Up the pink meadow, where distrustful blackbirds fly
The form of a slim teenage boy slightly shivered as wind blew through the meadow he was currently lying on. He moved, trying to get comfortable again in order to continue his slumber and blinked his hazel eyes open when that failed. The teen frowned in confusion as he stared at his surroundings.
He blinked.
He blinked again.
Then he pinched himself, hard enough to colour his slightly tanned skin red.
Around the boy, a strangely beautiful forest unfolded.
It was everything and nothing like he thought forests should be, for despite the homely atmosphere of the stray rays of sunlights, the meadow was... Pink.
For some reason, Yagami Light, the son of the Tokyoter police chief was lying on a pink meadow, surrounded by glass trees that shattered the light into beautiful rainbows as well as seemingly normal ones that had sweets and, for some reason, shoes hanging from the branches.
In the few seconds of awareness, Light established three theories.
The first was the most plausible; that everything happening was just a dream. Though it had to be a very realistic one, since the pinch had really hurt. Light also hoped that that wasn't it, because he really didn't want to know what dreaming of a land with pink fields said about him.
The second was drugs, which had two possible reasons. Light couldn't imagine himself ever doing drugs, so he had to have been forced to take them. Which meant that he was either kidnapped or under a hospital's medication.
Neither were good options for him.
Oh well. Light sighed and decided to take a look around, to find clues about this place as well as to do something until he woke up.
He tried to somewhat straighten his bed hair (Just because he was dreaming didn't mean he had to walk around like a bum), but soon left it alone in order to walk the path of yellow brickstones (And really, what was it with his mind's constant puns to children's stories? Even using the Chukowskij he had had to read years ago in class...).
But before he did, he picked himself some sweets, which he stuffed in his pocket and a pair of sneakers from the shoe-tree.
They even went with the school uniform he wore for some reason.
Light couldn't say for how long he had walked, but the trees started getting more and more sparing. Most glass trees were broken and the shoe and candy-trees seemed to have been either ravished or slain - Light was happy he had thought to stock some provisions.
Then he inwardly told himself off. It was just a world his subconscience created. Something eaten here could never still his hunger!
As if to prove this to himself, Light took a bite out of a sugared apple... And recoiled.
As soon as he swallowed, a surge of burning pain went through his body.
The honey-haired boy fell to the ground, gasping for air. Everything was growing dark, but Light tried to keep himself awake. Even though he didn't worry (much) about his health, because it wasn't real anyway, he considered it embarassing to black-out while not even actually awake. And the adrenaline rush as his survival instincts kicked in certainly helped that.
Finally, the pain subsided a bit and Light opened his eyes. And was confused by the change of scenery.
Everything seemed much smaller to him for some reason and he almost felt dizzy how airy he his surroundings felt.
...Wait. Where's the rest of my body?!
Light tried to look directly down, where he usually found his feet newly clothed in sneakers. Now however, he couldn't see anything beond branches and all kinds of fruits.
He tried to move his hands, but couldn't see them move. In his unusual an awkward situation, the only body part he could control turned out to be his head - And even that was limited by the tree he was stuck in.
Light forced himself to stay calm, since attempting to flee without a plan of action would only harm him. Instead, he had to carefully maneuver himself out and then... Well, hopefully come to his senses soon, Light guessed.
When Light tried to find an opening, he was both delighted and grossed out to find out that his neck would bend easily in any direction, similar to a snake. Light had just succeeded in curving it down in a more or less graceful zigzag when a suddenly, a small blackbird flew into his face and beat him violently with it's wings.
The bird screeched and to his embarassment, so did Light.
"The Quee-Ra as a serpent!", she, as Light guessed her gender, screamed.
"Now there aren't only serpents and the Quee-Ra separately coming after our nest, but they're one and the same!"
"Hey, stop it! I'm not a Quee-Ra, whatever that is and much less a serpent", Light answered indignantly.
„Then, who are you?", the blackbird, who could talk for some reason, asked.
