curatoroffiction - Tumblr blog

curatoroffiction · 6 days

Text

The Curse of Alice: Chapter 2

Fandom: Ikemen Villains For the first chapter, go here!

----- Content Warnings for this chapter;

Suicide mention

Graphic depictions of death

Graphic depictions of blood

Graphic depictions of suicide/forced suicide (Not the reader or the main cast.)

Medical work performed by someone who definitely ain't a doctor, by sketchy medical standards in the 1800s

Medical torment (Needles, scraping, ect..)

-----

Chapter 2: Satiating Curious Minds

Now that you've been inducted into whatever the hell Crown is, the others are starting to get to know you. Liam is the first to truly glom onto you. He has so many questions and is so friendly and excited. You find yourself drawn to his warmth of personality.

Your cellphone fascinates him. Your clothes fascinate him. You fascinate him.

You don't mind answering his questions. It actually puts you at ease to learn what's different about this place from what you're used to. It helps to distract you from the gruesome murder you witnessed. A murder that went down in the history books as a suicide.

'They can kill you and make it look like an accident.' A voice in your mind rings out, reminding you of the danger around you at all times.

'I suppose I'll be seeing more scenes like that, given the work expected of me here..' You think to yourself as Liam is playing with a game on your phone. He's so enthralled by this simple puzzle game. It's something unlike anything he's ever played. When you taught him how to play the game, he caught on fast and learned quickly. He adapts well to the new and strange. His delighted demeanor is such a stark contrast compared to the scene you'd seen that night.

Your mind keeps flashing with the memories of the man dying on the ground. Had you been saved that same fate because of this 'Curse'? It's hard to say.

Your phone's screen flickers darker and you glance over at it. Ah. Low battery.

Liam looks to you questioningly, pointing to the device. "What's going on?"

"It's low on power. Needs to recharge."

"... Recharge?"

"... Do you guys have electricity?"

"I've heard of electricity. Is that what this is?" Liam cocks his head to the side, blinking.

Nearby, on a couch, Jude, the man with the black and white hair who scowls a lot, has been reading a paper. "Electricity is a fairly new horizon of technology right now."

"I wonder if you guys know about wattage then."

Jude glances over towards you, his eyes scanning your face as he thinks. His thinking expression is quite.. intense. You find yourself watching him cautiously. Did you piss him off? Something you just said registers to him as more important than whatever he was reading before, and you can't read him emotionally. He just seems like an angry guy.

Liam is intrigued again though. Something that connects their time to yours! But he also feels guilty. He didn't know your magic little box had a time limit for how long it could run. "I'm so sorry, I didn't realize I was using up the energy of your machine!" He's embarrassed, but you quickly alleviate his concerns;

"I didn't expect it to last long, considering the current state of affairs. It's chill."

You pocket your phone from Liam, turning it off. Liam still feels embarrassed, and wants to make it up to you somehow, but he can't think of something to make it up to you yet. Jude, meanwhile, is still staring at you intently, which leaves you feeling anxious.

What you don't know, is that he's realizing you could be a goldmine of information about future technologies.

"What's wattage?" Jude pries, not yet closing his paper, but eyes still scanning over you.

"Oh, like, the intensity of the electricity flowing through wires. Think of it as like.. A basic unit of measurement for how much electricity is traveling through a line. Without it, even if you guys rigged up a generator to generate electricity, I couldn't control the amount of electricity coming through, which would likely just fry my charger chord and my phone."

"Like 'Voltage'?"

"Oh, yeah, actually. Do you guys have capacitors?"

"What is a capacitor?"

"It controls the output of electricity, I think. Makes it more.. Stable? Manageable. Anyways, I think that's what we'd need to be able to rig something up to charge this thing."

"...." Jude's eyes narrow on you. "You work with that kinda stuff? That why you know so much about it?"

"... No, it's just kinda.. basic knowledge I've accumulated being a person from the -- century."

".. Basic, huh? Do you know how someone could make one of these 'Capacitors'?"

"Not really. Not off the top of my head. If you guys are already playing around with electrical work, though, I bet you guys have some kind of predecessor that would make it work."

"And electricity is what allows that thing of yours to work?"

"Yeah."

"..." Jude grins quite big. A little too excitedly, considering how much he was scowling before. He stands up and folds up his newspaper. "You're comin' with me tomorrow. We're going to go on a little trip. I'd like you to talk with some folks." He doesn't know how long he's got you for, but everything you've shown him here is a clear indication that he'd be a fool not to capitalize on your presence here. Even if you don't consider your knowledge valuable, he can see its worth. And, besides, a trip to one of his inventing warehouses is significantly safer than anything you'd get into with any of the other members of Crown.

Despite the fact that Jude has a cold, distanced demeanor, he doesn't like that you've been mixed up in all of this. He feels bad that you've learned you're cursed and that you're now trapped in this place.

Though, he's not exactly a bleeding heart. The fact that he personally benefits from it definitely influences his interest in making you tag along with him for the day.

