Painting The Roses Red

Alice Dunn Resident Seventeen You wrecked me & I apologized.

[alicedunn-blog2]

hadrianbeaumont:

“You know, when I was a kid I would pick dandelions from my yard and make wishes on them,”  Hadrian said, reminiscing for a moment before the breeze began to blow, quickly causing all of the seeds from the dandelion to blow through the air.  “–gah, I think one blew into my mouth.”

Alice Dunn dressed in impassiveness like a first skin, not a hint of feigned emotion wrinkled her lips as the dandelion seeds scattered into the older man's face. Albeit what could've been called an endearing display, the pale thing returned her gaze to her comic. Returning to where she left off before she chose to react in a minute too late. "Why would a seed ever want to wish on you?"

[alicedunn-blog2]

Objet Trouvé

[alicedunn-blog2]

levi-henderson:

A party in Coolsville was never much. Music that seemed like it belonged back in the 90s, disrupting the silence that often draped the town. A clique in its own. Much like many of the figures that bunched inside. They were all written, their stories told before. 

Predictable. Told. Boring.

And Levi, he could tell you the stories of those that surrounded. Not because he had some special talent. Rather, the boy had known them all. In a town as small as theirs, its hard not to. That’s what he could tell you at least. He could tell the story of Janey, wearing her favourite blue ribbon to school every day. Or the way she’d count the amount of times she ran a brush through her hair. Felix, and his inclination to get a new piercing on his face every time a fought broke out in the family home. Even Simon sitting in the corner, a bag of something illicit hidden in his back pocket that he’d received earlier that day with a lovely bouquet to match.  He could tell the cliques they were.

But would it have been true?

Just like the whispers that circled the room, about a girl that perhaps wasn’t but now is. Lost. Alive. Present. A ghost that lived. However, the whispers weren’t something the boy heard. In the moment he looked to the girl dancing, whimsically the centre of attention, he didn’t hear a thing. For him, it was silent. Still. A clique of slowed time and beating hearts. For it was the dead girl alive once more.

An oasis in the burning sun, perhaps it was what the boy had placed in his mouth earlier causing the mist. But he dared approach. Cautious steps, they weren’t striding. They didn’t belong to a god. They were the kind of steps that carried a trembling boy to his end. At first, he reached out to touch. The room still, but he didn’t quite reach.

Swallowed in lyrics as sad as Morrissey's and a beat that deceived its meaning, Alice was left almost breathless. Laughing with that foreign smile everytime her hair tickled the sides of her neck. However, it wasn't her lungs that were first to collapse, but her frail limbs. Dropping to her knees; the collision allowing her to faintly bounce as she swished her wild locks away from her face. Only then did she interlock her eyes with a soul separating itself from a boy.

Tracing the reflection off his mirror-like eyes, she discovered another being that swayed in his gaze. Beautiful and undying, she refused to recognize her, for the simple fact that it wasn't her. No, in this river of whispering masses, this river of Acheron, she was merely a ferryman; an intercessor between the living and his beloved dead.

With her own glass eyes, she stared up at him; mouth softly parted, she didn't know what she wanted to utter and so she was left with a dying breath. She thought it would've been easier the next time she saw the burning prince with his distorted halo. But it seemed that he too had changed his skin, just as she did in that little time she was absent from. Instead, her legs found what her tongue was too weak to say.

Slowly, she guided herself off the trampoline and stood in front of the absent vessel. Her shirt, not her own, overflowing to just above her naked knees. The innocence that once seemed bleached, now tainted with a mere T-shirt of a 'what's his face?'

Blame it on her attire, or the party, or even the meds. Whatever it was, caused the muted girl to press her never given lips to the boy's cheek. With the softest of kisses, she left him with a secret invitation and slipped away, making her way up the stairs to a silent, dark room.

It was only in the deadest of rooms where words came out to play.

