Alice
"Curiosity killed the cat," or so he told me. Perhaps you know of my sister, dear sweet Alice. Curiosity, when put to the innocent mind may also create madness. This has been her downfall. You see, my sister never returned from what we all assumed to be simply a vain fantasy world she created to escape her tutoring. This was, at first, the truth. My sister created a monster, or perhaps she was the monster and simply created her reality. At either length, Wonderland should have never come to existence. I am called Edith, Alice's sister.
I followed her very same path: past the flower field, over the river bed, and to a small opening in a cave I never would have noticed had I not known beforehand it was there. The opening was shrouded by shadow and heavy underbrush, and as I prowled closer, I noticed a faint calico semblance of fur. Dead fur as it were, but fur none the less.
The closer I approached the opening of this small grotto, the worse the stench of stale death hung in the air, stirred only by the transparent wings of flies, yet the pelt became more prominent. The mangled corpse belonged to Dinah; my sister's long forgotten kitten, now fully grown but hideously so. One eye had been lost, I believe, or she had been dead so long the eye simply rotted away, or was stolen by pilfering scavengers. Either way, a front canine was fissured, her white paws mottled red with stains of blood, and the poor mangy dear was simply skin and bones. The other eye was wide, beautiful, yet glazed over and nearly collapsed.
Out of sympathy I picked up the rotting mass and cradled it for a bit, hoping perhaps in whatever the next life her heart could be saved and she could know some love in her adult years. Bits of sinewy muscle protruded from her gaping wounds (no doubt caused by slow, exposed rotting), but what care I for such squeamish ordeals? I am, after all, her sister. My bloodline doesn't carry that sort of dainty disposition well.
I dug a shallow grave next to the riverbed where the softest earth was, having no spade with me to aid in the process. I bound two sticks in a makeshift crucifix above her shoal crypt, said a small prayer of salvation, and pondered where in my atheistic heart that motive may have sprung. Before I could ponder much more I spied a black hare entering the very chasm the feline cadaver had been guarding in silent protest of this appalling new world unfurling before me. Curiosity tempted my every sense, and in a damnable offense of my better judgement, I tracked the hare rather ungracefully, stumbling about, drunk on phantasm of conquest. He knew of Alice, of this I had no doubt. He had the rather stupefied and bewildered gaze everyone gains after a "cerebral" guidance of her personal views. You never crossed Alice less you should pay dearly in words what you bestow in defiance.
I managed to squeeze through the entrance of the cavern, only to drop into a seemingly bottomless pit. The fall, however, was not frightening in the least. Quite the contrary, really, for my black skirt filled with air and seemed to suspend me lightly down. When I was thinking the pit too dark to see clearly, a candlestick appeared before my eyes, illuminating the walls with an uneasy glow. Broken mirrors adorned the walls; clocks struck the hour of thirteen, if they weren't running backwards, lucky if they were running at all.
"Curiouser and curiouser," was my only utterance thus far on this vile excursion to the midst of lunacy. I landed without knowing I had, set gently upon my head, as the floor was turned topsy-turvy. Red markings, laced nearly half a foot from each other, surrounded the base of the floor, as if someone had run a marathon alone in painted shoes, simply following their footsteps in the same muddled circle for hours on end. This of course made no sense to me, but I'm sure made perfect sense to my dear Alice. If only to find her to explain this jumbled mess to me.
Near the end of my patience, I scanned the strange hall looking for anything to clue me onto which path to take. Dozens of doors lay before me; some charred to pure ash that at the very thought of touch disintegrated before my finger had a chance to feel the impressing yield. Other doors were mutilated, splinters here and there hung loosely in the doorway, unmistakably not a situation I felt any inkling to test, fearing that out of spite Alice would have me speared through the heart by a stake. She wanted to be her own self and I knew she would detest my presence here, but there was no other way about it. She must be found and brought back to reality, this had simply gone too far.
The tagalong red marks upon the floor began to uncurl themselves, walking away from the pointless race and headed off to a new destination. Well, what was good enough for whatever made those marks was good enough for me, and I cautiously followed the empty footprints to a door I hadn't known subsisted. When I looked a bit more closely, I noticed the door had been purposely hidden, painted over to appear just as shadow from the other foyers. "Clever," I thought to myself. Alice was thorough.
