[Winter Contest Entry 2016] A World Without You

Alice thrashed through the streets desperate to cling on to whatever sanity she had left. She wasn’t tired, nor hungry, nor thirsty. She felt no pain as she slammed her hand on the glass wall of a store front, which shattered and came crashing down onto Alice. The shards that rained down relentlessly cut away at Alice who stood dumbfounded. She felt no pain.

“What the hell is going on?” Alice was brought to her knees as tears began to form. She brought her arm back and looked at her open shaking hands filled with a mix of blood and glass. She squeezed her hands and watched the blood and glass began to flow like a shimmering stream that joined into the ocean of sparkling blood left at Alice’s feet. And then, with the blink of an eye, everything returned to normal. The glass, the blood, and the building were all restored as if nothing had happened.

Alice could only imagine that this was a dream – a nightmare. Everything was frozen. The people, the buildings and objects, and even the sky seemed unmoving. Alice could affect the things around her to some extent, but it almost seemed like the world around her would not tolerate being broken for too long. The grass she walked on, the glass that she broke, the blood and tears that shed from her body, would all be restored, but her mind would not. Alice became increasingly distraught. Despite not feeling physical fatigue, every moment that passed and every action she took slowly drove her closer to madness.

It was hours before Alice decided to sit down, tired of breaking things down and hoping to meet someone. She chose a bench at a park that overlooked the frozen sunset. There were people around, but as she had expected, none of them moved or talked. She absentmindedly looked into the sunset, and with a pounding headache that sent shockwaves through her mind, she forcibly closed her eyes, slouched against the bench and nodded off into a slumber after what felt like an eternity to her.

The sun was still in the same place when she woke as were the people. She had no way of knowing how long she’d slept, but the pounding headache that she had before was gone, so it must have at least been a while. She got up from the bench and stretched and yawned.

Did people still need to do these things even when not physically tired? She thought to herself.

She looked around hoping that something had changed, and it didn’t take her long to find that something.

“Holy shit! Who are you?!” She shouted with a mix of relief and shock at the man who sat on the other end of the bench she’d been sitting on. He looked like he was in his late twenties or early thirties and wore a clean business suit with a blue-and-white striped tie. He looked nice, though his black hair was slightly disheveled. He looked familiar, as if he was an acquaintance, but she left that aside for now.

A great many questions flooded Alice, but first and foremost she was simply glad that someone else was here. Without waiting for an answer to her first question she spoke again with sincere gratitude, “J-Just let me tell you though. I’m so glad you’re here – that somebody is here.”

“Well, it’s nice to meet you Alice.”

“Wait, how do you know who I am?” She asked confused.

“Where do I begin?” The man was calm, and that unnerved Alice. She wondered how anyone could be any less than hysterical in this situation, but she waited to hear what he had to say.

“Okay, well simply put, this world is frozen because of you.”

“Because of me? What did I do?” Alice was a university student who lived an apartment studying medicine. She had some friends and her grades were okay. She thought she lived a fairly normal life, and definitely didn’t do anything to warrant this situation.

“I see you don’t remember. You were about to destroy this world. It was about to close at your hands, so I was brought to stop you.”

“Wait, so you’re like a god or something?”

“No. The name’s Chris. I guess it’s something like my job to show you around. I’m surprised you don’t remember me though.”

The name Chris jolted her memory. He was a friend that was in the same grade as her in high school. He didn’t join any clubs, but he was always in the gym after school to play basketball. His grades were top notch, and he was on good terms with everyone. And like everyone else, Alice was no exception.

“Oh from high school! I didn’t recognize you. How’ve- no wait, this isn’t the time for that. What are you doing here?”

“Like I said, I’m supposed to show you around. I’ve been here once.”

“So… uh,” Alice stood still waiting anxiously for Chris to speak.

“Right right, anyways, I don’t know who brought us here, but I do know why, and how to get out. Everyone who gets thrown in here tries to destroy the world. I know, that sounds absurd, but it’s true or that’s what I understand at least. There are a couple or rules here, some I’m sure you know of already.” Chris stood up and kicked over a trash can next to the bench that spilled some of its contents onto the floor.