„I am Light Yagami, a human teenager", Light answered, annoyed at how obvious that was supposed to be. „Nice to meet you", he added in order to somewhat regain his status as a polite and suave charmer.
The blackbird seemed incredulous for some reason and scooted closer to stare at him, but remained outside of the biting range of imagined poisonous fangs.
The scrutiny made Light uncomfortable, especially since his neck was still twisted around some branches.
„You do have a human's face", she said, „but so does Quee-Ra and the last syllable is of the sungod for a reason. And your eyes and hair do have some shiny sun-like quality about them... Also, I've seen many humans and none with a neck shaped like yours.
So don't even try to fool me into trusting you. And if you don't leave my nest this instant, I might not be able to take your neck the late Queen of Hearts would, but I'll make sure that you'll never be able to see again!"
While Light was busy to try to move past being kind of complimented by a bird, she quietly added: „I have enough trouble raising my hatchlings by myself without having to fend off your kind."
Even though he was still trying to deal with the anomality of the situation, Light tried to remain diplomatical: „I'm sorry for troubling you and will get out of this tree as soon as I can, but I really don't know who Quee-Ra is or why my neck got like that."
Well, he tried to be diplomatical, but while Light could deal with pink meadows, candy and shoe-trees, talking blackbirds and even having no idea how all of this happened, admitting to it was the final straw for the prideful young man.
So despite his polite words, he had all but snapped at the blackbird and even scowled for a second, which even worsened his mood. Light liked being able to control his emotions.
„Don't tell me... You're not from here, are you?", the blackbird said in amazement.
„Yes, I'm not", Light agreed, keeping his opinion about this being a perhaps drug-induced dream to himself.
„Then maybe... Perhaps you're 'Alice', the one who can save us!", the blackbird chirped, a lot friendlier than before.
Light however, barely held in a longsuffering sigh. „Excuse me, but I've already told you my name plus, I'm a guy."
The blackbird made a face akin to a smile and said: „Alice is only a title, just as mine is „Pigeon", even though I'm a blackbird. It's the title of those who come into Wonderland until they decide to either stay or leave."
„I see", Light answered, since it made an abstract kind of sense and well, there wasn't anything else to say. „But what am I supposed to save you from?"
„Quee-Ra, the killer", she answered fearfully. „The first syllable of his name comes from the Queen of Hearts, whom he killed in order to get his position. Ever since he took the Red Castle, almost everyone who opposed him, died. But we still fight", she said proudly and added quietly: „Like my husband."
Light nodded. That explained and justified her attitude. Someone who could be used as a hostage or killed as an example shouldn't trust anyone. It almost made Light feel guilty to receive such a gift when he thought this to be a dream.
Suddenly, he heard a chirp: „Mama, can we come out now? Is Papa back?"
The blackbird, whom he had just gained some sort of comradery with, gazed at him with suspicion again.
Light couldn't help but admire her strategy, since her nest had been one branch left and two above from her – A position, where she could defend her nest from while not giving away it's place entirely.
„No, not yet", mama-blackbird said, which she meant, Light didn't know until she added: „Say hello to Light."
„Hello light Alice", said a chirpy voice, while another just chirped the way birds did. And really, Light had to get ridd of this nickname somehow. He reminded himself that he didn't have to, because it was just a dream.
Then Light remembered, that though they knew his, they had yet to tell him their names.
„What's your name, by the way?", Light asked and saw her tense at the question.
She looked at him for some time then relaxed. „It's Eriko", she said. „And that's Yumi over there."
„Nice to meet you", Light said and this time, his smile was a lot less fake.
Suddenly, his body felt hot again and pain spiraled up and down his enourmous neck. From far away, he heard Eriko chirp: „Go to W. Rabbit's house, you'll find help there." Now the world was getting larger for some reason, and as he saw Eriko fluttering after him, she desperately chirped: „And whatever you do, don't..."
That was when the world around Light went black.