1. White Walls and Quintessential Businessmen
You could stay. Will this take me home? If that is what you choose. Run! Alice! Downal wyth Bluddy Behg Hid. You will step out alone. What an idea, a crazy bad wonderful idea. Fairfarren, Alice. There are things I have to do. You won't remember me. Of course I will, how could I forget?
You won't remember me.
Alice Kingsley woke with a fright. She sat bolt upright in her bed and looked around in confusion. Just a dream, just another of those dreams. Alice slid her feet off the bed, rubbing her watery eyes, it wasn't just a dream and she knew it.
It had been a little over a year since Alice returned to Underland for those precious few days. She was now 19 years old and business partners with Lord Ascot at her father's old company. She was bored, she was restless, she was disappointed in herself. Not just for herself though, her mother was disappointed that Alice had not found another suitor, or another friend. Her sister worried for her direction, growing older without seeming to go anywhere. Alice loved them both dearly and hated seeing them worry about her, but she couldn't please them. To Alice, every boy she ever met was wrong, every potential friend annoying. She worked, and worked, and worked, then she slept to regain her strength, then she woke up and worked some more. Alice stood and threw on her robe, walking to the mirror and sitting in front of it.
"Alice Kingsley." She told her reflection sullenly, "You have become the most boring, hopeless person I have ever met." Her reflection gazed at her miserably. She hadn't slept well in... she couldn't remember the last time she slept well. Growing up she had been haunted by nightmares of her trip to "Wonderland", which she found out recently wasn't a place she had made up at all. When she was eighteen she fell down a rabbit hole in the middle of her engagement party and found herself in Underland once again. The only difference was that when she returned to London, she knew it hadn't been a dream. Those few nights she spent in Underland were the first nights she slept soundly, no nightmares. But after she left, the nightmares started again. Recently, those dreams weren't very frightening, but they were sad and lamented. She kept seeing things; The White Queen's kind nature; The White Rabbit in his Waistcoat; the March Hare throwing a teapot at her; The Red Queen and her pig footrest; The Hatter's face as he asked her to stay….
You won't remember me.
Often, Alice dreamed of and wished to return to Underland, if only to tell him that she could never forget him. It was a Melancholy thought.
Alice got dressed in her light blue summer dress and pulled back her hair; she then went out front and took a carriage to the Ascot's manor. She had a meeting with the board of the company, and she could not find it in herself to wait around her home any longer. White walls and tiles, carriages and horses, boring scripts and quintessential business men all made her sick to her stomach. Sometimes she felt as if her lifestyle was taking her very personality away, and her recent dreams had her asking herself why she ever returned to London.
She knocked on the door at the Manor and a servant answered. Alice smiled at her.
"I'm here to see Lord Ascot?" She said. The servant stared at her for a moment.
"We weren't expecting the company so soon…" She mumbled. Alice nodded, a little disappointed, she needed to work to keep her mind off her dreams.
"I'll come back later." She assured the servant, who nodded happily and closed the door in her face. With a sigh, Alice turned and descended the steps, walking around the house and through the back trees. Alice wrapped her hands around her elbows, trying to hold herself together. "Why is this so painful?" She asked no one in particular, "I had reasons to come back, who was I to know they'd only take a day? Everything here is pain. It's all white and professional and boring. It's sickening! If only….if only…" Before she could finish her thought, she tripped over a large tree root and stumbled down. She threw out her hands to catch herself, but she didn't hit the ground. She was falling into darkness. As she plummeted, her hair and dress swirled around her and she was too terrified for rational thought. She was too shocked to recognize the hole that she had fallen down twice, she was too scared to recognize what this portal meant….
Until she hit the wall, then the hard tile ground. The aching Alice lifted herself slowly off the ground, looking around in confusion. Her hair and dress were a mess, and she felt as if her mind must have fallen out of the back of her head. Then she spotted the familiar chamber, the familiar doors, the familiar table. With a gasp, Alice ran straight to the table, on it was a filled potion bottle labeled: Drink Me. Alice then looked below the table and saw a small slice of cake labeled: Eat me.
"Pishsalver. Upelkuchen." She whispered incredulously. Excited for the first time in goodness knew how long, Alice slid the key off the table and let it drop to the floor. She then drank the contents of the potion bottle and coughed as the rancid liquid burned her throat. The room around her grew, her dress ruffled over her as she became too small to wear it. She was just reaching for the cake when she stopped.
"Wait…" She muttered to herself, "Think about it this time, Alice." She didn't want to be small forever…or for very long at all. So maybe if she…
Alice climbed out of her dress and unlocked the small door into Underland, she shoved her dress through the small opening and then pushed the cake out after it. Finally, Alice herself climbed through the door into the familiar, bizarre world that she had missed so much. The little Alice crawled back into her dress and took a bite of the cake. She took only a little bit and grew back to her original self. Alice adjusted her dress, turned south, and took off at a run.
This chapter isn't all that impressive but it's basically there to tell about Alice's life since leaving Underland and lead into her return. The next one will be better, you know it!
Old friends, New Rival, New Friends. I'm excited!
And yes, I'm VERY Alice/Hatter. So that will in fact be part of the story!
REVIEW!
l
l
l
V
