Title: Wonderland
Synopsis: A dream turns into a nightmare. Down the rabbit hole Eliot goes, into a world full of fear; Wonderland is less than wonderful and his future is tied to the past. ~Eliot's nightmares~
Rating: T
A/N: I wanted this to be pretty creepy, and I hope that it is. I'm sort of mixing elements of what happened '100 Hundred Years Ago' and Alice in Wonderland. This is based off of the theory that Eliot is the person who will be possessed by Glen, by the way…
Disclaimer: I don't own Pandora Hearts, because if I did, Alice wouldn't lose all the good aspects of her personality within the first twenty chapters.
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"When logic and proportion have fallen sloppy dead, and the white knight is talking backwards and the red queen is 'off with her head!' remember what the dormouse said: 'Feed your head!'"
-'White Rabbit' by Jefferson Airplane
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Hands shaking, Eliot could barely undress himself. Three days he had remained awake, his eyes too afraid to close. Three nights he had just spent his night staring at the ceiling, wishing that these dreams would be over and that he could have a normal life.
There was a knock at the door. "What is it?" Eliot called over his shoulder, fumbling with the damned buttons that were on his shirt.
"Are you decent?" It was only Reo, doing his usual nightly check-up. Sometimes they would sleep in the same room, but since Eliot hadn't been doing much actual sleeping as of late, Reo had taken to going to a different room for his nights, thinking that it may have helped. Without someone in there with him, however, Eliot could sense the blood from his nightmares on his skin, devouring his soul… "Eliot?"
Dropping his hands from the shirt, he walked to the door and pulled it open. It rocketed back, leaving a dent in the wall where it hit. It began to swing back, but Eliot put a hand in its path, stopping its destructive rampage. "I'm fine, can't you see?"
Reo pushed his slipping glasses up his nose. "Get some sleep tonight, Eliot. You're a mess."
Eliot dropped his hand from the door. "Thank you Reo, as always, you're incredibly useful." He scoffed, looking up at the ceiling ands sub sequentially turning his nose up to his friend.
"And as per the usual, you are thick and stubborn." He smiled. "But you already knew that." Turning his back to Eliot, he began down the hallway to his own room. "Good night, Eliot. Pleasant dreams."
Eliot grunted and slammed the door; the walls shook. "Pleasant dreams…" He mumbled as he tried to make his shaking fingers attack the buttons once again. They did not do their job. Eyes growing wide, he ripped his shirt apart, popping the buttons off of the shirt. They scattered to the floor, the metal clanking against the wood. What was left of the white garment was then thrown onto the floor in a heap.
The pants were taken off in a similar manner.
When he was finally in his nightclothes, he stared at the bed as he would an enemy who he would not trust. Eying it for weakness, stepping quietly around it, trying to find its weaknesses… But he gave in. His eyelids falling victim to the haze that had been hovering over him for the past day, he walked to the bed and with just the slightest hesitation in his step, climbed in.
Before the blankets even fully covered his body, he was asleep.
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Doo-da-do-do-do-doo-doo…
It was a familiar tune.
Daa-da-do-da-do-da-doo-doo-doo…
It came from a music box, but it had to be…
Doo-da-do-do… Click.
It stopped, and there was the sound of something running. Eliot's legs began to move as well, and it followed something in the near distance, just out of reach to see the features of. Whoever it was, they had stolen his composition, his song. No matter who they were, they would pay for it.
Suddenly, that figure stopped and looked at Eliot. Realizing whom it was, Eliot stopped. "Oz Bezarius?"
Except, on second glance, it couldn't be Oz. The giant white ears that flopped to one side as he tilted his head and the bushy white tail that stuck out of a hole in his pants told Eliot that this was not, thank god, Oz, but some strange perverted part of his imagination that he needed to suppress immediately.
"Eliot Nightray, you're needed by the Red Queen." The rabbit said, taking out a golden pocket watch that it had in the pocket of its vest. When he opened it, the song, Lacie, began to play. "Yes, yes, you're very late for this, Eliot. One hundred years late…"
Eliot reached out to grab the pocket watch away from the rodent, but it was in its pocket before Eliot could reach it. "Give me that watch!" Eliot commanded, but the rabbit ignored him.
"Yes, you must be getting to the trial… So must I." The rabbit's green eyes met with Eliot's. "They say that my sin is my existence and I shall be sentenced according to that. It hardly seems fair, doesn't it? Makes me wish that I had never been born at all."