You look up to him, suspicious. "... If I come along with you, are you going to use my knowledge to change the flow of history?"

"...." Jude smirks.

"I would prefer to not be used as a resource that could change the courses of events, ending in me destroying the timeline that I came from."

Jude scowls, now standing in front of you and Liam. ".. Huh?"

"Well think about it. If I change things here, in this time, and it changes the series of events leading to when I was born, wouldn't it change things in the future? What if we were to change things so much that I couldn't be born?"

Jude blinks, He's genuinely going to need a minute to think about that one. Could the things you do in the past actually change the future irreversibly? "Is that a fact?"

".. Well, no. Time travel isn't real in my time period. We can only speculate on the concept."

"....." Jude studies your face intently, weighing the pros and cons. You've never tested this theory, and it's all theoretical anyway. So, as far as he's aware, no one's ever actually put these ideas to any kind of test. Until someone actually tests the hypothesis, it's just an idea.

And it's an idea standing in the way of real, tangible progress.

After coming to terms with the fact that he can accept the outcome if things turn into a disaster, he steps one foot up onto the couch, his foot landing on the cushion next to your leg as he looms over you, grinning. "Let's test that little hypothesis of yours."

"..." You can feel the overwhelming, looming danger in front of you, locking you in. He's got his sights set on you and the goldmine of knowledge you keep.

Liam looks to you with a warm, excited grin; "I'm so very curious too. What an exciting question that only you can find the answer to. You have to give it a try." He's visibly excited, almost beamingly so. You can feel something intense from his gaze. He doesn't just want to know, he needs to know. You've just posed a question that no one in this world, not even you, knows the answer to.

You groan, tearing your eyes away from Liam, hand covering your face as you think through it. Every time paradox concept you've ever read is theoretical. You truly have no idea whether any of them could be true. Something completely unexpected might even happen. But in most of them, there's an overwhelmingly intense sensation of "Don't do it". Like the pervasive 'truth' of the culmination of those stories is that changing the past is something people should never do.

And yet something inside you calls to you asking you 'Why not?' - Similarly to when you saw the rabbit, the thought consumes you. It's like the men on either side of you know exactly how to pull out that internal desire to challenge the rules you know to be true.

If the rules don't make complete sense, then why not break them?

These two are extremely good at drawing out your deepest yearning of intrigue. That little voice inside you that needs to challenge the established, unfounded rules. Is this what the curse feels like? Is this something tugging you closer and closer to that fate of tragedy that they mentioned?

You have no idea, but you know you need to know.

"... Okay."

"Man, you cave quick." Jude laughs at you, stepping off the couch as he starts walking out the door. "Great. Be ready tomorrow morning to go out."

Liam's eyes light up. He gives you a flirtatious smile. "I'm definitely coming along." This whole interaction has given him a great idea for how to make sure he pays you back for using up your phone's power. Going out with Jude alone would be rough, but Liam can keep you company to make sure you're not overwhelmed, and maybe you can even have a fun time. Liam stands up, holding a hand out to you to help you up from the couch. You take his hand and he pulls you up. "I'm going to go prepare for tomorrow. You should too! Rest well!"

You watch Liam disappear off into the castle, and you tug your phone out to look at the powered down screen and sigh. The dead man's eyes flash in your mind as you remember earlier in the night.

You've been caught up in a whirlwind of events since then, never quite being able to settle down since you arrived. This is the first moment you've had to yourself, where you can actually digest what happened to you.

You traveled back in time and learned a major secret of the government. Not only that, but you've become part of it as well. You've learned about cursed people, which you are apparently one of. You're supposedly fated to break rules, do horrifying things, and live a life of ultimate tragedy. The dead man's pooling blood feels like it's touching your shoes again. You look down. They had your shoes cleaned when you entered the building. The bloodstains are present though. Your shoes weren't made for this kind of work.

They've decided to give you clothing to use while you're here in this time period, mentioning that they'll have it for you by morning.

---

You begin to walk back to where you know your room is. You feel anxious. On edge. And yet something inside you thrives off of it. Something deep inside you is yearning to see more. Even if it haunts you, even if it changes you, you want to see it all.

"___." You're startled from your thoughts to hear Roger calling your name. You look to see him motioning to you from down the hall. "Please come with me." You visibly grimace upon seeing him which makes him laugh sourly; "Oh, don't be that way. Come on."

You begrudgingly follow him into his laboratory. It can only be called a lab. It's not a medical clinic, as they so earnestly tried to sell you on when they first showed it to you. He has you sit down in a chair as he sits across from you, holding a notepad and a pencil.

"I'm going to need a thorough medical history for you."

You scowl to him. He's not a real doctor, and even if he was, he's a 19th century doctor. "... I doubt you'd know half of what I'm saying to you."

"All the more reason for you to educate me on it."

"...." You're visibly disturbed. Your eyes wander over his lab equipment. "Besides, you're not a real doctor. You're not held to any confidentiality laws."

"Nope."

