earlier that day towered over her. She backed away from the door, facing it the whole time. Even as she watched the door she felt like something was lurking behind her, but she didn’t dare to turn away from the door. She didn’t know what, but something about the exit was wrong. Very wrong.

Alice felt a warm hand grab onto her wrist but she couldn’t take her eyes off the door. The hand began to grow warmer, threatening to burn Alice’s wrist, but she still couldn’t look away. The voice sounded one last time.

Everything is fine. You can let go now.

Alice managed to drag her eyes away from the door, only to realize that she didn’t know why she had been looking at it, or what she was doing there. The last thing she remembered was closing her locker, and now she was here. How did she get across the school? She turned to see who had grabbed her wrist, desperately hoping to find the answer to what had just happened, only to find herself face to face with a native american woman. She was only a little taller than Alice with warm, forest green eyes, long, coffee coloured hair, and soft, tawny skin.

“You must be Alice,” the woman smiled with a silky tone. She glanced at the door. “You should come with me. It’s not safe out here.”

Author's Note

How do you feel about the character building?
The descriptions?
Do you like the story so far?
What was your favourite part?

Reviews

[Sarah Wilson]

Yet another amazing installment! On to the next chapter! I envy your talent!

[Zoë]

Awe, thank you! You're making me blush :)

[Ria Carol]

You have quite a lot of ideas...interesting...i am not an expert and so i cannot criticise o advice you...i enjoyed what i read..and as far as I'm concerned i really like your style of writing... :)

[Zoë]

Thanks Ria!

[JCat]

As always, I deeply apologise if my blunt review offends you. The greatest dishonour I could insult you with would be to lie. However, I do always try to focus on the positive as well as what needs improved. Remember, take on what's useful from my review and throw in the trash what isn't.

Detailed Read Through (This is usually more critical than complimentary. If I don't have a lot of time, or the piece is longer than 1000 words, then this part can be not-so-detailed):

Opening line sets the scene, which is good. However it doesn't add enough mystery too it. However, we all know I'm too picky on opening lines so that probably isn't as much of an issue as I make it out ot be. One thing I would note however, is that I don't believe "muttered" is the right word choice. "droned" might be better, to emphasize that the teacher is boring (to our character here)

I think the punctuation could be changed slightly during the first few lines. Starting a sentence with "lost in thought" seems stagnated. However using a semi colon, then having the next sentence as "Then the bell rang" might work better. The short sentence of "Then the bell rang" will work with shock value to bring a change to the scene (which the words bring as well, because when you're in class and the bell rings, the situation then changes)

"made a nervous laugh" I find this word choice slightly childish. But I appreciate how you're avoiding the use of adverbs. Perhaps doing something like "Teresa's nervous laughter and lack of eye contact was an answer in itself."

Really happy with the use of new lines for new dialogue.

Use of the phrase "brushed off" is brilliant. Like, I want to use that now.

"couldn't quite make out" rather than "couldn't manage to catch".

"mute. she" should be "mute. She"

In this paragraph overall, you could use a little more full stops. Because that would add to the effect of eeriness.

Is "A-lease" the genuine pronunciation of her name? I've been pronouncing it as Alice in my head this whole time.

I appreciate your using the "***" to indicate a POV change, in this context though, I don't feel their necessary.

Alice lives on her own? She's like...a kid tho.

From sentence "Alice closed her...for the door" to sentence "Alice went from hallway...her to an exit" you've used her name too much. Use "she" or the "highschool student" or "the girl"

"Great! Now I'm going crazy" might be a better phrase than "Great! Now I'm hearing things" because, she's hearing the voice in her head, so she's not audibly hearing things.

The use of new lines during the counting paragraph would add to the effect I think.

Liking the description of our mysterious savior at the end.

Overall Analysis:

You have a raw storyline and creativity which is undoubtedly very good. The ideas your coming up with, when it comes to exorcists and summonings. They're not foreign enough so that I can't understand them but they're not totally familiar (as if I was reading fanfiction) so in that, I want to learn more. Heck, I want lil wikia articles explaining them all.

Your descriptions are very good at times, your story building is great. Familiar settings, clear walkthrough's of what Alice is going through. Especially liked the scene where she's running through the school because that could have been overly confusing, but it wasn't. And after she went home, going through her bag was a clear process. And you know it's clear, because I'm usually s**t at understanding things especially when it's a friday and I'm itching to watch another scandal episode.