[alicedunn-blog2]

Objet Trouvé

tw: mention of suicide

Alice Dunn appeared in the same way she disappeared, without a sound. A diaphanous thing, her presence was never distinct. In the same way, you could say, she was in the most beautiful sense, utterly forgettable except in silence. Like a resounding dull ring, she was a manufactured and overused Apple ringtone. Only, the screen would never light up when she rang...An earworm.

The pale thing stuck out in the same way she melded in, an existing oxymoron— barely existing. And in a foggy room with glassy eyes and music too loud to comprehend one's thoughts, no one in that space truly existed. It was a small gathering at first, an odd group of seven that soon grew into a larger group of intoxicated many. In its own clichéd right, it was a playground for rebels without causes and teenage dirtbags.

All hail for a night filled with inebriated regrets and that carpe diem crap.

It was there, where the lost girl would be first sighted. Dancing with a carelessness and equal grace. Her feet never touched the ground as she bounced on the exercise trampoline; hands swaying and hair thrashing with every motion. She was trapped in her own bliss. And with an atmosphere that was all-encompassing, it left her oblivious to the whispers that were buzzing around the room. Perhaps the ghost of a girl wasn't as transparent as she once was. 

Rumors of attempted suicide could do that after all.

[alicedunn-blog2]

Marionnette à Fils || Self Para

tw: suicide, violence.

She levitated. Footsteps, too light to leave a trace that gravity itself extended piercing talons; for force alone was not powerful enough to anchor her to the ground. She dithered. Like a psithurism whistling between the trunks of an abandoned forest; there, but not, all at the same time. Alice Dunn's existence was tethered by a diaphanous thread that was only visible when it bounced off of dimming light. Not even a noose’s violent marks around her neck could relieve her from the fine thread that attached her to Coolsville.

Her presence forever lingering.

With a final piece of kindness from the intercessor between earth and heaven, she was left with a warm smile on officer Davey's lips before she was willingly returned to the monster with stitched human flesh. The threads were neatly and tightly wound, that no aperture could be traced from her father's pristine guise.

His mustache, fatherly and graying, masked the devil's words with plasticised concern. His eyes— a comforting brown, portrayed care just as he trained them to glisten behind a sheer layer of simulated tears. Had one dared to taste one, how bitter and cruel, they'd scorch the very pathway from tongue to throat. So often she would wipe one away when the drunk was an unconscious limp, hoping that she would understand the beast, if only... It was always a charred tongue she would be left with.

Alice watched her father's beautiful act unfold at the police station. Exchanging with the social worker in that parental hushed tone, utterances of worry and responsibility. Desolate blues scrutinized the man, transfixed and phlegmatic.

How lovely his expressions were.

He portrayed love in a way that left her cavernous and hollow. So empty sometimes, she would find herself wondering if she too was just as void of feeling, that she would one day have to put on that same performance.

Fingers tenderly brushing her hair away from her placid face pulled her back to reality. And where she hoped she would be met with the freckled officer's face, there stood her maker instead. And albeit his moving, mocking lips, Alice heard nothing. At his side, she dragged her eyes along the social worker. Suicide was a word that hung there but was never stated aloud. Still, she could taste it; the bittersweet tang it left in the air.

In the unsaid word's place was a question both adults felt the need to ask; 'Why?'

If only someone could translate the language of eyes, they could've transcribed an entire conversation held between Alice and her father.

Why?

Oh, father dearest, do you hear the round of applause?

Unable to trust her own eyes, the blonde veiled her vision behind closed eyelids. Silently, she recited the string of events in their actual form. She would not fall for his practiced lies. With lips barely moving it was difficult to decipher her words, which begged the girl to be interrupted.

"Alice?"

She ignored.

"Alice," The repetitiveness agitated her senses and so, she lifted her heavy lids. Blankly, she started at the older woman, her face aged from worry, she assumed. "Where'd you go just now, Alice?" Her tone, a sickening, sympathetic one. The blonde returned her eyes to her father, staring at him with a reflection of his true self. With amusement. She refused to wear the disguise he dressed with.