You look to him in disgusted shock. He just admits it? At least make some attempt to make it easier to share information with him!

He chuckles, seeing your face contort. "Look, I have to have a baseline to work from for my profile for you. The more you help me understand, the better. Which can also help with understanding your curse and the condition it leaves you with." His pencil taps his notepad. "Besides, you can't go anywhere until we understand your curse."

"...." You sigh in resignation, visibly frustrated.

You walk Roger through your medical history, explaining everything as best as you can. There are times where he has to pull out charts, which you sometimes even correct, giving him important medical knowledge and updating his understanding of the human body in the process.

He takes his time poking and prodding you, testing your reflexes, listening to your heart, taking samples of tissue and blood to test and toy with.

You're just grateful that he has syringes.

He seems to appreciate your reactions of pain. Still, you can tell he's trying to be as gentle as he can be. He does relish the way you freak out when he doesn't have anesthetic to keep you from feeling the pain of his pokes and prods and sample-scraping.

"You guys are rich?? You can't afford anesthetic??"

"It's funny that you think this place is ours and not a cage we're also confined to." He mutters, smirking as he pokes you and you groan in pain. He swears he can see some tears forming in the edges of your determined, spiteful face. It fuels something inside of him.

His comment, however, surprises you. They've talked about this place like it's a clubhouse for their edgy group since you arrived, but this is the first time you've heard it referred to as a condemnation. How many of the others feel the same way?

You don't have time to think on that though as Roger jabs you again and you cuss him out, causing him to laugh.

---

After a couple hours of thorough inspection and documentation from Roger, you meander back towards your room, exhausted. Once again, you're alone with your thoughts. You finally make it to your bedroom though. You close the door behind you and sigh, sinking down against the door. The room is gorgeous in the dim lighting. You groan, leaning back against the door, your head stares up at the ceiling.

It all happened so fast.

You quietly close your eyes and imagine the man you watched die. You don't know much about him as a person. And you never will. Sure, you could ask for the information from Victor, claiming it's for the writing work he's making you do, but can you really trust information given to you by a pack of murderers?

You're deep in the lion's den here, and the only way forward is to keep playing nice.

His wretched face haunts your memory as you can remember the warmth of his blood on your face. You reach up and touch your face where the blood splattered. William's touch. It's almost as though they've explicitly been throwing as much as they can at you at once so you never really truly digest what they've put you through, and what you've witnessed.

But you can't allow that.

You hate playing by people's rules, and you yearn to find the goal of this game so you can end it.

It feels like a game.

You don't want to play, but they're making you play.

You open your eyes, looking to the ground. You don't even know what time of day it is. How will you wake up in the morning? You don't know. And frankly, you're so exhausted that you don't care.

Scooping yourself up, you force yourself to head to the dresser. Atop it is a wash bin for you to wipe down with before you get dressed for bed. You use the tools given. The water is surprisingly still warm. When did they have the time to get this prepared for you? They also gave you a loose change of clothes, so you change into them, placing your dirty clothes in a hamper nearby. As you do, you look over the bloodstains. "...."

You're going to have to have your wits about you with these people. Always on guard. Can't get complacent.

Lest you end up dead too.

-------

End

-----

Check out my Masterlist for other chapters!

-----

If you like this chapter, you can stay easily updated when more chapters come out via AO3; Link All of my other random off-shoots for this fandom will also be posted there under "The Curse of Alice - A Collection" series. Thank you for reading!

#TW Suicide #CW Suicide #TW Murder mention #CW Murder mention #TW Blood #CW Blood #TW Medical #CW Medical

2 notes · View notes

curatoroffiction · 7 days

Text

The Curse of Alice: Chapter 1

This is the first chapter of a new series for the Ikemen: Villains series. In it, the reader is gender-neutral and accidentally wanders back in time due to having a curse of their own. (Really, it's more an excuse for me to play around with time-difference shenanigans.) ----- Also Tumblr deleted half my Content Warnings in the tags, so please let me know if I'm missing any -----

Content for this series is likely to include;

Canon-typical violence (For any of my readers who are more familiar with my Twisted Wonderland and Obey Me writings, please note that "Ikemen: Villains" is SIGNIFICANTLY MORE VIOLENT AND DARK than those two combined.)

Canon-typical trauma triggers (Again, this series is so much darker than the other ones I write for, please, please, PLEASE pay attention to the content warnings for this series as I write it. I'll be doing my best to thoroughly tag)

Spicy romance scenes (These will also be thoroughly tagged so my romance-averse/touch-averse readers can avoid them.) I might later have some specific single stories that address AFAB player content in this same AU, but those will be separated from this series (You will not find AFAB-specific content in any chapters from "The Curse of Alice", but if you're seeking that content out, you might check out other stuff I've posted for this fandom)

----- Content warnings for this chapter;

Suicide mention

Suicide/Forced Suicide (It's a background character, but it's still DARK and vivid.)

MURDER

Blood touches the reader

Abduction

----- You aren't fond of tours.

