Catheriney2004: Ok, guys, so this is my first story on , alright? Hope you guys all like it. Please review! I wrote this all myself!

WORDS CAN KILL

Prologue: Introduction

Alice had always been a rather queer girl. She'd had curly, black hair that cascaded down her bony back like the ocean waves, and inquiring, silvery-grey eyes that seemed to look right through you. Her skin shone white like the winter moon, and her limbs had always been rather lanky and overly-long – But then again, what high school girls weren't that way? So her strangeness wasn't really that she looked funny, or even that she acted strangely; it was simply what happened to the girl that was unnatural. So this is her story, and why Alice Quaint isn't around anymore.

Chapter One: Words Can't Kill, Can They?

It all started on a breezy winter night, when the moon was still high in the dark sky, and the stars still twinkled dazzlingly in the pitch black night.

Alice Quaint was eating doughnuts.

She had been daintily nibbling on a small chunk of fried, sugary dough, when all of a sudden, she straightened up in her chair, and her long, elegant eyebrows furrowed slightly. She suddenly had gotten a notion.

She wasn't the only one in the room.

Alice's sixth sense had always been rather sharp (another queer thing about Alice), and she had always been able to tell whether she was alone or not in whichever room she happened to be in. She slowly turned her head, her raven-black hair drifting loosely on her thin shoulders, and looked mildly around the room.

It was almost 12:30 – Alice's usual midnight snack time - and she had not been accustomed to people barging into her usual peaceful nibble at midnight. She assumed that the new presence in the barren room had been their sleek black cat, Selena, prowling around for her usual midnight mouse.

Alice's eyes calmly searched the dark room, her pupils flitting about nervously in their sockets. She barely moved an inch through the process, making her look very much like a starving wolf that had just spotted its prey. Even her wavy hair sat still like ice.

Alice's sixth sense had never been wrong before (a very creepy thing about her), and she had not been expecting it to be wrong this time, either.

Oh, but it was.

She saw absolutely no one in the coal-black room, and even the moonlight did not reveal the shadows of another person as she pulled aside the curtains of the kitchen window. She stared skeptically around the eerie room, and even though it was a plain fact that had been placed right under her nose, she still flatly denied that her trusty sixth sense had been wrong. And, being the queer girl she was, she waved her hand underneath of her nose, as if to bat the fact away.

But it was the truth, and Alice had no choice but to give in. She finally gave in to her common sense and relented as she pulled her hair back behind her ear, as if rewarding herself with compensation. She felt a strange chill of foreboding make its way up her spine as she put her head in her arms, closed her eyes, and shivered slightly from the cold. Her curly, black hair rolled over her face, blocking out the moonlight shining from behind the forgotten curtains.

But as she drifted off to sleep, someone – or something – whispered a bone-chilling message into her ear.

"Be prepared to meet your death, Alice Quaint…it is closer than it seems…"

But Alice quietly ignored it, because she knew very well that words couldn't kill.

Or could they?

Chapter Two: Voices

A calm, black-haired girl sat nonchalantly at her desk, her raven-black hair cascading silkily over her well-ironed T-shirt. She earned many glances from the boys (as well as some of the girls), for her face was neither beautiful nor ugly. In fact, it was rather pretty. But at their high school, pretty people were feared by all others because of their rarity. Which was good, because the less people they feared (other than the teachers), the better.

A few minutes later, Alice had been surrounded by her two best friends – The math genius, Kate Falcon, and the artistic "freak," Grace Fidelity. They shared their troubles with each other, as they usually did, but when the bell rang, Alice still hadn't shared her strange little problem.

She was hearing voices.

It had started that night, when she had felt the strange presence during her midnight snack. The message it had delivered to her had been quite hostile, but compared to that morning, it was nothing. When she had been slipping on her favorite cameo shirt that morning, the voice had revisited her. The message that it sent her this time was:

"Death may be waiting at your door, Alice. Be prepared."

She had no idea why she had suddenly been visited by these strange spirits, but one thing was for sure:

They definitely didn't want her around.

At least, not in the living world.

That voice definitely knew who it was messing with, because the one thing that Alice feared was ghosts. And the only thing that scared her even more than that was going insane.

And hearing voices telling her she was going to die soon probably counted.

During her first period (which just happened to be English), Alice pondered quietly over this crazy problem, her pencil tapping continuously on her wooden desk, which irked the teacher to no end. But all of a sudden, just as the teacher was about to reprimand Alice for her continuous annoyance to the class, her pencil ceased its endless movement, and she was suddenly sitting stock still, her misty, gray eyes wide and disbelieving. The pencil that she had been holding fell to the floor in a noisy clatter, and the entire class, one by one, turned their heads to see what the teacher was staring at.

What they saw was a black-haired girl with silvery, dreamy eyes holding her hands tightly over her ears, eyebrows furrowed intensely, as if she were in great pain. Her eyes were as wide as hazelnuts, and full of an incomprehensible fear, as if she were seeing some sort of invisible horror. Her hands gripped tightly onto her wavy, raven-black curls, and she let out a small, strangled scream of fear. Uneasiness and fright swept through the classroom like a disease, and murmurs broke out between them. The rest of the class could hear her screams, but what they couldn't hear was this:

"You will live another day, Alice Quaint – but for no longer than that. We have come to claim your life, as many did before us…You will die…"

Chapter Three: A Cry for Help

The last three words echoed in Alice's head like a resounding drum in the canyons, and her eyes grew wider and wider until she looked as if she were about to explode. And she did. Well, at least, her vocal chords did.