Tracing her fingers along the violet halo around her neck, “the perfect cure for a sore throat,” she rasped. And had her father paid more attention to his daughter’s interests, he would’ve caught on to the underlying meaning of her quoted words.

Her movement drew attention to the scattered scratches along her forearms, and this begged yet another question which she answered with a simple, “pruning season.” The mere mention of the rosebushes caused her father’s face to contort before he quickly composed himself. 

What came next was only to be expected. Alice Dunn was deemed as mentally unstable and dangerous to herself. With her father's consent, she was admitted to a psychiatric hospital on the outskirts of town. This was all left as confidential knowledge between her father and anyone that had been involved. And so naturally, like all things that happened in Coolsville, Alice Dunn's whereabouts lead to its own set of rumors.

[alicedunn-blog2]

toddholchan:

That, perhaps, was what Todd was most scared of.  He wasn’t sure, actually.  How could he be, with no real memories from that night?  Todd sincerely hoped that it wasn’t him…he never wanted to hurt anyone.  He tried to think of what to say, but nothing came to mind.

He stayed silent.

“Ah…right…”  Todd nodded.  It was a strange thing to be told by someone younger than him.  Todd supposed another person might’ve called her out for it, but Todd silently agreed.  It was something his teachers in high school used to say, that he needed to practice speaking otherwise he’d do terrible in an interview.

“Is…is there anything else you need?”

Twisting her willowy arms behind her back, she interlocked her fingers; keeping a grip on the box with her thumbs. Shaking her head, "that'd be all." Although even though she uttered this, she made no effort to move; not towards the exit at least. In fact, she had glided in deeper into the shop, as if floating, her feet made no sound. Alice Dunn as expected, was no stranger to the shop, she was no stranger to the entirety of Coolsville. However, Alice Dunn herself was in every respect a strange thing to Coolsville. Kids her age never understood her and adults always doted on her— Mr. Gilmour was no different.

Walking around a torn apart classic, the blonde slipped into the passenger seat. Soundlessly waiting for the young man to play pretend with her. She eyed him expectantly before she amused herself with the glove compartment, studying one nicknack after the other. A certain zippo lighter grabbing her attention a moment before she exchanged it for a stick of lipstick.

"Did you know the town's beloved before she turned into a stiff?" The girl asked with little to no emotion attached.

[gilded-n-golden]

house warming

[alicedunn-blog2]

christxpher-ellis:

“The first Christopher? Not much, so I’m sure that I was meant to be his legacy.” In a way it was true. Christopher felt that there wasn’t much left to Christopher the Human. What would he have done? Gone to college? Done. Gotten married? Boring and not worth it. “At this point I think all names have lost their worth from the original context.” There was no way that he could be considered a carrier of saints. Perhaps and end of saints? That seemed more accurate and likely than anything else.

Christopher shifted, following her back down the hallway, he leaned against the wall before taking another sip of his hot chocolate. “It’s good to meet you, Alice.” Christopher would return the favor of scrutinizing her name if he knew the meaning of it. Since he didn’t, Christopher also didn’t bother to ask. Instead letting the politeness sit and watching as she repeated his name.

“Why would you say that?” He asked, careful to be curious instead of pointed. He was careful to remain friendly despite the questions she was asking. “No more wary of me than you were of my grandfather, I supposed. Though, a healthy amount of wariness is safe regardless.” He finished with a shrug.

A mere hum preceded his words as she lightly considered them. Perhaps he was right, for she was not a noble thing. Her morals intertwined with corruption and nothing she ever dealt with was a blatant black or white.  Everything was opaque for the young thing, she herself was just that. And yet, there was Vincent Porter, with a name he conquered just as he did everything else. Girls with names like Margaret and girls that named themselves Pumpkin— all fitting. It caused Alice to wonder just when was the exact moment she lost her name?