And then as if the moment meant nothing and the world was happy and normal, the rabbit ran, and at an incredible speed, too. Knowing that he had to follow that watch, Eliot ran, trying to catch up to the rabbit, but never really able to. He was always out of Eliot's reach, just an arm length's away.
And then, the rabbit disappeared. Eliot stopped, trying to find what happened, but the place that he happened to stopped just so happened to be the hole that the rabbit had disappeared into.
Down, down, down he went. Down into the darkness, down into the despair. His chest was being ripped apart and there was no air to breathe. In the darkness he drowned, and after only a few moments he forgot what it was like to see the sun shining in the sky.
As the pain continued, Eliot realized where he was heading… Into the Abyss.
Around him things laughed, mocking the boy as he passed by them. Dolls with no heads and bloody playing cards stared as he passed and creatures that were frightening beyond his imagination licked their lips, wondering how he would taste.
But over and over, what he saw again and again, was a young girl with white hair, gently caressing a cat with a grin as wide as the moon. Her grin sent a shiver down his spine, but made his arms reach out for her.
But like the rabbit, she seemed just out of reach.
With a thud, he hit the bottom of the Abyss, except the bottom of that Abyss seemed just like the bottom of a wooden chair.
"Eliot Nightray, you are to bear witness to the crimes of the White Rabbit, do you swear to tell the truth, or to lose your head like the rest of your family?"
He turned, and in the seat of the judge was that Baskerville girl who had snuck into Latowidge, with her chain, Leo, standing behind her. Her pink hair was piled on the top of her head and she held a scepter with a giant red heart on the top, to match the outrageous black and red get up that she wore.
Sitting on a bench with Xerxes Break with his chain on his head and sitting a cup of tea, was the rabbit, or Oz, or whoever he was. The apprehension on his face was contagious. "Do you promise, Nightray boy?" Eliot nodded. The girl gave out a shrill laugh. "Very good! Please bring out the lawyers and begin this silly little trial!"
From a different bench stood Vincent, his stepbrother, sporting a large pair of mouse ears. "Mr. Nightray…" As he stood up, his eyes closed for a moment and a small snore came from his mouth. With a yawn, he began again. "Mr. Nightray, please tell us a… " He yawned again. "Brief description of how you and the White Rabbit… err… met."
Every eye in the courtroom, except Vincent's, whose were now closed, stared at him. Eliot's face blushed red. "Well… He snuck into Latowidge one day and I ran into him at the bookshelves where I told him a spoiler to…"
"LIES." The Mad Hatter stood up and pointed a finger at Eliot. "All he tells are lies." With a fluid motion, he threw his teacup like a frisbee at the Dormouse.
"It's not my fault!" The boy yelled, covered in blood, a pair of scissors in his hands.
Once the teacup shattered on the Dormouse's head, he woke with a start, and pointed his finger at Eliot. "Lies!"
"It was all for Gilbert!" Stepping over bodies and fire, he screamed. "It's. Not. My. Fault!"
The images invading Eliot's mind of that child covered with blood were too much; he put his head in his hands. "That boy is a liar and a thief," the Mad Hatter said as he stood up from his seat and sauntered over next to the Dormouse. Together they stood, staring at Eliot. "He and the White Rabbit met just moments ago, and he has stolen the song of the Baskerville."
The Queen of Hearts took a sharp intake of breath and leaned towards the two lawyers. "Really? He has stolen a song? Where is your proof, Mad Hatter?"
With a great smile, the Mad Hatter bowed. "Certainly, your majesty." Still in mid-bow, he reached his hand backwards to where the White Rabbit was sitting and beckoned to him. The boy jumped up and ran over to the Hatter, placed something in his palm, and then ran back to his seat. When the boy was seated, the Hatter resumed his usual posture and held out that golden pocket watch to be inspected by the Queen. "This, your highness, is the song that was composed by the Baskerville." He opened it, and Lacie began to play once more.
"That song wasn't composed by whomever!" Eliot yelled, now standing in the witness box. "That's my composition!"
The Hatter smiled. "By order of the Baskerville, I was sent her to put this young man on trial-"
"But I wrote that song!"
"-for the thievery of that tune." Desperate, Eliot looked to the Dormouse for some sort of help, but he was once again, fast asleep. "Your honor, do you find him guilty?"
The girl threw her head back and laughed; the noise echoed off of the endless blackness of the Abyss. "Of course I do! Off with his head!"
