“Alice” is dead…?

With a somewhat enlightened mind, she watched it. A girl who resembled herself was embracing a young man with a mosaic head. Alice was standing there looking at it, stupefied. He… Raffi, the person hugging 'herself', gently reached out and touched the face behind the mosaic.

"I want to see your face, Raffi…"

The girl said this, and Raffi considered it for a moment before answering.

"… I'm sorry, but I don't have a face. It doesn't exist, and it wasn't given to me. Even if you wanted to see it, you wouldn't be able to…"

"Why? Who robbed your face?"

The girl's question was not addressed and Raffi gave a small laugh.

"Or do you dislike me without a face?"

The little girl blushed and lowered her head. She fumbled for words for a while, but eventually, she said…

"I like you…" She muttered and hugged Raffi tightly.

–Yes, this is.

This is not my memory.

The girl in front of me.

This girl is "Alice"…

This was the memory of the "real Alice". An excruciating chill washed over her body and she backed away, shivering, clutching her shoulders.

"Raffi, you look like the 'Laughing Cat' from Alice in Wonderland."

When the girl mentioned this, Raffi let go of her body and stared down at her face in amazement.

"Well, I never heard of that story."

"You don't know? Even though it's famous."

"It has your name in it, doesn't it?"

"That's a coincidence. But… this place is like the wonderland from the story." The girl held Raffi's hand and smiled. "In the story, Alice meets her magical friends and has many adventures. There are a lot of exhilarating experiences."

"So, I suppose I resemble one of those characters?"

"The Laughing Cat is also kind and somewhat elusive, protecting and keeping an eye on… Alice."

"I see…" Extending his hand and patting the girl's head, Raffi said softly. "I'll always protect you, too."

At that point, Alice couldn't endure it anymore and screamed, suppressing her ears. The Bandersnatch erupted from her body, blanketing the space around her in an instant.

Yes, I am a monster.

I'm a nobody with this unknowable demon in my body.

What, what am I?

Who am I?

Suddenly, she raised her face. There, in the middle of the forest, black rain was pouring.

Raffi was standing under a huge tree, his body drenched by the black rain. He was carrying a large shovel. Droplets of water were dripping from Raffi's body.

At the base of the huge tree… where the two of them had just been hugging, there was a deep hole, possibly dug by Raffi. For a while, Raffi kept his eyes on the bottom of the hole.

He didn't make any movement. Alice shivered behind Raffi, who was standing there despondent.

I can't look at that.

Something in her heart sounded a warning signal.

I can't.

I mustn't approach it.

But against her will, her trembling legs surged forward. Staggering closer, she crouched down beside the hole. Then Alice opened her eyes.

Her "self," wrapped in a fabric discolored black by the rain, was lying at the bottom of the hole, deceased. She fell on her buttocks and was dumbstruck.

I'm dead.

It's a lie.

Such a thing is a lie.

The words of denial whirled around in her mind.

"Alice" is…

Yes, the real Alice is…

–Is she already dead…?

Raffi, oblivious to the shivering Alice on his back, eventually plunged the shovel into the heap of soil at his side. Then he swept it over the girl's remains.

Before Alice's stunned eyes, Raffi nonchalantly covered the girl with soil. Eventually, in front of the "grave" that was completely filled with soil, the young man who was drenched in black water dropped the shovel. Then grasping his mosaic-covered face with both hands, she began to cry out loudly. Yet unable to utter a word, she fell silent.