Swirling the mug between her alabaster hands, she watched the chocolaty liquid spiral up to the edges and sink back to its core. "I was never wary of him," her tongue slicing the thought of her sharing her emotions for a kind man with a vulture. Taking another sip as the waves settled down, she returned to her spot on the couch and pulled the quilt up to cover her bare legs. "You look like someone people should be wary of." She unabashedly vocalized her thoughts.

Tilting her head, she observed the male with her lips hiding behind the now warm cup. She could not begin to explain, but Alice always gravitated towards odd energies, dark energies. It explained how entranced she was by the Salen's household, or why she was so attracted to Levi Henderson and Virginia Sol, they were all dark and strange things. But that could've been easily said about all of Coolsville if you took the time to really look.

"Could I spend the night?" The girl softly asked not even taking her own advice to heart.

[alicedunn-blog2]

The Bridge

[alicedunn-blog2]

freyaleblanc:

Through the years, Freya had practically become a master of picking up on when her presence wasn’t exactly wanted.  Her parents both had a look about them when they were in the middle of an argument that tended to say ‘please go away I don’t want to deal with you right now’, and it was easy to tell when the right time to ditch a party was if people started giving her the same look.  Sometimes, Freya would give in and leave.  Most of the time she was too stubborn to listen to another person and would stick it out.

That’s how she felt talking to the girl before her.  After taking a few steps forward, Freya recognized her as Alice Dunn, a quiet girl a grade behind her.  Freya knew little about her, save for the fact that her parents seemed to love the girl’s father, which really isn’t saying much.  Freya got the feeling that Alice would rather be alone to watch her movie, and for a moment Freya considered leaving.

But then she thought the best of it.  She was just too bored and Coolsville started to feel more like Lamesville again.

“Hitchcock?”  Freya repeated, assuming that Alice was referring to someone in the movie.  “I mean, don’t get me wrong, I like horror movies as much as the next person, but I don’t really pay too much attention to who’s in them.”  She admitted, digging the toe of her shoe into the ground as she did.  “I’ve never actually watched the movie, I’ve just heard of the one scene where the guy murders some girl in the shower – and that line, I’ve heard that a few times before too.”

Tracing the blonde's silhouette with her glacial gaze, "He's the director," she felt the need to correct. It was uncharacteristic of her, correcting trivial knowledge. But Alice Dunn was indeed very unlike herself anymore. The pale's thing's existence itself was questionable and had the sunlight leaked against her anymore harshly; whatever that remained of her would've evaporated with eerie ease. You see, for Alice Dunn was a creature you always had to think hard about to recall. Like a corner of a room or a glance; even her dear father had described as the moment before he slept, the moment in which he thought of all bad things.

These were a drunk's words and nothing she ever shed light upon before this past week.

And now lingering there, between existing and not all— with half of her body concrete to gravity and the other hovering above the ground. The blonde toyed with a game of balance.

Returning her eyes to the screen with 'Low Battery' taunting her in red, she never cared to welcome Freya to join her, nor did she bother to turn her away. This spot wasn't really hers, to begin with. Posessions were scarce for the girl, and the sole thing that really was hers and ever would be the rose bushes in her backyard... and then perhaps the few scarce possessions any teen would supposedly have.

"Is there any particular reason?" Alice softly asked, not even sure if Freya was still there or not. "Is there any reason that line stuck with you?" She wondered aloud, the question no longer sounding like it was meant for the other girl.

[alicedunn-blog2]

toddholchan:

“Yes,”  Todd affirmed.  He’d known Marcus since high school and was really the only person that Todd had kept in touch with after graduating.  He’d never had many friends, to begin with.  “He helped me out a lot in high school, actually.  He’s a good guy.”

He frowned slightly – only for a moment – before putting on a straight face and giving a small nod.  Todd knew very well that he wasn’t in all that great of a position at the moment.  He was pretty sure half the town thought he was a murderer, seeing as he’d lied about his own alibi and had reappeared in Coolsville completely out of the blue.  He could only try and convince himself that they were wrong.”I…I didn’t do it.”  Todd tried to say, though he doubted it sounded very convincing.