In an instant he felt his arms being pulled by two creatures of the Abyss.
From the darkness came a figure dressed in black carrying a silver axe. His head was covered by an executioner's hat. "Very good, very good!" The Dormouse said, clapping his hands together in an excited manner.
That child and his scissors, not covered with blood now, in the room of that girl.
"It's been so long since we've seen anyone be killed by the Raven!"
There is a cat…
"And I do love a good execution!"
And he sinks his scissors into the eyes of that cat. Blood poured from the eye sockets.
"Let's begin this… quickly…" Once again the Dormouse's eyes shut and he slept.
With the distractions, Eliot had not noticed how close the executioner was now. The creatures pushed Eliot down so that his head was on the witness stand in front of him. All around him people laughed and talked with jovial sounds. No one cared that Eliot Nightray's life was about to end.
No one cared about her life ending, either.
The executioner took his hat off, revealing his face. "Hello, Eliot."
Despite the strain that was on his back, Eliot managed to look up to see Gilbert's face, smiling with sadism. "You, the one who betrayed your family." He looked back down and yelled. "I'd rather kill myself than die by your hands, you coward!"
"That cannot be arranged." Gil grinned and began to aim the axe for Eliot's neck. Eliot squeezed his eyes shut, hoping that he would wake from this nightmare. "Prepare to meet-"
"Raven!" The White Rabbit shouted from the table. Raven turned immediately to the Rabbit, ignoring Eliot. "You can't kill Eliot, we still need him!"
The axe dropped from Raven's hands, and he smiled. "Very well, master, do with him as you will."
"Raven, what are you doing?" The Red Queen shouted. The Rabbit ran over to Eliot and the monsters that had him held down disappeared. "Obey me, damn it!"
Raven turned to the Queen. "The only one who I obey is my master."
The Queen turned red, like her namesake. "Fine then, off with his head!"
"Come with me." The White Rabbit said, getting to Eliot and holding out a hand. Eliot turned to Raven, who was now being bound by the monsters that had held him a few moments ago. "Don't worry, Raven will be fine. Let's go!"
Turning away from Raven and the new executioner that would bring him his fate, Eliot grabbed the Rabbit's hand and began to run with him.
"That song," The Rabbit began once they were far enough that it was safe to speak once again. "You really wrote it?" Eliot nodded. "But you didn't; it was written one hundred years ago."
"But I wrote that song… It was mine…" Eliot shut his eyes tight and when he opened them, the White Rabbit was gone, replaced with another blonde haired man.
"Glen," He said, grabbing Eliot's hand. "Glen, you need to stop this! None of this will bring Lacie back."
Eliot tried to back away, but Jack 's grip was too tight. "I don't know what you're talking about; Lacie wasn't a real person she was just-"
"Glen, do you know how many innocent people have died because of you?"
"I haven't done a thing let me-" The scene shifted and once again Eliot stood in the pool of blood. Death was around him, the stench of it filling his nostrils. In his hand was a dagger, covered with blood and his clothes were stained with the red liquid of life. Dropping the dagger, he looked around but saw only more and more death. That child ran, screaming, blaming everyone but himself, and people in red clothes continued to kill. Eliot dropped to his knees. "Oh God." He whispered.
A dark shadow passed over him, looming and staring. "The poor child that has fallen down the wrong rabbit hole…" He trailed off, and squatted next to Eliot, placing a hand beneath his chin, fingering it. Eliot was too paralyzed with the sight of those bodies to move. "You are mine now and forever."
Eliot screamed.
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"Eliot, Eliot!" Shaken, shaken, he was being shaken. Why was he being shaken. Reo, more frantic, continued. "Eliot!"
The boy's eyes fluttered open, blank and lifeless. Moments ago he had been screaming as if he were tortured but now… He sat up, looking up, not focusing on anything in particular. "When I open the box, not even despair is left."
There was no relief in Reo; he was still frightened for his master. "Eliot?" He asked, unable to help himself from backing away.
Eliot looked at him, that cold look in his eyes for a moment. He blinked. Suddenly he started to shiver; he shut his eyes, only to open them to escape from the fragments of the nightmare still left behind them. Tears fell down his cheeks as he choked on sobs. "Reo…" He whispered. "I'm scared…"
And from the corner of Eliot's mind, buried while his eyes were open, a voice whispered gently into his ear. "You should be." It said with a grin.
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Fin