The footprints stopped, obviously needing permission to enter and continue their voyage. The prints abandoned their post at the door and ran, so it seemed, to me, encircling my feet, wanting me to follow. Well, who was I to ever refuse an invitation then? Insanity intrigued me, making it an awful temptress.
I approached the door with growing anticipation. What could possibly lay hereafter? I knew each of these doors led to a different section of Wonderland, but I needed to find Alice, and quickly.
A murmur echoed through the halls, though I knew the voice well. Who and where could this person be, this voice without a face and name I couldn't remember. I wasn't frightened, uneasy, but not frightened. I cursed this wretched hell. "Who's there?" I called into the nothingness, or I supposed it was.
A cat, a horrible, disfigured, mangy cat had crept from the ashen door, from the very ashes itself. A Phoenix of its species, yet was it…it was! Dinah, but here? No, not Dinah, fore this place is nothing but a dream within a dream because nothing is real. The cat spoke to me, "There, you, a riddle for two, but hands they aren't, if you wish to seek truth. Wonderland's mystery, abolished, you see, but only if you figure out, who might I be?"
"Damn." I hated this incompetent creation of hers more every second. "When I find Alice…"
"You've found her, you see, at least in part. 'Whose feet?' you ask. 'Who are you?' Guess…start."
Well I had to think carefully. As much as I enjoy partaking in riddles, they never have been my strong point. I glanced down to my feet where the red steps continued to circle. This was obviously the question to help me realize their owner. "Your feet."
"Yes, you began, but wrong again. They are my feet, but not of the skin."
"What is that supposed to mean?" Stupid cat. This is why Dinah belonged to Alice, and never to me. Alice. Well, of course! "Alice's feet. Those are her tracks, am I wrong?"
"Correct you are, Edith, very good guess. Now tell me my purpose, I'll lay out the rest." The feline's half decayed head began to float a good foot above the body.
"Monster!" Yes, it is fact I can withstand much for my gender in relation to carcasses and insects. However, having to watch this cat detach its own head and leave the entrails of the neck to dangle about and drip was simply stomach wrenching.
"Her sanity lost at price too dear. I am her sanity; I lost, was murdered, but am here. Monster perhaps, since beating heart I have none, but your tender touch reinstalled me to one, one living undead which is all you require to extinguish insanity, the cold, black fire." The cat gave a howl and the door gave way under screeching or a secret lock I've yet to figure out, but the cat made no sense at all to me. Black fire, what is that supposed to be, anyway.
The red markings upon the floor created a path and begged me to follow. How strange to think Alice followed this path not terribly long ago. Step over step I recreated her footsteps, trying to make sense of the disturbing cat's past. He is the Wonderland version of Dinah, since everything that isn't is and everything that is isn't. This place does so very confuse me sometimes. Now he was murdered, but by Alice's hand? It seems nearly too surreal to believe. He is her sanity? Well, now I suppose that does make sense. He shows up and Wonderland obeys his whim, but if he's been dead so long, oh my poor, poor sister. Alice must truly be insane, to be alone this long.
For a good half-hour's walk I never questioned the footsteps, simply followed until they stopped, never looked up until that time either. The scenery was simply too grotesque: blood stained the ground, body parts of various species mingled together upon the cold ground. The feet began to circle again, then scattered to all points in the blink of an eye. Where could they go?
I scanned my surroundings and nearly choked on my own bile. The royal throne room and been turned into a judge's hall and galleys all at once. A caterpillar lay malnutritioned and stinking in front of the galley, a plump dark-haired women in a very expensive looking dress hanging alone by her rope-burned neck. At the very center of all my confusion sat Alice contentedly, black rabbit in arm, sitting upon the largest throne I'd ever seen.
"Long live me. The Queen is dead, I shot the King."
Alice, her blonde hair grown snarled and unruly, stained a deep burgundy from bloodshed, no doubt, perched happily upon her throne. "Edith, leave."