You never feel like they really show you what you want to see on a tour. At least, nothing you couldn't learn from a written tour guide. Those usually have more information in them, anyways. Tours are always focused on showing you exactly what you're meant to see, and your heart calls to see what people don't want you to see. You yearn to see things that people keep secret.

If it weren't for the fact that you'd heard that this mansion had a particularly intriguing piano from the 19th century, cursed by the soul of a man who committed suicide in front of it, you'd have never even come here. A story like that is stoked with tragedy. You heard that the man had a long list of sins that came out after his death, which made you curious about the story, because it made it dark. Did he kill himself because he felt guilty? Did he kill himself because his sins were going to come to light? Did those sins only come to light because of his suicide?

If anything, it would make for a fascinating story study.

You're an aspiring writer who likes to test your mettle against darker plotlines, so you're attracted to learning stories that touch the macabre.

Unfortunately, the mansion only allows guests to go along with a guide. So you're trapped in a night tour. The mansion's corridors are lit up only where the tour guide leads everyone. There's many more corridors darkened by the night's ambiance, giving an eerie sense to the experience.

You bought a tour book, but out of respect to the guide, you aren't reading it. It's stashed away inside your backpack.

Most of the information the guide is giving is about how people used to work in this building, showcasing some of the old art of the time from around when the suicide took place. What intrigues you is that they don't really mention the artists of the architecture that much. They make some over-all claims about the designers and architects, but they can't tell you exactly who designed or crafted the banisters of the stairwells, or the tiles of the floor. You take several pictures of these fixtures, especially some of the more run-down areas.

When the tour reaches the room with the famed piano, you take a video of the instrument as the tour guide talks about the stories of the night that the man killed himself. Some passerbys that night had faintly heard the sound of piano music on the night of the incident. Particularly, a postwoman had a haunting account of the song being played. She couldn't place it, but she remembered it sounding mesmerizing, like it would have drawn her in, had the front door not been locked.

You take diligent notes, writing small comments to yourself about things to research as you do.

The hallways of the mansion are a veritable labyrinth. So when your tour continues, you find your eyes drawn to the hallways you're not allowed to go down. You look down a particularly dark hallway and see a small, white bunny rabbit on the ground, you pause and blink. "...." You look back to your tour guide group, but something calls to you about the rabbit. The tour group is already moving on, but surely.. They won't notice you missing from the group, right?

The white rabbit sees you and darts down a hallway, and you turn to follow it, separating from your group. The hallway it turns into is outside the grasp of the light from the hallway you came from.

It's almost as though there's a threshold here. In your heart, you feel like if you walk past this point, you'll be walking into the night itself. An impenetrable darkness.

Impenetrable by all except that little white rabbit, which you can see at the end of the hall, staring at you.

You feel.. Compelled to follow it.

You were so bored, and this is so interesting and exciting and it feels like you're actually chasing a story. Getting to see something the tour guides won't show you. There was no mention of rabbits. Does someone keep a collection of them here?

It feels like everything you were seeking would be found if you follow this rabbit, which is such a strange and foreign experience that you just.. Follow it.

It's hard not to, when it feels so right.

Corridor after corridor, you find yourself following the rabbit through the halls, until the rabbit disappears entirely. No matter how much you look, you can't find it. You must have scared it. What was a rabbit doing in this place anyways? You have so many questions, none of which are getting answered.

Looking around, you have no idea where you are. There's a room number on a nearby room plaque though, so you decide to try to figure out how to get back to your tour group by checking out the map. By the light of your cellphone, you figure out where you are and begin to head towards the main entrance. You'll get in trouble, but that's fine. You're used to getting in trouble for straying from groups, ever-curious.

As you're walking through a hall that you swore was lit earlier, you begin to wonder if the tour closed down early. You couldn't have been gone from the group for THAT long, could you? What if it's closed down already? You're walking into the darkened main foyer when you hear a hauntingly delicate tone drifting through the halls of the mansion.

The sound of the piano.

Ah, the tour must have ended, and someone was now playing the piano to make sure it was operational. You'll just have to explain yourself to whoever is in there that you got yourself separated from your tour group and apologize.

Phone blasting light, you open the door to the room that the music is coming from, only to get hit with a splash of something warm.

Something dark.

Something red.

You see the body of the man in front of you on the floor first. The last breath escapes the man who has obviously killed himself by stabbing himself in the neck with a knife, in the light of your phone's flashlight. A shiver goes down your spine as you're going to be sick. You're covered in a dead man's blood. Your phone has no signal.

The piano playing stops and you look up, your phone light illuminating 8 figures in the dark.

Is this.. Some kind of sick after-tour live action retelling of the suicide? "... I uh.." Your eyes keep traveling down to the man at your feet. It's so convincing. You're visibly disgusted. "... Sorry, I got separated from my tour group. ..." Your eyes watch the man on the ground. He doesn't look like he's acting. He doesn't look like he's breathing anymore. His body went limp, even with your interruption. Too convincing to be just an act. The wound looks too realistic, too. Blood pooling out from under him in a growing pool that makes you step back. Maybe it's a convincing mannequin? Your mind wants to make sense of this in a way that doesn't focus on reality. .... Whatever it is, your stomach is churning. Those special effects have to be really good, if they're special effects.