So he was glad when she changed topics, back to his predicament of wearing a jacket to work in the morning.  That, at least, was something Todd could work with.  He tried to shake off the uncomfortable feeling of guilt before continuing.  “I guess I could, yeah.  It just gets so warm in the back of the shop that I forget about even having a jacket.”

Watching the hesitancy in the male takeover; never had she witnessed a grown man shrink in size so quickly. Perhaps it would've triggered sympathy from the girl, but she didn't necessarily have any of that to share that day. Instead, she let her tongue utter her thoughts on the situation, just as she always did. "Are you sure?" She pressed on as she continued to toy with the package, growing tedious of the little thing. Maybe she'd drop it on the way back home, pretend that she lost it only to retrace her tracks later that day.

Why? Because it was a comforting thing; knowing you could always find the things you lost.

"With that tone, It's difficult to be sure of anything, officer Davey's little friend." Not allowing him much time to answer. In truth, Alice carried not even the slightest of concerns over Reece’s death; murder might’ve been an interesting topic, but the dead girl was someone she never cared for. So, it was a struggle to be entirely engrossed with the mystery like most of the town was. “I’d control my stutter,” she shared the piece of advice. “too many invisible words nest between stutters.”

Back to the jacket...really, who cared? She certainly didn't.

[archerinhiding-blog]

Valentine’s Dismay // Maya x Open

[alicedunn-blog2]

archerinhiding:

As if being in a new town wasn’t bad enough, Maya was being bombarded with all kinds of romantic signs and gestures because of this month’s meaning. The store windows she’d been past this morning were littered with love hearts and couple deals, it was too much. She’d hoped that the grocery store would be free of any of that, but as soon as she’d stepped through the doors, there was a couple standing directly in the way, participating in a display of PDA that she couldn’t ignore. “God, I hate Valentine’s Day.” 

"Smother yourself," Alice responded to the stranger, as she moved past her. A twisted way of joking about how 'love was in the air.' "Plastic bags are in aisle six," the young girl shared as she stood a few feet ahead of her. Alice, once a pristine porcelain doll draped in white, no longer appeared as everlasting as she came to be known. She was skinnier, paler even. And a scarf wrapped around her neck was a particularly uncharacteristic sight.

[gilded-n-golden]

house warming

[alicedunn-blog2]

christxpher-ellis:

Christopher was surprised to find someone that could make him feel like an intruder in his own home. The young girl seemed so casual there. So at ease to making the space her own even when it wasn’t. Still, Christopher didn’t let any sort of questioning fall into his actions. Instead nodding at her question plainly. “It’s a good thing,” he affirmed instead of answering.

Once her own mug was safely in her hands, Christopher took a sip of his own. It was good–but there were things that were better for him now. Food had lost the same sort of taste it had when he was human. It was all still good–undoubtable good, he’d worked hard learning how to make it after all–but it wasn’t satisfying in the way it used to be. Christopher’s eyebrow quirked a bit at the comment, letting the thought of it settle in. 

He looked like his father. Himself, really, when it came down to it. If his own father had shown any family photos or if she’d taken more than a quick look at the school photo on the mantle, than she would have seen his face before. “You know,” he started, an amused tone in his voice, “sons do tend to look like there fathers. Sometimes even named after them.”

Keeping his expression amused, Christopher shifted a bit to move from his space in the doorway, stepping to the side enough to let her past if she wanted to go back into the heart of the home. “Speaking of names, I don’t think you ever told me yours?” he mused, tilting his head curiously.

"What legacy would a Christopher have to bestow?" Her reddened lips passed, unaware of how insensitive that might've been interpreted. "Carrier of saints..." she drifted off, blowing the steam off her her cup before finally taking a sip. It was difficult to hide how much she savored the rich taste of chocolate coating her throat. Pigmented cheeks and a faint, lilting smile traced her lips, "Such names have lost their worth," she teased in her own drifting tone as she passed him, through the space he had composed. "No offense."