My sister, Lady of her own House, Queen of her own Universe. How quaint. "Hello Alice."
"Edith, take a look around you. All that is here I created, I overthrew the opposition, stormed the castle and took what's rightfully mine. Here I am God. Here, I do no wrong. Here, I am Queen."
"Alice, this has gone on long enough. Stop, now."
"Queen for a day is quite alright, but taking what's not yours…that just isn't right." Perched upon my shoulder was the floating head of the mangy cat. I didn't try to understand him anymore, simply realized out of everyone, he was probably the only true sane person here.
"YOU!" Alice obviously wasn't pleased to see him. "I KILLED you, you're DEAD. DEAD!"
"You killed me, yes, you did advise your peons to arrange my demise. Your sister here, giver of life has come to end your rule of strife…but you are me as I am you, now I'll do what she came here to." The cat advanced on Alice who looked amazingly fragile for such power in this Kingdom. The cat sat upon her lap and glared through its one eye, it's good eye if you will.
"LONG LIVE THE QUEEN! You don't scare me, cat. You're NOTHING, you're dead. My sanity, my better half, my good side…NO! I refuse to believe that. Edith, tell him I'm not mad. You all think I'm mad, don't you…DON'T YOU!" Alice turned panicked eyes to her royal court. I'm not sure she remembered she killed them all. All but her black hare, which seemed to grow larger with each incessant rambling.
"Alice, you didn't entrust yourself to a hare, did you? Insanity is consuming you, dear…why did you have to fall to this rabbit's temptation? Poor dear. You simply couldn't resist chasing what wasn't reality, could you." My poor sister was falling apart before my very eyes.
"You're late, you say. Well, now I intervene. One unjust turn deserves another…long live the Queen." The cat sprang upon the black hare, consuming every bit. Alice screamed, I cried out to her but it was too late, Wonderland was gone.
We awoke lazily in the flower field, both Alice and I. Alice seems to recall only faint images of an impossible dream she chalks up to unconsciousness, no doubt. She doesn't know the truth, my poor Alice. But I remember…long live the Queen.
"Curiosity killed the cat," or so he told me. Perhaps you know of my sister, dear sweet Alice. Curiosity, when put to the innocent mind may also create madness. This has been her downfall. You see, my sister never returned from what we all assumed to be simply a vain fantasy world she created to escape her tutoring. This was, at first, the truth. My sister created a monster, or perhaps she was the monster and simply created her reality. At either length, Wonderland should have never come to existence. I am called Edith, Alice's sister.
I followed her very same path: past the flower field, over the river bed, and to a small opening in a cave I never would have noticed had I not known beforehand it was there. The opening was shrouded by shadow and heavy underbrush, and as I prowled closer, I noticed a faint calico semblance of fur. Dead fur as it were, but fur none the less.
The closer I approached the opening of this small grotto, the worse the stench of stale death hung in the air, stirred only by the transparent wings of flies, yet the pelt became more prominent. The mangled corpse belonged to Dinah; my sister's long forgotten kitten, now fully grown but hideously so. One eye had been lost, I believe, or she had been dead so long the eye simply rotted away, or was stolen by pilfering scavengers. Either way, a front canine was fissured, her white paws mottled red with stains of blood, and the poor mangy dear was simply skin and bones. The other eye was wide, beautiful, yet glazed over and nearly collapsed.
Out of sympathy I picked up the rotting mass and cradled it for a bit, hoping perhaps in whatever the next life her heart could be saved and she could know some love in her adult years. Bits of sinewy muscle protruded from her gaping wounds (no doubt caused by slow, exposed rotting), but what care I for such squeamish ordeals? I am, after all, her sister. My bloodline doesn't carry that sort of dainty disposition well.
I dug a shallow grave next to the riverbed where the softest earth was, having no spade with me to aid in the process. I bound two sticks in a makeshift crucifix above her shoal crypt, said a small prayer of salvation, and pondered where in my atheistic heart that motive may have sprung. Before I could ponder much more I spied a black hare entering the very chasm the feline cadaver had been guarding in silent protest of this appalling new world unfurling before me. Curiosity tempted my every sense, and in a damnable offense of my better judgement, I tracked the hare rather ungracefully, stumbling about, drunk on phantasm of conquest. He knew of Alice, of this I had no doubt. He had the rather stupefied and bewildered gaze everyone gains after a "cerebral" guidance of her personal views. You never crossed Alice less you should pay dearly in words what you bestow in defiance.