"Well, well..! I wasn't expecting a guest." You hear a voice from deeper in the room, which is dark. Too dark for an after-tour play. In the dim lighting illuminating the room, you can see seven figures all standing around in the dark. The man speaking to you, however, is stepping away from the piano, making eight people total. When he sees you in the light, he cocks his head to the side with a soft, excited grin. "Hmmn.. I'm not familiar with you."

"Hrm.. That's a bit troublesome. What should we do with them?" A man with rose-pink hair and a soft, milky-smooth voice asks, looking in your direction. "And what is that light?" He asks, his curiosity piqued at your phone.

"Sorry to spook you, but this is just a rehearsal for a play." A very easy-going man with a cocky grin looks up to you in the dim light.

"..." You look down to the body in front of you. "... It uh.. It looks pretty real. ... What kinds of special effects are you using?"

"It's a secret."

"...." Your face tells them everything, that you're not convinced.

"... Y'know, it really would've been better if you had at least pretended to believe it." His smirk is palpable. Like you just walked into a trap. It drops as he looks to the guy who'd been playing the piano; "What should we do, Will?"

"We should take them with is, of course - To the Palace's Reaper."

There's a click of a tongue and one of the men to the side is visibly scowling as he mutters; "That's why I toldja to lock the damn door!" a particularly gruff man says, audibly scowling.

Another man chuckles. "Well, I didn't think we'd have a tresspasser! You're a naughty little thing, aren't you?" He smiles to you, and you think you can make out a rifle on his back.

They're all so non-chalant as they stand around. The body on the ground has stopped sputtering, and has released its last vestiges of air. You know this isn't fake. They've killed this man and made it look like a suicide. Why? And why here, in this room?

"Why don't you come over here? There's no escape at this point anyway." The gentle tone of a dark-haired man beckons you deeper into the room.

Every part of your spine is tingling with danger. You have to leave. You need to leave. You've followed the rabbit into something horrific and now you're ready to go home.

As though he could sense your growing panic, the man from the piano looks to you with crimson eyes and a smile that's much too warm and inviting; "Come here, pitiful one." The words feel so much heavier than anything else said tonight.

Your legs begin moving on their own. You're visibly startled. What is this?? Why are you moving? You're moving against your will, and you want to run, but you can't. They only stop when you're standing in front of the man.

"Pardon me." He says, tugging you in closer so he can see your face better in the illumination of your phone's light. Your light also shows you his eyes in a way that showcases their vibrancy and deep crimson - Like the blood you can see splattered on your own clothes, it looks too real to be fake. You've seen red contacts before. These don't look like contacts. He reaches up and wipes the blood from your face with his thumb, and he grins. ".. There." releasing you from his touch and his control. "Forgive me for not introducing myself sooner. My name is William. William Rex. I'd like to invite you to have dinner with us tonight. What is your name?"

Your knees buckle as you're released from his verbal commands, and you drop tot he ground, barely able to stand. You're visibly dazed. The pink-haired man comes alongside you, looking at the device in your hand, peering over your shoulder. "And what IS that thing?" he motions to your phone.

"...." You slowly look to him, and give him a questioning look. His question is so outrageous it's ripping you out of your mental shock. "... It's a phone..?"

"Doesn't look like anything I've ever seen.." The even-toned, deep-voiced man with the rifle expresses, curiously.

"You'll have to tell us more over dinner." William kneels beside you, holding a hand out to you. He doesn't command you. He's practically asking you to come along, like you didn't just witness something horrific and somehow magically had your body controlled against your will.

When you stare at him in quiet shock, visibly perturbed by the idea of taking his outstretched hand, eyes darting between his eyes and his bloodstained glove, your heart sinks.

You're surrounded, and there's no getting out of this.

William can sense your hesitation, and he he begins to ask questions about you, redirecting your attention to talking about yourself. You're wary and not wanting to comply, but he doesn't force you like he did to make you come into the room. They stand around, patiently waiting for you to get your story out as William calms you down. It's like they have all the time in the world.

At your own pace, you explain your circumstance to the men, and how you got here. As they hear your story, William's eyes can't help but to light up as he watches you. But all of the men appear to be surprised, and intrigued.

"I promise, if you just help me find my way out of here, I didn't see anything-"

"Ooh, it's much too late for that now." William smiles, almost apologetically. "There's someone who will want to meet you."

Despite your protests, you're brought along and taken to their base of operations.

---

You didn't expect the horse-drawn carriage. Or for the block to look so... Different than it did when you came out of the mansion. It's the first clue that you're not where you're meant to be. The city in the distance looks completely different too. This isn't the city you've been exploring all day, this is something older. The buildings look different, both newer and older. There used to be a building with lots of windows out front, but now it's just.. Small shops?