A feeling of foreign sorrow filled her when she found herself in the foreign corridor once more; she wasn't allowed back there, she felt. "Alice," she shared from the living room. The pale creature stood there, swaying in the middle of the room as she studied every crevice from a distance; now this, this was somewhere she was allowed to keep in her memories. "Just Alice," she uttered this to herself, unsure of where she fit anymore, herself.

"Christopher," she repeated the name to herself, quite liking how it rolled off her tongue. It was difficult to imagine anything as handsome as him could be associated with something saintly; beautiful things were sinful, if by appearance alone. "You're like an embodiment of deceit, you know?" She leaned against the back of the sofa, studying the divine creature. "Should I be more wary of you?" Her question more casual than it should've been.

[alicedunn-blog2]

The Bridge

[alicedunn-blog2]

freyaleblanc:

Freya hated staying in her house for long.  She hated the quietness, and Freya was never in the mood to argue with her parents.  It seemed that anything she did could brew into an argument when it came to them.  She couldn’t blame Ray for wanting to spend most of their time working, staying at home for too long would drive anyone crazy.

Most of the time, she stayed out with friends or would spend her nights at whatever party she could find.  But just because Freya liked to keep busy didn’t mean that there was always something for her to do.  There were plenty of times where Coolsville was just plain boring.  When boredom struck, Freya took to wandering the town.

She basically knew Coolsville like the back of her hand.  She’d been to Rosie’s Diner enough times to remember the chips in the tables and cracked tiled floors, the familiar old trees that lined the path, and even the old hangout spot by the bridge.

Freya wasn’t entirely sure what brought her to that spot this afternoon.  Maybe to count the amount of glass beer bottles that kids of the past had unceremoniously left behind, or even just to see if people still used the spot.

She was a little surprised, however, to see that someone was actually at the old hangout spot.  From a distance, Freya thought the girl was sleeping, but she quickly recognized the laptop and the dialogue from the movie.

“Are you watching Psycho?”  Freya asked.  While she’d never seen the movie herself, she’d heard that line before.  “That’s the movie with the creepy killer in the shower scene, right?”

At the announcement of the other, Alice leisurely lifted her head, only to lay it back down against the side of the bean bag. Falling into a position that would allow her to gaze at her intruder. Freya LeBlanc; a rebel without a cause, or so she would've liked to believe. With eyes like the muted doll's, Alice felt like she knew the girl quite well, even though they had never really spoken before now. She was what you would call 'a mother's daughter' because there would always be that ownage Freya could never tear away from, at least that's what the young blonde would describe her as.

Even if she was the one with a bruise on her neck, she felt like the other individual was the one that was being smothered.

"Creepy killer?" She mumbled, her voice barely loud enough for the wind to carry. "I suppose." Really, a creepy killer would not graze her words had she tried to illustrate the character that was Norman Bates. He was far too complex to be defined as just that. Just as the movie cited; they were all trapped in their personal cages. His lunacy was the only way he could survive the circumstances he was forced to grow up in. Clearly, romanticizing and humanizing the inhuman was slowly turning into a lifestyle for Alice.

Letting her blue eyes fall onto the laptop screen, she could barely see the moving footage with the glaring light. "Are you not a fan of Hitchcock's?” She questioned, “The platinum blonde, a domineering mother, climactic plot twists;” her eyes now fixed on Freya, “He’d be a puddle at your feet.”

[alicedunn-blog2]

officermarcusdavey:

The young person sitting in the department so frail-looking and dirty tugged on Marcus’ heartstrings. She appeared to be distracted by something or other–the kind of distanced gaze that his mother had after another one of her episodes–and he desperately wanted to help. Glancing up from his pile of paperwork every so often as if to reassure himself that yes, she was there after all–Marcus eased himself out of his chair, grabbing the box of donuts as he approached her.

