ALICE AFTER WONDERLAND: CHASING THE DRAGON
*This story follows the events of Burton's film many years later.
CHAPTER 1
20 years had passed since Alice's last adventure in the place she now called Underland; a very real place that she had once perceived to be a dream. During her last visit there she had slain the Jabberwocky, rescued the Mad Hatter, overthrown the Red Queen and returned peace to the land. Now approaching her forties Alice found herself in China, another land she had fallen in love with after she had decided to travel with Lord Ascot as an apprentice for the business he had bought from Alice's mother Helen following the death of her father Charles Kingsleigh. The years were kind and Alice and were welcome in the Chinese community being seen as exotic and mysterious however Lord Ascot soon fell ill after their arrival, unable to return home Lord Ascot was forced to bring his son and heir to the company, Hamish, (the young man at the time Alice had refused as her husband) over to China to control the company thus basing the new foundations of the business in China. With the company currently receiving a financial boom through the increase in tourism Alice could afford to have as little to do with the company as she liked since she was now a shareholder at Hamish's request.
Over the years Alice had grown tired of repetition and routine of business operations and now she had very little to do with the company or Hamish who had since given up trying to woo her and had found another woman to marry. Alice sat back in her room; expensive oriental throws adorned the walls and floor of her room, statues of all shapes, sizes and materials stood around the room silently watching her from their unblinking eyes. The expensive reds and golds of all of her exotic possessions began to swirl and merge as Alice took another drag, her last drag and let her head fall back throwing her gaze up to the ceiling. Alice's body went limp as the familiar lack of feeling slowly crawled over her entire body. This is how she had lived for countless years.
The eventual death of Lord Ascot after years of suffering and having to withstand Hamish's regular romantic advances had scarred Alice emotionally; she had found herself, young, naïve, lost and alone in a strange land. The medicines used to treat Lord Ascot had not worked to cure his illness but Alice had found that they worked to cure her emotional suffering; Alice paid any price to anyone who could acquire more of the drug which she found so effective. Alice imagined chasing a dragon, its tail a rainbow of colours, she would run to catch it but it would escape her as she reached out for it. She didn't think about Lord Ascot, Hamish or her dead father when she chased the dragon, the colours of its tail blinded her from any emotion but each time the dragon escaped her reach she would feel the emotions come back harder than before.
One day Alice would catch the dragon, she knew it. She was so sure of it that it felt like waiting for her birthday, a day she knew would come and was only waiting for, though she had been waiting for years. This time like every other time as the reds and golds had swirled and merged and other colours from the light in the corners of her eyes had given birth to the gleaming rainbow of colour which created the dragon's tail Alice reached out for it with her unfeeling hand, and again the dragon escaped her, the colours of the dragon disappeared into the tunnel of raining light and was lost, the rain in Alice's eyes stopped and her world grew dark. Hours passed as she sat slumped in her chair, her eyes glazed, crystal clear tears running down her incredibly pale face, her hair matted over the cold sweat of her body. The day faded into night as Alice sat unmoving, eventually her eyes closed and she lost her consciousness to a dreamless sleep.