Disclaimer: I do not own Alice In Wonderland.
Alice sat on her bed looking at the scars. She wondered why she did these things to herself. After a bit of mulling it over she came to the conclusion that physical pain helped dull the emotional pain. She then thought of another question. Why did she let people hurt her? She trusted too many people with too much and they always ended up hurting her. She looked at the knife in her hands and then back to the fresh blood tracking its way down her arm. It looked so alone, so lost in the pale skin, trying to run away from the pain. She cut more slashes and watched as they too produced red drops that squiggled down her arm. They met up into one big drop and then fell to the floor. She frowned. How was it fair that they could escape the pain when she couldn't? No, it wasn't fair at all. She thought about it for a while. She ran the thought over and over in her head like a broken record or a song stuck on repeat. She tossed it around like a child playing with a ball waiting for something to pop out. She was waiting for some amazing thought or idea to pop out of the idle questioning. She could escape. To a place where no one would ever hurt her. A place where she could be important, wanted, loved. People would care about her, take care of her, and treat her with respect. She thought and thought of all the wonderful things there would be in this place. There would be a forest made of soft green leaves though which the sun shone gently and tickled the faces of woodland fairies, and an apple orchard, and a castle with a princess who always wore white. She pictured the princess, small and delicate with pale skin and black hair. She would have a splay of freckles and light blue eyes. The castle would also be white. She decided the apple orchard would surround the castle and there would be dogs that roamed it. They would eat the apples and the princess would come out and play with them every Wednesday. She decided there would be a lake in this strange land and next to it would sit a house. It would be an odd sort of house with a man who acted more like a cat than a man. He would have purple hair and soft furry cat ears and he would wear a tattered purple suit that was only a few shades darker than his hair. He would have a basement full of pickles in jars and would serve them in every meal. There would be a library with a mouse as the care taker and a farm that was run by a hare. There would be a boy who would be her best friend and he would have blue skin and green eyes. He would wear black jeans and green chucks and he would be in love with her. She of course, would not know how to respond to his affections. There would be flower bushes all over and horses that talked. All the animals would, naturally, talk. There would be no war, no sadness, and no tears. She looked at the drop of blood on the floor. All of this creation stemming from this destruction. This self destruction. She looked at her scarred arm, it was tattered and bleeding. She watched as more drops of blood joined the original. She watched as they formed a pool and felt herself get dizzy. She fell with a slash into the slowly growing pool of blood. She shut her eyes and tried to push everything away except the thoughts of this wonderful land. She pushed away the thoughts of her ex who had broken up with her nine times now. She pushed away thoughts of her abusive dad. She pushed away thoughts of her crazed mother. She pushed away the stress of school and the new job she had just started. Soon all she was left with were the thoughts of this magical world where all her problems were just a cut away. She felt the knife bite her wrist and slowly pierce flesh. She felt the new drips of blood running down her wrist. She felt the knife slip from her fingers. She felt the cool darkness envelop her with its hard boney fingers.
After a moment she opened her eyes. She looked up and saw the sun. She blinked a few times. She had been in her bedroom, how did she see the sun? She sat up and rubbed her wrist to find it dry. It wasn't the dry feeling of caked blood, it was dry. The ran her fingers over the lumps of scars and found no scabs. How could this be? She looked around. There was a ditch in the ground and on the other side was a house. She got up slowly and went over to the house. She rapped on the door a few times before someone answered. The door opened to reveal a man with dirty purple hair. He had cat ears sticking up on top of his head. One looked like it had the tip bitten off but they looked soft. His purple tail flicked behind him in agitation.
"Excuse me sir but where am I?" She asked.
"Wonderland, where else do you think?" He replied tartly.
"And do you by any chance have a basement full of...pickles?" She asked.
"Not any more. I used to pickled my cucumbers with the salt lake over there." He said raising a purple paw to point at the ditch. "But since it dried up I just have cucumbers." He said. She stared at him in disbelief.
"Would you be so kind as to point me in the direction of the castle?" She asked. He looked at her skeptically but nodded and pointed.
"Follow the dried up lake. It used to run right by it. You can't miss it just follow the lake." He said.
"Thanks." She mumbled as she set off. Surly it all can't have gone wrong. She walked for what seemed like hours before reaching something that could resemble the castle that had been in her imagination. There was a ring of dead trees surrounding an ominous looking black castle. She saw something slipping between the trees and figured it must have been one of the dogs. She walked up to the path to the entrance. Suddenly there was something pressing against her leg. She looked down and found a starving dog. It looked like an Irish grey hound. She ruffled its ears and smiled. She looked through her pockets for anything. Having an abusive father you learn to squirrel things away. She found a packet of saltines in her back pocket and ripped it open. The poor starving animal ate them in one bite.
"Come on. I'm sure we can find something else for you to eat." She whispered to him before walking towards the castle. He trotted along after her and as she got to the doors she found that she was able to push them open. She stepped inside, her footsteps reverberating throughout the room. She wandered inside with the dog never straying too far. Suddenly torches along the walls lit themselves and a girl walked into the room. She had pale skin, black hair and light blue eyes. She was wearing a stunning black dress as she swooped into the room.