“Hi. I’m Officer Davey. But you can call me Marcus.” His voice was compassionate, barely above a whisper, as to slowly break her out of the seemingly numb body language he knew all too well. He tried to give her a reassuring grin, but it might’ve been stained with his inner feelings of deep concern. Nothing else mattered right now except making the girl in front of him smile or laugh. She didn’t belong in the department; it was Marcus’ job to distract her from the reason why. “I…have donuts.” He held out the open box so that she could reach it. “Take as many as you want. I’m a police officer giving them away. Has to be the strangest thing in Coolsville, right?”

Despite the dismal air of ruin that surrounded the frail being, her backbone remained unscathed. Even as the exuberant being approached her, she did not shy away or try to hide her face. The bruising around her neck up for display, causing anyone to question if it was the very halo that adorned her head that had marked her fair skin. Gazing up at him, she might've found his energy infectious had she been anyone else; but Alice Dunn never absorbed the behavior of others, not even as a child. A recollection of a classmate's eleventh birthday party would be a fine example. Where children were either humored or too old to be humored by the clown, Alice was found smearing the very red paint off the man's smile and tinting her own lips. The girl always swaying to her own tethered red thread.

Accepting the donut, even though she didn't have much of an appetite for one; she still found herself grazing off a layer of pink frosting before popping it in her mouth. Taking her sweet time to reply. "Alice," she uttered; her tone scraping against her tender throat. She, of course, already knew who officer Davey was. She knew who everyone was in town— from a distance at least. "Strangest?" She returned, seemingly unfathomed by her own appearance and where she was. "I can think of stranger things," she mused in a soft tone; trying to find a volume that didn't hurt her from speaking.

[alicedunn-blog2]

toddholchan:

Since the girl didn’t say anything else, Todd assumed that was all she had wanted, so he started ringing up her item instead.  He slipped the bills into the cash register and counted out the change.  “I take it off when I’m in the shop, it’s hot enough in here as it is.  It’s when I step outside to cool off that I get a little too cold.”  Todd answered, glancing up hat her.  He hadn’t expected the girl to continue talking about his situation of being too warm in the auto shop, but too cold after stepping outside.

“Oh, uh, yeah, I am,”  Todd nodded.  He picked up the spark plugs and offered them for her to take.  He thought about saying that he was twenty-three and not exactly little, but decided against it.  “We’re old friends, actually.”

Twirling the package between her willowy digits, she kept her head tilted at an angle that exuded curiosity; however, her expression remained as blasé as always. "Old friends?" She repeated. Once again, disregarding the former topic on the weather and his inability to cope with its fluctuating changes. "En prise," she uttered with her blue eyes fixed on him. "You've landed yourself in quite the exposed position." One could mistake her nonchalance with amusement, for she was ever so impassive by the death of Reese.

Alice had no knowledge of what story headlined the local newspaper, or that it included the mysterious mechanic before her. But even then, she was observant enough to point out the oddity of his return to Coolsville, as well as guarding himself with the town's beloved officer.

"Maybe take the jacket outside with you?" she digressed back to the trivial topic.

[alicedunn-blog2]

The Bridge

Desiccated memoirs of lovers and self-preservations desecrated the hollows of the abandoned bridge. As winds passed the arches, one could almost hear those tributes sough. Sighing in retrospect of the lives they had lead up until their flaking end. It had a melancholic charm, beautiful in its disarray for the chaotic few. Within its cavernous space scattered belongings of generations past. Old beanbags and pop-up chairs; anything they could fit through the manhole that leads down to the bypass.

Many teenagers once used this hidden spot as a paradise getaway, it didn't take long for them to desert the space once they realized how much of dump it really was. Soon enough, it reverted to its quiet ruins and what vines could overtake the structure weaseled its way around it. It was beautiful in its own haunting and eerie way.

This was probably why Alice Dunn favored it so. The abandonment of it.