“First, everything in this world will always restore to the state that it’s in now, and that includes our bodies.” As he said that, Alice sated at the trash can, and in an instant it reverted to standing by the bench with the trash on the floor also gone. It was not as if things were reversing, it was simply that the trashcan was once in one place and then instantly teleported back.

“Two, you have to find out why you wanted to destroy the world to get out of here.”

Chris paused for a second before continuing with a heavy voice, “And lastly, you only have 24 hours before the both of us die here.”

“Wait are you serious? What the fuck.” Alice had so much to say to Chris, and now her questions had doubled.

“I’m serious.” His voice was piercing cold. Alice could tell this was no time for games. He turned his back to Alice and began to walk across the park grass.

“Wait! Where are you going!?”

“Follow me, we’ve got some distance to cover before we get there. You can ask questions along the way.”

Flustered and confused she followed behind him.

“So where are we going?” Alice stammered out, still shaken from the things Chris had said.

“You’ll see. How are you feeling by the way?”

“Uh, I’m fine.” What a ridiculous question she thought before she continued, “So how did you get out of here the first time? Who showed you around?”

“A friend of mines was here. His name was Peter. We ended up at a bridge where the two of us talked about some things.”

Alice thought Chris’ voice was almost bitterly kind and gentle when he said that. She didn’t want to pry, but she had to.

“What things did you talk about?” They’d gotten out of the park and entered the streets of the city.

Chris began talking about his time here. He talked to Peter about various things. He talked about his job in engineering, about how his favorite football team was doing, about what games he was excited to play. Chris went on about all kinds of frivolous things that the two talked about before they stopped at a hospital building.

Alice could not wrap her head around what Chris was saying. Why is he fucking with me? There’s no way he spent his time like that. Even if he did, how does that solve anything?

“Here we are. Let’s go in.” He opened the door letting Alice go in first.

“Is that all you did to get out here? Just talk?” She said in an incredulous voice, annoyed at what he’d told her. “And why are we at the hospital?”

“You need to see first. Just follow. And yeah, that’s all I did. Though, I suppose Peter was the one keeping the conversation moving.”

“I went to sleep though! You said we only have 24 hours right? How do I know how much time we have left?”

“We’ve got about 2 hours left, don’t worry.”

“Two hours!?” Alice exclaimed stopped in her footsteps. “We need to get out of here Chris or we’re going to die! Can’t you do something?”

Ignoring her, Chris kept walking, taking the flight of stairs that was next to the elevator.

“Fine.” Alice wanted to walk of and scream, but Chris was the only thing she had at the moment, and if he was telling the truth, then she really had no choice but to follow.

“So tell me about yourself. What’s been going on?” Chris asked nonchalantly to Alice as if catching up with an old friend.

“Unbelievable. You are actually asking this right now. Okay fine, things have been going very well,” She said sarcastically while throwing up her hands as the two had already passed the 2nd floor.

“Come on Alice, you’re a friend. Least you could do is kill some time talking.”

She sighed deeply, “Okay… fine. Things are going well. Well they were I should say. I’m in medical school right now. It’s tough, and I had to take out a massive loan, but I’m doing okay. I still hang with a couple people though I’ve been busy lately. Oh and I live by myself in an apartment. It’s like 20 minutes from the school.”

“Well that’s nice. You’ve got a boyfriend yet?”

Blindsided by the question, Alice’s face flustered as Chris glanced over his shoulder at her. “Of course not! Like I said, I’m busy okay? I don’t have time for a boyfriend.

Chris laughed and Alice glared and pouted. “Okay, I get it. Calm down.”

The two of them talked about various things. Alice talked about the games she’d heard of, and the research she was doing. She was excited about going to Europe one day, and about how well her own favorite football team was doing. As the two of them spoke, the long climb up the stairs seemed to pass in a blink of an eye to Alice.

“How far up are we going anyways?” Alice asked, suddenly feeling much lighter. They’d already passed the 6th floor. All that’s left was the 7th floor and roof.

Chris stopped at a door and proudly declared, “Here we are, the 7th floor.”

The two of them walked inside, with Alice still following Chris. She been here once before when she got into a car accident, so the area was slightly familiar. Her memory was foggy though, as she hadn’t visited ever since, including for her studies.

“Isn’t this the intensive care floor? What are we doing here?”