Except that doesn't make sense. One moment, you were taking a tour, then you were following a white rabbit, and now the world is different around you. None of this makes any sense. You wrack your head as you stare out the window of the carriage. Did you bump your head? Have you gone crazy? Are you in a dream?

It's too vivid to be a dream.

Maybe you're crazy. It'd be easier to swallow if you'd gone mad. Maybe they'll let you go if they think you're crazy too.

What's weird is that they didn't take your phone from you. Kidnappers would take your phone, right? You look to it repeatedly, and you've gotten zero bars this entire ordeal. And now you're going further into what looks like the countryside. You're even being allowed to see the entire route to get out here. Why wouldn't captors take your phone? Wouldn't they cover your head to keep you from knowing where they work and how to get back?

One of the men in the carriage is eyeing you as you peruse your phone. It's a touch-screen. "... What a curious device."

You glance up to see a man with dark hair and a weary smile on his face. Like he's tired. Too tired. He smiles warmly to you. There's a blonde man sitting at his side who looks almost picturesque. Like someone hand-crafted his face. You look back to your phone. "...."

The dark-haired man taps the windowsill of the carriage, causing you to look up again, and he motions to the castle coming up in the view. "We've arrived. This could be the place where your life ends, the root of all evil - Or rather, our base." He's still smiling as he says this.

You look up to see the castle and it's astounding how beautiful and dark it looks in this lighting.

You knew you made a mistake following them into the carriage. You were just so thrown off by how the whole street looked different from when you arrived, that your brain went into auto-pilot, and you let these strangers cart you away.

Now you might die here. The word 'Might' is pulling a lot of weight in giving you a sliver of hope in this whole ordeal.

".. Is this real?"

"Unfortunately, yes. It's neither a dream, nor an illusion. It's what you may call the harsh, inescapable reality." His words ring out in your mind. This is not a dream, this is reality. Something tickles at your mind and you harshly find yourself rejecting it.

"This can't be real." Your answer causes him to chuckle, but you can see sadness in his eyes as he does.

"If you want to believe in a sweet dream, who am I to deny it?"

---

As you walk up to the castle, the curious pink-haired man comes up alongside you, asking a million questions about your phone. You show him the device, explaining it to him, confused. It really is like he's never seen one in his life before. When he sees that moving pictures can show up on the screen, and that you can interact with it by touch, he wants to learn everything he can about it.

You're hesitant to hand him your phone, as it's the only contact with the outside world that you might have, wherever you're going - But you do choose to open up a game on your phone to show him what it looks like. He's practically glued to your side as he watches you play, learning about this game. He's overflowing with excitement to get to see something so novel to him.

But you don't understand why he's so enthralled. Everyone here should know that phones exist, shouldn't they?

One look around at the prying eyes stealing glances at your phone tells you that they likely don't. While the pink-haired man is the most curious, the gruff man with black and white hair also keeps stealing looks towards your device.

---

A bright, excited, celebratory man's voice calls out as you and the men enter into what looks like a dining room, and there's the distinct popping sound of a party popper. You blink, confused. Is this how assassins typically celebrate their kills? His eyes rest on you. "Oh..? Who is this?"

"This is ___. They just happened to be at the target's mansion." William explains. "They appear to have technology that's strange and different, and the story they told us was quite interesting."

"Wow! What a.. Fateful coincidence!" The dining room man with dark, long hair looks to you curiously.

"You don't even know the half of it." William chuckles, then looking to you. "___, this is Victor. He serves as Her Majesty's personal aide."

..... What?

You stare in complete shock, not sure what to do. Surely, these guys are just fucking with you at this point, right? Your mind refuses to believe any of this could be real. It has to be some kind of twisted dream mashing up everything you'd interacted with that day. You must have bonked your head without realizing it, and will be waking up any moment in a hospital or something.

This can't be real.

Victor walks you through your experiences with the group, and asks questions about how you came to find them.

When you explain that you were on a tour group for the building and then you followed a rabbit down a hallway and found yourself lost, his expression shifts to earnest surprise as he only has one question; "What color was the rabbit?"

".. White?"

"...." Victor glances to the group, who all appear to have the same thought as there's nods all around. He looks back to you. "Do you have anything from the tour?"

You nod and rifle through your backpack, producing the tour guide - And your notes from the tour. "This was the tour I was on, and those were my notes."

He begins reading through the tour guide, intrigued. The dates and comments in it are intriguing him the most. Accompanied by the quality of the paper and the print on it. He's never seen anything like this, or any machines that can produce this quality of work. When he gets to your notes, however, he's even more impressed. "... And what year would you say this is?"

"----...?" you say the year you came from, visibly confused.

"......." Victor looks to the cocky guy from before who has been staring at your eyes as you speak. He gives Victor a nod. "... Fascinating. Well, ___, I think this might have actually been an incident of fate."

"...?" You look to him questioningly.

Victor reaches into his jacket pocket and produces another party popper, which he'd stashed just in case the first one failed, and he pulls the popper, letting out a loud sound and spraying confetti at you with a bright smile; "You're cursed!"