But the reason your rating is only 6.8/10 is because of a few things that I am probably being too harsh on, but are very important to me.

1, your characters seem slightly flaccid in this chapter.

Don't get me wrong, there's only so much you can do in 2000 words. But I'm not seeing much of Alice's personality filter through, or Gael's. Write a little more about her facial expressions, or her reactions to certain things. What does she think of Gale on her first impression? How does she feel when faced with the door? Describing facial expressions in creative ways could be helpful.

If you want, I can do a blog article on it with descriptions and things. Since I'll then be able to use that to reference to other people.

However, this may be what your going for. The kind of technique that is both criticized in "Twilight" and "Fifty Shades of Gray" is that of creating a blank female character, which readers project themselves onto. While I haven't read enough of either books to comment on whether they do or don't do this, I think creating a blank female character to project onto may not be a technique held highly by literary snobs, but it's still valid for book sales and people enjoyment. Projection? Very popular.

2, This partly ties onto "complaint 1". Your descriptions are flaccid. Not as much, but when we enter her apartment, what does it look like? What do her doodles look like? Her school look like? What does she look like? What does Teresa look like? All those can just give us indications onto what kind of person she is. And, what is the character's impression of these appearances

For example, I'm going to describe my room. Which one gives you a better explanation of my personality?

"I walk into my room and glance around; the bed takes up most of my room, but I can still fit in a desk, some drawers, a wardrobe and a bookcase. Most of my walls are yellow, with one covered in book pages. There are some paintings"

Or

"I walk into my room. It irritates me how my drawers, wardrobe, desk and bookshelf are all bland ikea furniture. At least my decor spices things up a bit. Artwork, both mine and others, that sits on my walls to keep my creative-fires burning bright. And then of course, there is my word-wall. Columns of scripture each hand-placed by yours truly; like immortal bricks protecting me just by being there. It truly reminds me that the power of words can change the world."

BOTH these things are overcome-able, and in all honestly, what you've written is a good first draft. It always helps to think about little personal things. If needs be, use me as a dummy and PM me stupid questions like "what kind of toothpaste do you prefer" or "what's the most embarrassing christmas present you've ever received off your gran?" and in doing that, you learn how to add little personal niggles to your characters which bring them into the realms of realism.

You have raw creativity and a good talent/storyline. That is something that I don't read all the time, and is very precious. Editing can be learnt, that...probably can, but it's much harder to learn. You've taken the first and hardest step now you're just ironing things into perfection. Keep going.

[Zoë]

Thank you so much for reading this chapter. Your reviews are some of my favourite and you always point out things that I don't catch on my own. It means a lot to me that you took time to read this and leave such a great review!

Detailed Read Through:
Thank you for pointing out "droned", have you ever had those times when you know the word you're using isn't quite right, but for the life of you you can't think of the right word? Yeah, that's what happened there, so thanks.

I'll definitely use your rephrase of Teresa's line, it sounds better.

"Brushed off" is one of my favourite lines, feel free to use it :)

It is technically pronounced Uh-lease, but you can pronounce it Alice if you want, I do that half the time anyway. Although I do have a legitimate reason for it being pronounced Uh-lease instead of Alice.

I understand what you mean with the POV change, but since I was switching the character I was following I thought it would be a good indicator. I'll look into removing though.

At this point Alice is basically 18, so she's kinda a kid, but she's also technically an adult. But she doesn't entirely live alone, her caretaker/guardian lives right next door.

I'll try to edit out Alice's name in those sections, I agree that it's really repetitive.

Overall Analysis:
If you want, I could send you descriptions of all the powers, it wouldn't really spoil anything.

Descriptions really aren't my forte, I know I need more in this chapter, but I'm glad you liked the ones I did have in there.

Alice could totally have more character through this chapter. I wrote this a while ago (before I had completely solidified her character traits) and I haven't added in anymore details since, so thanks for pointing that out. She's definitely not meant to be a blank character.

The second description was better. As I said above, I'm not the best at describing things, but I am working on it and I'll try to go back and add in more.

Haha, I'll message you if I have any questions like that. And thanks again for reading this, you pointed out a lot of great things!