This time, Chris didn’t respond and kept walking down the hall. The two of them walked with a heavy silence between them. Alice knew that something was coming and there was little time left.

Chris stopped at a door and knocked. There was no answer, but he opened anyways. “Let’s go,” he said this time with a stern voice.

Alice prepared herself. She wondered what could possibly be in there. Is it me? My mom? Someone I know? What does it even matter? She thought.

Inside were all kinds of monitors and several stands filled with liquid standing around. A TV was situated in the corner, and a desk full of papers and textbooks opposite of the empty bed. The sheets were ruffled, and there was a set of hospital clothes that laid onto on the bed.

“So why are we here?” Alice said slowly as she walked around the room stopping at the desk and glancing at the papers.

Chris might have replied, but Alice could no longer hear anything other than the screeching pangs that invaded her mind when she looked at the papers. She winced in pain, but flipped through the notes viciously throwing them about while glancing at them. All of them were hers. The handwriting was definitely hers. These were all notes that she’d recently written in class.

“Chris! What’s going on here?! These are mines! These papers and these textbooks are mines.” She spoke in a rushed voice holding up the papers towards Chris.

“Yeah those are yours. This is where you were just before you decided to end the world. No, before you decided to end your world.”

Something inside of Alice’s head pounded and she was brought to her knees. “No! No!” She said again and again, starting quietly and increasingly in both intensity and frequency by the second. It didn’t take long before she was screaming at the memories that flooded into her. Her trembling hands gripped her head and she latched onto it as if trying to squeeze something out.

She felt like the world was beginning to shift and that the nightmare was ending. Her vision was blurred and she could see splashes of white. The scenery changed, and some moment she was screaming, clutching her papers on the hospital floor, and the next she was midair in free fall looking at the concrete floor and the people silently screaming below her. Just before she hit the floor, she turned her head to see the hospital, with the window to the 7th floor open. Then she closed her eyes.

“Alice! Alice!” Chris violently shook her grabbing hold of her shoulder.

“Chris.” The final moments of her life had just replayed in her mind. “I’m dead aren’t I?” She spoke with a broken voice and tears in her eyes.

“No, you’re not dead yet.”

“But I saw myself! I’m… I’m dead!”

“You’re not going to die Alice! Listen to me, we don’t have much time left. Someone told me about this world and how it works, but that's not important right now. Do you remember that time you called out to me by the bridge freshman year? It was the middle of December and school was out. You said you were taking a walk and you found me there? We talked about all kinds of stupid things. About games, and football, and about my job! That wasn’t Peter, don’t you remember? And then…”

He paused and looked at Alice who was kneeling in horror and confusion, but still trying to listen to Chris’ frantic cries. Then, he cradled Alice’s head in his arms in an embrace. “I told you about how I was going to jump. I told you I was sick of everything. I lived in a shit house that was flooded in debt, all the pressure I’d put on myself had driven me over the edge. I was tired, I was exhausted, but you hugged me and told me that you didn’t understand, but…”

He let go of Alice to look at her in the eyes. The roles had reversed. In realization. Alice looked at Chris with sympathy as she remembered what he was talking about. Chris’ tears blurred his vision even as he clumsily tried to wipe them several times before giving up.

“You told me that you would miss me, Alice. And right there, I decided that maybe that was enough for me to live.” He smiled at Alice. It was genuine smile, but it was filled with sadness and a desperate quivering to try and convince Alice.

“Do you know why you jumped Alice?”

She nodded her head. She remembered it all now. She was once in a car accident which landed her in the hospital, but during her stay here, she got much worse news than she expected. She had to undergo surgery that would be too risky for the doctors to advise in good faith. But, she did it anyways, and made it out barely alive. The 7th floor wasn’t intensive care though. In this hospital, the 7th floor was hospice. The doctors did everything to make her comfortable while still providing the intensive care she needed to monitor her. Several months had passed and her condition was still unstable, but that didn’t bother her.

Alice realized while staying here that no one cared. She was an only child, only her mother was alive, and her relatives were distant. Her friends didn’t seem to know she even went missing, and her mother stopped visiting after the first month without notice. Everyone she contacted seemed to worry, but everyone eventually forgot about her. After spending her time in solitude for some months, she decided that maybe it wasn’t worth it. It was like everyone she knew became a stranger, and that scared her.