I managed to squeeze through the entrance of the cavern, only to drop into a seemingly bottomless pit. The fall, however, was not frightening in the least. Quite the contrary, really, for my black skirt filled with air and seemed to suspend me lightly down. When I was thinking the pit too dark to see clearly, a candlestick appeared before my eyes, illuminating the walls with an uneasy glow. Broken mirrors adorned the walls; clocks struck the hour of thirteen, if they weren't running backwards, lucky if they were running at all.
"Curiouser and curiouser," was my only utterance thus far on this vile excursion to the midst of lunacy. I landed without knowing I had, set gently upon my head, as the floor was turned topsy-turvy. Red markings, laced nearly half a foot from each other, surrounded the base of the floor, as if someone had run a marathon alone in painted shoes, simply following their footsteps in the same muddled circle for hours on end. This of course made no sense to me, but I'm sure made perfect sense to my dear Alice. If only to find her to explain this jumbled mess to me.
Near the end of my patience, I scanned the strange hall looking for anything to clue me onto which path to take. Dozens of doors lay before me; some charred to pure ash that at the very thought of touch disintegrated before my finger had a chance to feel the impressing yield. Other doors were mutilated, splinters here and there hung loosely in the doorway, unmistakably not a situation I felt any inkling to test, fearing that out of spite Alice would have me speared through the heart by a stake. She wanted to be her own self and I knew she would detest my presence here, but there was no other way about it. She must be found and brought back to reality, this had simply gone too far.
The tagalong red marks upon the floor began to uncurl themselves, walking away from the pointless race and headed off to a new destination. Well, what was good enough for whatever made those marks was good enough for me, and I cautiously followed the empty footprints to a door I hadn't known subsisted. When I looked a bit more closely, I noticed the door had been purposely hidden, painted over to appear just as shadow from the other foyers. "Clever," I thought to myself. Alice was thorough.
The footprints stopped, obviously needing permission to enter and continue their voyage. The prints abandoned their post at the door and ran, so it seemed, to me, encircling my feet, wanting me to follow. Well, who was I to ever refuse an invitation then? Insanity intrigued me, making it an awful temptress.
I approached the door with growing anticipation. What could possibly lay hereafter? I knew each of these doors led to a different section of Wonderland, but I needed to find Alice, and quickly.
A murmur echoed through the halls, though I knew the voice well. Who and where could this person be, this voice without a face and name I couldn't remember. I wasn't frightened, uneasy, but not frightened. I cursed this wretched hell. "Who's there?" I called into the nothingness, or I supposed it was.
A cat, a horrible, disfigured, mangy cat had crept from the ashen door, from the very ashes itself. A Phoenix of its species, yet was it…it was! Dinah, but here? No, not Dinah, fore this place is nothing but a dream within a dream because nothing is real. The cat spoke to me, "There, you, a riddle for two, but hands they aren't, if you wish to seek truth. Wonderland's mystery, abolished, you see, but only if you figure out, who might I be?"
"Damn." I hated this incompetent creation of hers more every second. "When I find Alice…"
"You've found her, you see, at least in part. 'Whose feet?' you ask. 'Who are you?' Guess…start."
Well I had to think carefully. As much as I enjoy partaking in riddles, they never have been my strong point. I glanced down to my feet where the red steps continued to circle. This was obviously the question to help me realize their owner. "Your feet."
"Yes, you began, but wrong again. They are my feet, but not of the skin."
"What is that supposed to mean?" Stupid cat. This is why Dinah belonged to Alice, and never to me. Alice. Well, of course! "Alice's feet. Those are her tracks, am I wrong?"
"Correct you are, Edith, very good guess. Now tell me my purpose, I'll lay out the rest." The feline's half decayed head began to float a good foot above the body.