"Ahhh visitors." She said with an evil smile. Alice took a step back and the dog snarled.
"And you must be the princess of this castle." Alice responded forcing politeness.
"Yes I am. And who might you be?" She asked with a voice dripping with sweetness and evil.
"My name's Alice." Alice responded.
"Ahhh I know why you're here." The princess paused as if waiting for acceptance. "You're here to collect a certain prisoner are you not?" She asked curiously. Alice thought to herself that if there were any prisoners here then it would probably be the kindest idea to help them escape.
"Yes." She said trying to sound sure of herself.
"Well you can't have him." She retorted with an evil smile.
"Why not?" Alice asked with a frown.
"He's my prisoner." She responded before tilting her nose up and swooping out of the room. Suddenly, as the door slammed shut after her, all the torches went out and there was a pained scream that sounded eerily like her name. Alice's eyes went wide and she looked around.
"Hey pup, can you take me to where that screaming's coming from?" She asked, not holding out hope.
"Of course." He responded. She blinked at him for a moment before composing herself.
"Um...you can talk." She said. The dog stared at her for a moment as if she were mad.
"Of course". He said again.
"Um...do you have a name?" She asked.
"Acosta." He responded before trotting off to a door. "This way." He nudged the door. Alice hurried over and opened it. They walked on, following the screams, and with every step Alice felt herself loose more and more sanity. She was walking towards the screams, following a talking dog, in a castle, trying to rescue a prisoner being held by a crazy princess. After a while they reached another door and, upon pushing it open, Alice was assaulted by smell. There was the smell of blood and urine and tears. As the door opened the screams got far louder and then she saw it. There was a boy maybe 17 years old with blue skin tied down on a table. There were chains and manacles holding down his arms and legs, stretching him in four directions. She saw something that looked like a lizard wearing a cloak cranking a machine that was stretching his arms and legs further. There was another cloaked lizard thing using a scalpel to cut ribbons of blue flesh off his arm. And another lighting twigs on fire and then putting them out on his leg.
"AAAAAALLLLLLIIIIIIICCCCCCEEEEEE!" He wailed. And thrashed around for a moment before there was a screeching sound of metal on metal.
"Weapons." Alice mumbled to herself scanning the room for anything she could use. She saw a rusted scalpel on the table next to the lizard cutting ribbons of his arm. "Perfect." She murmured sarcastically as she ran over and grabbed it. She drove it deep into the lizard creature's neck and it fell to the ground emitting gurgling screams. The two others rushed at her. The one that had been cranking the machine pulling the blue kid's limbs was taken down by Acosta, leaving the other to her. He had a burning twig in his hand and she had no weapons. She franticly tried to retrieve the scalpel from the now dead lizard thing's neck but to no avail. The lizard thing took a swipe at her with the twig, putting the small flame out but scratching her arm. She punched it in the face but, by the fact that it didn't stop advancing and by the shooting pain in her hand, it hurt her more than it did him. She tried to grab the twig out of its hand but ended up snapping the end off instead. She went to stab the creature in the face wildly swinging and when there was a sickening squishing noise she had hit home. She felt the twig pull from her hands and saw that she had stabbed the lizard thing in the eye. She turned over to Acosta who was watching her and panting as he sat next to the one he'd taken down. He had a cut in his side but looked okay other than that. She turned to the blue kid. "Who are you?" She asked, approaching the motionless body.
"Test subject." Acosta said getting up and walking around to sniff for anything to eat. "The princess has lots. They test them." He said nodding to the bodies of the lizards. "Cut them, beat them, light them on fire, poke prod, pull, until they die and then get a new one."
"Wake up." She said slapping his face lightly a few times. He sputtered and then began screaming. "Shhhhh!" She shushed him loudly. He blinked at her and then squinted.
"Alice?" He asked.
"How do you know my name?" She demanded.
"Oh god. Why are you here? Did they get you? You should go before they get you." He said struggling against the chains.
"Acosta? Did any of the lizard things have keys?" She asked.
"That one did." He said nodding to one. He went over and got the keys in his mouth and brought them to her. She fumbled with them for a moment before trying to shove them into the locks on his manacles.
"What's your name?" She asked franticly trying to unlock the chains binding him.
"Alice...you know my name." He said sounding confused.
"No. I don't. I don't know who you are or how you know my name so if you would fill me in I'd be very thankful." She said unlocking the first wrist cuff. And hurrying on to the accompanying foot.
"We were best friends. We went on adventures. You're the creator." He said earnestly. Acosta froze.
"She's the creator?" He asked. The blue kid nodded fervently.
"Then she disappeared and everything went wrong. The lake overflowed for a week and then dried up completely. The fairies went dark. The trees died and the princess..." He stopped himself. "But you're back now." He said as if that made everything better.
"What's this creator deal?" She asked as she managed to unlock his foot manacle and went around to the other side to work on his wrist.
"You really don't remember." The blue kid said aghast. She shook her head.