You stare at him in exhausted silence.

He coughs and straightens up to explain; "You see, we all here are cursed. You're familiar with fairytales, yes?"

"... Yeah?"

"Fairytales, stories, they all hold some tokens of truth to them, I would say. We each are cursed with a fairytale curse, which binds our destinies to a dark and turbulent path. I think you've got the curse of 'Alice'!"

"....." You look even more exhausted than before. Are they going to kill you, or induct you? Is this a cult? Have you been abducted by a death-cult?

"... I see you must have many questions. Please, feel free to ask away."

".. What is this 'Curse of Alice'..?"

"It's a term I just came up with right now!" Victor beams proudly. "I've never heard of someone with a curse like yours. Jumping through time to completely different realms.. Hahh.. That must be such a fascinating experience!"

".. Jumping through time?"

"The year at this time is 1886."

"......" You shake your head. "Nah. I don't believe that. Nope. That's just not true. Look, I know you guys murdered someone tonight, if you could skip the mind games and just kill me, that'd be appreciated."

Victor laughs, shaking his head. "Oh no, no. We can't kill you, we'll need to study you."

"Oh, absolutely not."

You hear a voice behind you, the gentle voice; "Should we kill them then?" You peer back and lock eyes with the gentle expression of Ellis. The dark-haired guy who told you that you couldn't escape and coaxed you deeper into the room where the murder happened. He stares at you in almost.. a vacant kind of way. "I don't think it would make them happy, but if you ask me to, I will." He seems to be addressing Victor as he says this.

"..." You turn your attention back to Victor. "So uh, what kinds of experiments are we talking about here?" wanting to avoid the outcome that points at death.

"We'll need to thoroughly understand your curse, which means we'll have to keep you under surveillance. And you'll have to work with our resident medical professional, Roger."

You follow Victor's motion to meet Roger. Your voice is completely disturbed as you flatly say; "... Nice to meet you, Doc."

"Oh, I'm not a doctor. My license was revoked." He gives you a big smirk.

You immediately look back to Victor; "... Please kill me instead."

"Is that what you truly want?" William asks, eyeing you with interest. Something deep inside him is intrigued by how his curse reacts to yours. He wants to guide you. He wants to know you. He wants to watch you come apart.

"...." You grimace as you realize they're taking your jokes literally. "... No. I'm just frustrated. And I don't want to be experimented on."

"Might be more careful about voicing such false desires." William motions behind you and you turn to see Ellis has gotten right up behind you without you noticing. You visibly startle at how close he is, and the soft-spoken man just smiles warmly to you with his dark purple eyes.

You feel a shudder run down your spine as you feel like your body just narrowly escaped death in this moment. You turn back to William. "... I'll keep that in mind."

Victor takes charge again; "You must have a lot of questions about us. Go ahead and ask away."

"... The thing is, you've read that guidebook now, so even if I asked if this was the murder of 1886, you'd know that you could say 'yes' to cover it up. I don't know if you're on a power trip and you're just messing with my head because you can, or if you're actually telling the truth. It's impossible for me to know." You explain everything. "And honestly, I'm not entirely sure that I'm not just crazy. That'd explain this whole thing so much more. I'm going to wake up in a hospital bed and discover I slipped and fell on those old tiles or something. I just know it."

The cocky man from before smiles as you speak. He likes how little you trust them. It's a good sign that you'll make a good partner in their line of work.

"Patient exhibits delusions of fantasy." Roger is already making notes. You shoot him an annoyed look. He grins to you.

You look back to Victor. "None of this seems real. Can you somehow prove that it's real?"

"You experienced a curse firsthand tonight." Roger motions to William.

The gruff man with the annoyed expression scowls at Roger, admonishing him for spilling 'state secrets'.

William just smiles to you and nods. "Yes, cursed people have special abilities, and you experienced mine earlier tonight. I can command people to do anything I want them to, just with my voice."

You're reminded of when your body moved on its own at his command. That feels real, but you're still not sure. "... Do it to me again."

William raises an eyebrow at you, curious. His lips wear a smile, but he's interested to help you believe that this is reality. So he holds his hands upwards, as though beckoning you into his arms. "Dance with me."

Your body moves on its own once more. You're pulled into his arms, taking up the position as the lead in a dance you've never learned before. You're visibly shocked and surprised. William dances with you around the room, amidst the circle of onlookers, before he releases you from his control.

You can feel that heaviness from before overtake you once again, except this time it's much less intense. You were a willing participant in this command. The more he has to overwrite your will, the more energy it must take to control you. You're still lightheaded though, as you spin out of the dance, visibly dazed. ".... Okay. I'll believe that. If that's the case though, then what's MY power?"

"Well, isn't that the question of the hour." Victor grins to you again. "It seems you can travel through time, though not at your own choice, which is a fascinating problem. Might be quite the handful keeping an eye on you. Just don't go following any white rabbits while you're here, alright?"