“I know Alice, I know why you jumped too. But let me tell you, I love that you want to help others. You get excited about games you don’t play, and even though your team sucks, I love that you still cheer for them.” Chris wiped his tears one last time to look squarely at Alice.

“Alice, if you die, I’m going to miss you. Is that enough? When I had heard about what happened to you, it was too late. But, I have a chance now. Someone somewhere gave me another shot to save you here. And this is the best I could do. Please…”

As he finished, the building they were in began to shake. The building became unstable and the ceiling and floor began to cracks. Alice knew what this meant.

She embraced Chris one last time and whispered, “Yeah, it’s enough Chris.” She let go and smiled and just as the two were falling through the floor, she shouted, “My team is going to make it! Just like I am!”

Then, she blinked, and she found herself lying on a hospital bed. She sat up, saw the papers on the desk, and hobbled out of bed looking for a way to tell the day. She grabbed her phone that was on a far counter and checked. It was December 26th, the day that had frozen, and the day she had died. Then, she dialed a phone number she hadn’t called in many years.

“Hey Chris, did you miss me?” Alice could hear the sobbing over the phone.

“Yeah, I sure did Alice. I wouldn't want a world without you.”

I think you could probably delete this. It doesn't feel necessary.



This confuses me. It's mentioned above that there are people around, so what does Alice mean by having someone else there?

The beginning is meant to be confusing, it throws us in the middle of things, but I think it might be a little more confusing than was intended. I do however like the story.



Fantasy comes in a lot of different varieties. A story doesn't need to have elves, dwarfs, and dragons to be considered fantasy.

Prose needs work.

The idea is completely fine, I think it’s one of the better ones here. What you need to work on is how you convey that idea.

It’s a little hard to explain. At the moment, it just feels a little uneven everywhere. You’ve got some parts that are too info dumpy, some parts that are not info-dumpy enough. The beginning especially, took me a while to figure out what was going on. The first 200 or so words are key. You can’t have your reader get confused, or they will give up. If I were not a judge, I would have stopped in the first paragraph, with the clunky repetition of Alice three times. The central idea, the filling is good. You just need to wrap it up nicely.

(The following is purely my opinion)



My advice for you is similar to my advice for Masayoshi, though at a higher †˜level’. Your prose needs to evolve, and I can’t help with that. Once you start expressing ideas more clearly, you can go a long way. The dialogue needs work to become more realistic and more evenly paced, as does the description.

I see. I do think that d's writing is absolutely great because he does what he does well. I'll have see see what I can take from him. Thanks for the advice!

And I agree with you about my prose and execution. I think I knew once I submitted, but now that people have said so, it makes it very clear that I've got a lot to work on. Hopefully next time I put out a better product.

Very sappy, but very pleasant. A good ending from you is unexpected, but it sure is welcome. The cameo of Peter was interesting as well. This was very reminiscent of The Girl Who Leapt Through Time, although that had a little bit more science in it. Still, this had an interesting premise and it was pleasing to see a bit of the supernatural force through the ethereal dream connected the two in her time asleep. I’m happy to see it worked out and happy to have read it since you managed to get it in.

About the writing itself, there are a few questionable typos and mistakes you probably might have avoided with enough time to review it. It’s a shame that you worked right up to and after the deadline, but I can’t overlook them because of that fact since it would be unfair. Check over my fixes so you’re aware of them. Splendid entry overall and yet again. It was quite sweet and enjoyable.



began







of



"Stared," I imagine. Added comma.



"What the fuck" is a question and needs a question mark.



Comma.



Comma. Period.



Mine.



Keep consistent if you’re going to use numerals or words for numbers under ten.

Also, added "and" and two commas.



Off.



A comma comes before the subject one is addressing. Without that, the sentence can mean different things.



Two commas.



Comma.



Comma. End quote.



I believe it's "in the blink of an eye."



Comma.





Comma.



Mine. Mine.



Comma.



I tried to improve this sentence with these fixes. I know what you mean, but maybe a rewrite is in order.





Comma.



Comma.





Added "a." Replaced "Alice" with "her" since you just mentioned her.



Comma.



I would add a comma.



Comma. Once again "I know Alice" is not "I know, Alice."



Crack.



Comma.



Comma.



Comma.