The lithe pale form of a girl was draped over a beanbag, back arched and ivory draped around her; the girl only owning clothes that are pale and lightweight. Even in such weather, she only wore a jacket to keep her warm. Her lightening struck hair hung off the unboarded gap between the arches, reaching out to touch gravity. The height did not faze the young thing, for she seemed wrapped in bliss. Pink lips parted as they mimicked the static dialogue seeping past the movie playing through her laptop. Too absorbed into her own world to take notice that she was no longer alone.

"...You know what I think? I think that we’re all in our private traps, clamped in them, and none of us can ever get out."

[alicedunn-blog2]

toddholchan:

Todd nodded slightly, having figured as much.  There wasn’t anything too exciting about working in a repair shop, unless you found cars interesting, and talking about the temperature was nothing more than small talk and Todd’s own ramblings.

“Uh, yeah, sure,”  Todd nodded, completely disregarding what he’d been talking about before.  Instead, he turned around and grabbed the pack of spark plugs from the wall, placing them on the counter in front of him.  “Is that all you needed?”

Extending crumbled dollars she had tried to flatten out earlier, she lightly made the exchange. All the while, never tearing the gaze she had reverted back to him. "Maybe take off the thick jacket," she finally uttered. Even though it was only logical that he probably did take off his jacket, she was petty enough at the time to point out the missing piece in his little ramble.

“You’re officer Davey’s little friend,” she trailed off, tilting her head to the side as she wondered how many more strangers would invade their wonderfully eerie town.

[alicedunn-blog2]

officermarcusdavey:

Contrary to belief, Marcus did not like donuts. He never had a taste for sweets but was too nice to tell the woman at the bakery that. Whenever she saw him, she was all smiles, handing over a baker’s dozen of them as if they were going out of style. Usually he’d share the box with his family and call it a day. This time he had a better idea. Marcus stood in the police station with the current box of donuts, opening it up and positioning it just perfectly on his desk. He had written out a sign labelled “free donuts” and taped it to the inside of the station’s front window. The town could use a pick-me-up after the recent events that had transpired; if he could help get the residents’ minds off of her for a moment, then he’d feel so much better.

Hopefully the chief and Noah didn’t mind.

Alice Dunn was never a conceptual thing, she was not something you conceived or faded when you no longer believed in. Despite her diaphanous existence, she still did exactly that; exist. It didn’t matter that her footsteps sounded like they were always retreating into a blurry unknown, or that her gaze was something you could feel yourself fall through for how terribly diluted they were. The whisper of a creature still existed, whatever that could ever even mean. Now, for instance, her existence was more than her usual murmur of a heart; it was a trembling drumstick unable to steady itself and so rattled relentlessly against the percussion organ. 

Hair tousled into intricate knots and grime smudged cheeks; a porcelain doll abandoned would be the only way to describe how she now appeared. An officer had found her near the abandoned train bridge and brought her back to the department. With vivid blues and hues of salvia crawling around her neck, she really left him no choice. As she waited for her father to come pick her up, dreading how they would interrogate him, which they undoubtedly would. Detached from the world around her, she found herself watching the loved thing. A man that could drown anyone for existing too much.

[alicedunn-blog2]

toddholchan:

“It never matters how cold it is outside,”  Todd sighed.  “I might leave the house in the morning with a heavy jacket, but after an hour at work, I’m sweating.  I guess it’s a little better in the winter, because at least I can step outside and cool off.”  Todd glanced over at the person next to him, shaking head.  “Sorry, you probably don’t care how warm it gets at the auto repair shop.”

Alice absently looked at the man, and not so much as listened to a single word he said. She was more familiar with him being at the side of the favored police officer in town, Marcus Davey. Other than that, he was a complete mystery. "I don't," she returned; the alabaster girl looking more transparent with each coming day.

With enervated blues, she tore her gaze from the young man and onto the wall of gadgets behind him. "A double pack of platinum spark plugs," she uttered almost too rehearsed. Her father had sent her on errand— well, she actually offered when she heard him spitting out blasphemies once he came back from work. Anything to get away from that house.