"Where IS here?"

"This is the headquarters of Crown, the root of all evil in England. Where we fight evil with evil. The cursed carve a path for goodness to survive in this world, and we learn more about the curses as we do." Victor begins to explain to you about Crown's operational code.

".. Evil?" Your tone is audibly skeptical.

Liam, the pink-haired man, speaks up now; "Yes, cursed people are doomed to commit evil and meet a tragic end." He smiles warmly to you. Much too warmly for the subject matter. "For example, when someone has the Cat's Curse, they can't suppress their curiosity. Ever heard of 'Curiosity killed the cat'?"

"But satisfaction brought him back - Yeah, I'm familiar."

Liam is pleased that you're familiar, but his eyes get a little sad as he looks to the side; "Well.. Satisfaction doesn't always bring the cat back. I have the Cat's Curse at this time. According to the records, the person who received the Cat's Curse before me dabbled in all sorts of horrific things. Arson, robbery, self-mutilation, adultery.. All to satisfy his own curiosity. He was tortured and had his limbs torn off, but still, he laughed through the tears and screams escaping him to laugh "This is a great new first for me!" before throwing himself into a bath of sulfuric acid."

You shudder at his story. It would make a great scary story to tell around a campfire.

Roger speaks up now, looking to you in the eyes. "If you truly do have a curse, which I think you do, then the safest place for you will be right here, with experts who know how to deal with such things, who can understand if you begin to do evil things."

"... I haven't had any evil impulses."

"Really?" Alfons, the man with the tired eyes, smirks to you. "Trespassing.. Leaving your tour group behind to follow a little rabbit into places you knew were off-limits.. The need to tell people when you think they're wrong even if it makes things worse.. Following a group of strangers into a vehicle to an undisclosed location.. Do you think these are the actions of someone who wants to be a law-abiding citizen?"

"......." The curse definitely would explain a lot of your behavior today. Though you've always followed things that catch your eye. "... If that's true though, then why now? Why did this happen now, instead of when I was a kid?"

"It's possible that it did happen to you when you were young, and you just didn't know." Victor explains, looking to you empathetically. It's not every day that someone finds out they're cursed and doomed to tragedy.

"..." Your nose scrunches up as you think through your memories. You did wander a lot as a kid. You still wander a lot. It would definitely explain some things. "... Don't like that."

"Not many people do. I'm sorry we had to be the ones to tell you."

"So what's this about fighting evil with evil?"

"You saw that in action tonight as well. We killed that man."

You think back on how the man died. It looked like a suicide. Your eyes meet William's, and he just gives you a warm, knowing smile and a soft nod. You shudder. ".... Why?"

They explain how the man was a key figure in some horrific underground organizations. The list of his 'sins' as dictated in your notes wasn't even half of the things he actually was 'sentenced' for, and the list was already pretty bad.

They go on to explain that cursed people are often regarded as dangerous and evil, but England is, at this time, the only place which has organized and nationally recognized them and their potential. That 'Crown' is an organization of cursed individuals, and everyone in this room is cursed. They go into the hearts of the most evil places in this country where police and military cannot touch, to wreak havoc and disrupt evil.

Victor explains that, because the nature of cursed people is to commit evil acts, this organization is meant to allow them to do that without fear of punishment, so long as their evils benefit the country.

And now, as a cursed individual who has seen this organization and knows what it's capable of, they have to make a decision about how to deal with you.

"We'll need to study you, that's certain.. But hmm.." Victor wonders out loud. His mind returns to your notes. They were very well taken. "... Do you like writing, perchance?"

".... Yeah."

"Then I think I have a solution~! While you're stuck in this time period, you shall be our fairytale keeper!" He's very pleased with himself. "You had wonderful prose and writing in your notes from what I saw, so I have every belief that you can write something worthy of using as our reports to Her Majesty. You'll write all the evil deeds committed by the people here, including yourself, and write them as fairytales. How does that sound?"

"That sounds like a fake job."

"I just designed it right now, isn't that exciting?" Victor's eyes dance with excitement.

- "It feels like you're just trying to avoid doing more paperwork.." The cocky man gives Victor a sideways glance.

His insinuation isn't stopping Victor's excitement train. "Well, what do you say, ___?"

".. If I say no, are you gonna keep me against my will anyway?"

"Naturally. You know too much and will still need constant supervision."

"And will saying 'yes' and doing this job for you at least give me some kind of freedom in this arrangement, and a chance to earn your trust that I won't go spilling your secrets?"

"Of course."

"Then I guess I'm on-board."

Victor claps his hands excitedly. "This calls for a celebration! Our cursed little family just got a little bigger tonight~! Now, let's get you acquainted with your new home. This calls for a tour!"

...

You really hate tours. -----

End

-----

Next Chapter ----- If you like this chapter, you can stay easily updated when more chapters come out via AO3;Link All of my other random off-shoots for this fandom will also be posted there under "The Curse of Alice - A Collection" series. Thank you for reading!

3 notes · View notes