Alice stood atop the dreamy Westermarck Head, her toes curling towards the concrete she stood on and her fingers coiled around the protective metal bars before her. Inhaling, she peered one hundred fifty-six feet downwards. Every window glistened as they reflected the sun’s playful rays, entrapping the Westermarck in a fantastical veil of romance and mythology; it marked the boundary between Alice and the pavement below, a much cruder material than the one she was currently positioned on. She observed the figures that populated this lower world: they scattered and scurried, each with its own pattern, resulting in a massive, pulsating body of ant-like creatures. None took notice of her. The ethereal Westermarck roof was simply casted above their terrestrial cognitions.

    Wind pulled Alice’s hair around, separating it from the warmth and familiarity of her physique. Her grip around the bars tightened, and she briefly closed her eyes. She knew that this comforting and whimsical height wouldn’t support her for long. She didn’t come for that. Today was the day she would break through the veil and return to the earth.

    Sweat crawled down her soft cheeks. Every fiber of her body tightened and tremored. She continued watching the vulgar lifeforms on the ground, thinking of their smallness and their sameness. Of course, if any of them were to see Alice, they would think of her as being small, but they would also, at the very least, take note of her astral location. Here, she was a being of the heavens, an angelic warrior holding supremacy with her stark white form. But would an angel warrior express fear when plummeting towards the profane realm of mortals? 

    Alice looked at her feet. She was no angel warrior; she was as mortal as any of the figures below her. The only real differences, she thought, were that she was invisible to the rest of them, and her own figure would become even more indecent once she reached the ground. After all, the Westermarck’s intrigue was not her own.

    She was an offering to the land. Nothing more, nothing less.

    Even in the face of her own species, she was miniscule. Redundant. Valueless. She was quartz in a sea of diamond. Her heart pumped only for her own sake. Amongst her peers, she was imperceptible. 

    Except to Ginger.

    Alice shook her head. 

    In the morning, she was Allie, who masked her eyes from the peaking daylight. At school, she was Lisa, a dandelion crushed underfoot. On the train, she was Lila, absorbed and engulfed into the nameless crowd. In her dreams, she was Alma, with a touch of Alison. But she was never just Alice.

    At least not to a select few people.

    Perhaps some of her peers weren’t as human as they initially seemed; they were more like wolves. Driven solely by anything carnal and carnivorous, their minds and stomachs were equally ravenous, enough to turn a flower into a sack of flesh and blood. They would rip into the sack, spilling the organs within, devouring whatever came into contact with their teeth. All that remained was a pool of blood, a sad attempt at life. However, among the rapacious beasts stood a single creature, calm and attentive. As the wolves filed out, it casted a gentle gaze towards the ruined sack, discerning every aspect of its ravaged body. Kneeling, it collected the remaining pieces, recreating the figure to the best of its ability.

    She couldn’t bring herself to avoid thinking of her: Ginger, the one who put her back together. 

    Alice was no longer looking downwards. Her pupils widened as she stared into the neverending sky. She felt as though her body was floating towards Heaven. It was a place she thought she would never reach.

    Ginger always held her hand when she asked. Ginger always protected her when she cried for help. Ginger always followed her whenever she was alone. Ginger always prevented the wolves from catching her. 

    “Always” was an overstatement. Wolves only become more vicious when left unfulfilled.

    One day, Ginger disappeared. After a few days, the wolves disappeared as well. Alice knew. She knew that the wolves would tear at Ginger’s flesh as well. She knew that they were hungry. She knew that Ginger was getting weaker and weaker. She knew that Ginger was in immense pain. So why couldn’t she protect her? Why did she ruin her own carcass?

    Alice’s body felt like a massive weight pulling her down. The stars gazed at her, drifting further away every second. Space itself revolted at the contours of her form, and reality became a distorted, dissonant harmony. Then she wondered what would happen if she just allowed herself to become a weight.

    Suddenly, the worlds shifted. What was once a microcosm exploded into a compelling conglomeration of light and energy, encasing all existence into an excited, oscillating phenomenon. Every individual segment coalesced into a single entity, a melody composed as the song of God. The cosmos rippled and writhed as the song echoed throughout the vastness of reality.

    Alice closed off all of her senses except her hearing, letting the song pervade every pore. As the melody softened, she extended her hand towards the clouds, the wind swirling around her fingertips. She inhaled, accepting the breath of Heaven into her mortal lungs. All of her veins and arteries pulsated warmly, enthralling her with a pure taste of nirvana. Slowly, her thoughts returned to her.

    If she fell, would she receive the exhilaration of Heaven? Would she be embraced by the angels? Would her essence once again be chaste? Or would she be torn asunder by devils, just as she had by wolves?

    The sun beamed down on the Westermarck roof, and the wind vanished without a trace. Not a single figure traversed on the terrain below. Alice ruminated as silence overtook the world.

    There was nothing left for her besides invisibility and wolves. If she stayed, she was doomed to either irrelevance or carnage. She had no one to fight for anymore. The rest of her life had only one course: endless despair.

    The empyrean image of Ginger reformed in her mind. She remembered her failure to protect her. She remembered that no one recompensed her saintly suffering. Deep within her soul, Alice knew she had to be Ginger’s sacrifice. It was her destiny all along.

    The distance between the roof and the ground no longer seemed so vast. Smiling, Alice reaffirmed her grip on the metal bar and pulled herself over it. Still grasping it from behind, she placed the lower halves of her feet onto the edge of the concrete. Sweat poured down her face. Her muscles quivered. Her heart pounded. She gently closed her eyes, disassociating herself from the rest of her senses.

    She leapt into the sky. The wind returned in a sudden whiplash, pulling at every exposed fabric and hair. Her breath sharply cut off. Every fiber of her being was now pure adrenaline as she flew towards the clouds. It wasn’t long until gravity pulled her back.

    In a few seconds, she would become a mangled, unidentifiable mass of flesh. The impact would rupture every last inch of her in a sudden influx of immeasurable pain. Alice, in her entirety, would cease to exist.

    She simply didn’t care.

    Right now, she was caught between madness and bliss, sensation and abstraction, Heaven and Hell, life and death. The present was all there was. She had traded the comfortable feeling of control for an experience gained only through total submission to the elements. As nothingness approached closer and closer, Alice gave herself, as a citizen of the mortal realm, a single goal: returning to the earth.