When one is locked away for a long period of time (3 days), one will start to realize that the ideas of vengeance are far tastier than food, more thirst quenching that any beverage. It became all you needed to keep going. My mother did eventually come to get me, releasing too much light too quickly for my dilated eyes to handle. She yanked me from my prison and I came face to face with Alice and the doll, reborn into all of its original splendor. “Apologize Emily, for what you have done,” my mother told me harshly. Leering at the 3 of them I replied, “I apologize, please excuse me.” I hurried to my room and flopped on my bed, head lodged deep in the pillow. ‘Yes, yes, yes!’ I thought to myself, ‘It’s all finally going to be over.’

As Alice cantered down the sidewalk one afternoon, I watched her. Hidden in the bushes and shrubs from the view of all. Her she comes. In her pink and red baby doll dress with ribbons in her hair and her Mary Janes scuffling against the street. Closer. Closer. Come now, closer. She was coming. I was waiting. Closer. I waited. A little more. She was almost here. I lurched out and grabbed her, pulling her into the bushes with me. I drug her on her back into the yard; she wriggled and writhed the entire time. Tried to bite. Tried to spit. Her little dress soiled. Oh well! Once in the security of our own yard, it was time. Time to fix it, time to end, time. I released her only to hear “You’re crazy! You’re crazy!” She began to howl wildly for Mother when I snatched the doll from her hand. Lifting far above my head, I brought the doll down with such force upon her face I drew a small amount of blood. But that wasn’t enough. I needed more! Again I relentlessly beat her. I found myself unable to stop despite her cries and moans. Crack! I heard it. I had broken her nose. Well, it was a start. I smacked her in rapid succession, crushing her beautiful face.

Dead. Dead. I knew. But I didn’t stop. I continued to hit the unmoving corpse, until my senses somehow regained themselves. I looked the body over. Her face was mangled, bludgeoned beyond all hope. The blood stained her dress. Her fingers were bent, suggesting she clawed at me in order to protect herself, which she had. I casually gave the body a little shove. No reaction. Dead at last.

Something in me snapped. ‘Oh no! No! No! No! What have I done?’ I panicked! Suddenly my malicious thoughts had fled and reality set in. ‘What have I done?’ You did what needed to be done. I heard a voice inside me say. I listened to it, becoming instantly pacified. Rid yourself of the body. Oh yes! I couldn’t just leave a dead body in our yard. And the waste disposal man had already been by; a week was too long to wait. Wait! I looked and saw the new room Daddy was building onto the house. Grabbing her ankles, I towed her behind me. Once inside the room, I began to get to work. Daddy had showed me and I had observed how to lay down the wood of the floor. With hammer in hand, I pulled up some of the floorboards. Just enough for something small to squeeze through. I rolled the body over and into to the grave I had created for it. Remembering what I was carrying, I chucked the doll in there too. Carefully, being sure to match them exactly, I laid the floorboards in place and nailed them down. My deed was done. I was satisfied.