A New Perspective

The Journey to the Angel: Part Two

Alice watched the pair as they walked, noticing how the new person stayed close to Sammy, as if afraid of the surrounding area.

She felt a pang of sympathy for the poor thing, but brushed it off. Sympathy was what got her hurt in the first place. All because she had trusted someone, and in return received nothing but lies and pain.

Alice walked above, hearing the echo's of voices from below her. She lifted her foot up, and drove it down into the floor of the walkway, creating a loud crunching noise of wood, and listened as boards fell to the floor below. The sharp intake of a breath she heard in response made her smile. It felt nice to be in control. Pulling the puppets strings from above.

If they continued on, she could decide what to do when they arrived. That, or she could cut their strings.
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Sammy stiffened when he heard the sound of boards breaking. The searchers and Butcher Gang wouldn't dare come into Alice's domain, so that meant she was here. But where? The noise had come from above, but when he searched the ceiling, he couldn't see anything. The only other places she could be were the elevator, and the mechanical door at the top of the steps.

He began walking again when no other noise was heard, Henry in tow.

"Sooo, why can't I mention the name Susie around her?" Although Henry tried to cover up the shake in his voice with a forced casual tone, Sammy saw right through it. But let him pretend if it made him feel better.

"Because...she associates the name with bad memories. Another thing before I forget, do you mind saws and knives?" He didn't think Alice still practiced her 'beauty routine' anymore, but it would be good to give a warning incase any tools were still laying around.

"No? Not really. Why would there be-" He trailed off as they reached the mechanical door. Woah. That's a little freakier up close.

The angel holding up a banner which read 'She's Quite a Gal!' had looked kind of sweet from far away, but now that they were standing right in front of it, it looked menacing, like it was keeping an important secret to itself.

"I was asking because Alice doesn't look like the angel you know Henry. She's twisted. Another one of Joey's experiments that went a bit wrong. The process melted her face, and the tools were used to get...resources so she could try to fix her face. I don't think she does anymore, but just try not to bring it up, okay?"

When Henry pictured the Angel, she looked like she had in the cartoons. A sweet thing with a halo and horns, who could be as mischievous as she could kind. Not at all like who Sammy was describing.

"I won't. But I just can't imagine why Susie is such a touchy subject for her."

Sammy was shocked. "You don't remember Susie? The voice actress?"

"I do, but how does she-" The realization kicked in. "Oh my god. She's Alice? But how..."

"Joey. The bastard tricked her. Tricked all of us. Look, how 'bout we talk when we know we're safe? I'm not comfortable just standing in the open."

"Okay."

With that, they were off again, unaware of the Angel that stalked them.
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Alice had tracked their progress through the room, pleased when they couldn't find her location. She was about to walk over the walkway to the next room when she heard it. The name. Her name.

"No." She whispered. That weak naive girl wasn't her anymore. She was dead and Alice was here to stay.

By the sound of their voices, they were at the door. Sammy was explaining why the name was a touchy subject, when she realized why the other voice sounded familiar. Henry? Oh god Joey did get everybody. Alice felt sick.

Alice, the one who'd dismembered and killed all of those creatures for her own gain felt sick.

She decided the act was up after they passed walked through the door. She would claw her way back up from the bottom. Alice would become an Angel again. She would protect the pair and hopefully they would allow her to join them; and if anything dared to hurt them, or her again, there would be hell to pay.

  But that would be an idiotic lie to believe in, wouldn't it?
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The hallway stretched out in front of them like an open mouth. It was dark, and ink was splashed everywhere. There were posters covering the walls, a crude display of attention. All of them showed an image of the cartoon Alice, with the word 'me' scrawled over and over under each image.

Sammy grimaced, he hadn't expected these to still be up. But he supposed Alice didn't want to fool with them after she stopped the efforts to fix herself.

They walked down the hallway, staying close to the wall. Sammy had been about to go around the bend in the hall when he heard a yelp of surprise behind him.

He turned around to find the former animator standing still, a hand pressed over his mouth.

"What's wrong with you?"

"It's stupid."

"I've been surrounded by stupidity my whole life. Shoot."

"I got jump-scared by a mother fucking Alice cardboard cut out." He mumbled, feeling embarrassed. He'd full on died, and was scared of cardboard.

Sammy hadn't noticed when he passed the corner, but now that he looked closer, he could see the cutout leaning against the wall in the darkened corner.

He let out a short laugh, relieved that's all it was.

"Come on. If we keep walking, we can get away from the spooky cardboard cutouts."

"That's not funny." Henry had thought he was about to die again.

"Okay, I'll quit." Sammy had only said that because he heard what sounded like a giggle coming from above them. Sent from above. Clever angel. "Come on, we're almost there."

"Finally."
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Alice didn't want to look down into this hallway. Although it was dark, she could still see her own obsessive writing scrawled on the posters whenever she closed her eyes.

Instead, she listened to the two walking. When she heard a shout of surprise, she looked down, forgetting she could hardly see.

It seemed that one of the cutouts she'd abandoned had startled Henry. She let out a small giggle. He'd always been scared of random things. Like elevators, inanimate objects. Joey sometimes. Sammy always hated birds for some reason; that and nightmares.

Alice herself had been scared of blood, a fact that seemed humorously ironic now. She supposed she better get into character. It was time to meet her old self's friends. Get to know them before spilling their blood.
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"The entrance to her place should be through here." Sammy opened the door, revealing a small room with a wide pane of glass set into one wall. There, behind the glass was a door labeled 'Alice Angel' with a star on it.

The design was meant to replicate a dressing room's, but that wasn't what it actually was. Placed close to the glass pane was a table with straps, where the Angel used to do her experiments. Off to the left of the room they were standing in was a plain door, which led back behind the pane of glass.

Henry grimaced at the sight of the table, and was about to speak when another voice beat him to it.

"Well well, Sammy Lawrence; and another little sheep. I didn't think you would want to come visit poor little me after last time."
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