"Monster!" Yes, it is fact I can withstand much for my gender in relation to carcasses and insects. However, having to watch this cat detach its own head and leave the entrails of the neck to dangle about and drip was simply stomach wrenching.
"Her sanity lost at price too dear. I am her sanity; I lost, was murdered, but am here. Monster perhaps, since beating heart I have none, but your tender touch reinstalled me to one, one living undead which is all you require to extinguish insanity, the cold, black fire." The cat gave a howl and the door gave way under screeching or a secret lock I've yet to figure out, but the cat made no sense at all to me. Black fire, what is that supposed to be, anyway.
The red markings upon the floor created a path and begged me to follow. How strange to think Alice followed this path not terribly long ago. Step over step I recreated her footsteps, trying to make sense of the disturbing cat's past. He is the Wonderland version of Dinah, since everything that isn't is and everything that is isn't. This place does so very confuse me sometimes. Now he was murdered, but by Alice's hand? It seems nearly too surreal to believe. He is her sanity? Well, now I suppose that does make sense. He shows up and Wonderland obeys his whim, but if he's been dead so long, oh my poor, poor sister. Alice must truly be insane, to be alone this long.
For a good half-hour's walk I never questioned the footsteps, simply followed until they stopped, never looked up until that time either. The scenery was simply too grotesque: blood stained the ground, body parts of various species mingled together upon the cold ground. The feet began to circle again, then scattered to all points in the blink of an eye. Where could they go?
I scanned my surroundings and nearly choked on my own bile. The royal throne room and been turned into a judge's hall and galleys all at once. A caterpillar lay malnutritioned and stinking in front of the galley, a plump dark-haired women in a very expensive looking dress hanging alone by her rope-burned neck. At the very center of all my confusion sat Alice contentedly, black rabbit in arm, sitting upon the largest throne I'd ever seen.
"Long live me. The Queen is dead, I shot the King."
Alice, her blonde hair grown snarled and unruly, stained a deep burgundy from bloodshed, no doubt, perched happily upon her throne. "Edith, leave."
My sister, Lady of her own House, Queen of her own Universe. How quaint. "Hello Alice."
"Edith, take a look around you. All that is here I created, I overthrew the opposition, stormed the castle and took what's rightfully mine. Here I am God. Here, I do no wrong. Here, I am Queen."
"Alice, this has gone on long enough. Stop, now."
"Queen for a day is quite alright, but taking what's not yours…that just isn't right." Perched upon my shoulder was the floating head of the mangy cat. I didn't try to understand him anymore, simply realized out of everyone, he was probably the only true sane person here.
"YOU!" Alice obviously wasn't pleased to see him. "I KILLED you, you're DEAD. DEAD!"
"You killed me, yes, you did advise your peons to arrange my demise. Your sister here, giver of life has come to end your rule of strife…but you are me as I am you, now I'll do what she came here to." The cat advanced on Alice who looked amazingly fragile for such power in this Kingdom. The cat sat upon her lap and glared through its one eye, it's good eye if you will.
"LONG LIVE THE QUEEN! You don't scare me, cat. You're NOTHING, you're dead. My sanity, my better half, my good side…NO! I refuse to believe that. Edith, tell him I'm not mad. You all think I'm mad, don't you…DON'T YOU!" Alice turned panicked eyes to her royal court. I'm not sure she remembered she killed them all. All but her black hare, which seemed to grow larger with each incessant rambling.
"Alice, you didn't entrust yourself to a hare, did you? Insanity is consuming you, dear…why did you have to fall to this rabbit's temptation? Poor dear. You simply couldn't resist chasing what wasn't reality, could you." My poor sister was falling apart before my very eyes.
"You're late, you say. Well, now I intervene. One unjust turn deserves another…long live the Queen." The cat sprang upon the black hare, consuming every bit. Alice screamed, I cried out to her but it was too late, Wonderland was gone.
We awoke lazily in the flower field, both Alice and I. Alice seems to recall only faint images of an impossible dream she chalks up to unconsciousness, no doubt. She doesn't know the truth, my poor Alice. But I remember…long live the Queen.