A blood-curdling scream shattered the silent hallways, and the scratching pencils all skittered to a halt. All 500 students that attended Angst High raised their heads in shock at the strange sound, but none knew the reason for it.

Well, except for Alice herself.

She collapsed onto the ground, sending her desk and chair askew. Her hands were still clasped tightly over her ears, and she screamed over and over at regular intervals, as if someone unseen were whipping her over and over again with no rests in between. By now, all of her classmates were thoroughly spooked, and some of them had even taken to screaming, themselves. But then, suddenly, a few raspy, almost incomprehensible words escaped from between Alice's chapped lips.

"Help…Stop it…Please!"

And after briefly shrieking those last few words, Alice's continuous writhing and screaming abruptly stopped there. Her body fell limp on the tiled floor, and even her wild hair ceased its frantic movement. The only sign of life that she showed was her eyelids, which were squeezed tightly shut, as if in great pain. The rest of the class inched closer, as if approaching a tamed wild beast. But the teacher, on the other hand, picked up the phone and dialed:

"Nine…One…One…"

Chapter Four: Her Last Words

That night (ten hours later), Alice awoke in white hospital bed, her sheets pressed tightly over her body, as if to resist her constant movement as she slept. She gazed calmly around the room, as if in some sort of trance, her fingers beginning to curl around the smelly sheets, ready to throw them off. She got up from her bed, her silvery, misty eyes still faded in a strange fog, and she robotically walked to the door, placing her white hand firmly on the metal doorknob. She slowly turned the steel contraption in a straight-armed formation, and slowly proceeded to walk out the door, into hallways unknown. Only one thing was leading her to do what she was doing:

"Gather your friends."

That voice.

A white-clad figure glided swiftly down the streets of Montana, with long, black hair curling slightly around her ears, and tall, bony legs that were openly revealed by her strange hospital garments.

Yes, this definitely looked like a zombie floating down the streets of Montana at 9:00 at night.

And suddenly, when she reached the street named Glory Road, the zombie-like figure suddenly made a sharp turn onto the sidewalk of the Fidelity family. The figure silently picked up a large piece of rubble from the sidewalk, and threw it swiftly at the window that was the third to the left of the second floor. The stone flew silently past the bare maple tree, skimming the branches slightly, and crashed straight through the shining glass. The resulting sound was so loud that many of the neighborhood's lights flickered on. Ignoring the sudden brightness from the front window, the white-clad figure waited unflinchingly as Grace climbed out of the window, climbing down the tree that just happened to be stationed near her window. The first thing Grace said to the figure was,

"Alright, so what's the problem this time?"

It seemed as if this type of thing would happen any day, with her attitude, but it was simply that she was so used to her friend's strangeness that she didn't mind the garments or the arrival of her friend at all. What she didn't know was what her friend was hearing.

"Go to the park and die."

That voice.

They repeated this strange calling procedure with their other friend, Kate Falcon.

Soon, there were three tall, lanky figures heading down the road, straight to where the old town park was. The leading one with a long, flowing nightgown, and the other two with wool sweaters and dragging, flannel pants. Any stranger watching them would have believed that he was dreaming, for no locals in their right mind would ever head towards the park at night. There was no specific reason for this, but it was a well-known fact to all that the park was haunted by a possessed girl.

But, regardless, they were still going.

And, somewhere along that way, just as a black Jeep came driving down the street, the tall, white-clad figure turned abruptly to face her friends, and whispered something that, even to this day, no one understands:

"I'm just doing what they told me to."

And she jumped out in front of the passing car, her hair flying wildly in the cold, winter wind, and her arms spread out in a strange submissive stance. And for a moment, as the headlights of the passing car reflected into her eyes, all that saw her blank, gray eyes would have known what was wrong.

That voice.

There was barely time to think, for in a matter of seconds, blood had been splattered all over the concrete sidewalk, and the corpse of a mangled, pale body was lying on the grass, its limbs in all different unusual angles. The nose, eyes, and mouth of the body were all bleeding profusely, and there was a huge gash sliced over its forehead, like a bandanna of bloody tissue and flesh. And suddenly, as the two witnesses watched in pure horror, the corpse's rotted eyes opened, and its bloody mouth began to move in a murderous whisper.

"What did I do wrong?"

And it went limp again, the eyeballs spinning rapidly in their sockets, the lifeless pupils wide and rotting.
And those were the last words of Alice Quaint.

Epilogue: Why Did She Die?

For the next few years, Alice Quaint was barely remembered by others, and the subject of the dead, bloody corpse that had been lying on the park grass was barely brought up after a week of endless pondering over it.

So why did Alice Quaint die?

The truth is, she was never alive in the first place.

Alice Quaint had been an escaped prisoner from the underworld, after committing multiple major crimes during her first life. This explains her fear of ghosts, and also her fear of going crazy, for her previous life had been one of a maniac's. The voices described in this story are simply the devils that were sent after her - and as punishment, she was sentenced to a second death – but one of much blood and pain.

And so, Alice Quaint was sent forcefully back to the underworld, and her spirit was forever broken.

Do you want this to happen to you?

If not, then it would be smart to lead an honest life.

After all, this can happen to anybody.