Disclaimer: Electronic Arts (EA) and American McGee hold all copyrights to American McGee's Alice

Chapter One: Madness, Absurdity, and Dementia in between

The door clicks open, a sound not a sound.

The Doctor trots in, hurriedly flipping his pocket watch open and examining it thoroughly before stowing it in his left pants pocket. He pulls over a rickety chair, the same one he replaced at the end of the last consultation. Trying to smooth his hair and suit at the same time, he spares the prone figure on the tattered mattress a nervous glance.

"Alice," he calls, clasping a record loosely in one hand and a sharpened pencil in another.

Me.

I deign to swivel my eyeballs towards him. Expectant. Unsure. Maybe I would have looked like that, if I had been leading my past ten years like a normal person. But then, if I were a normal person I wouldn't BE here would I?

He blinks, not sure whether to be pleased or concerned to get a response out of me. "Ah, yes, good. So," he glances hastily at the scribbled record. Not that he has been able to do much scribbling. "How are you today?"

I finger the dusty ears of Rabbit mechanically "Well," my tone as dead as my movements. And my heart.

"Uh, very well, very well, I was hoping that today we could perhaps touch on coming to terms with the…"

At his words, I saw red. All around my vision, tongues of flickering flames licked at the edges the same way a cigarette burn eats away at a photograph. My ears catch none of Hieronymus Q. Wilson's (what an utterly ridiculous name) questions, but are filled with crackling, roaring and screaming. Echoing, tortured screaming.

"Fire! Fire!"

"Hurry, we must save Alice!"

"Daddy? Mummy?"

"Hush, Alice! Drop everything and run!"

The doorknob, roasted by the flames, is searing to the touch, but my father yanks it open and is greeted by the staircase leading to the bottom floor crashing down.

"No! Dad, Mom, I can't just leave you like that!"

"We have no time for this, Alice. Save yourself!"

My father heaves me out of the window into the hard snow, but before he could help Elizabeth out, the fire-weakened mansion collapsed.

"NOOOOO!" A bestial scream rips its way out of my throat, and I grab the most lethal weapon I can find, hurling a pencil so hard it snaps against a closing door. I cannot even see enough of his fast-receding figure to get enraged at. I'm not sure about his credentials as a psychologist but that guy has a hell of good reflexes. Stalking over to the grimy windows, I swing the badly-ripped curtains shut, blocking out some measure of the unbearable light.

I cast my eye gloomily around the filthy, bloodstained room. It never seems to be tidied, but then an institute such as this probably doesn't get enough grants to keep it going, much less clean.

They declared me a ward of the state, and took everything away from me — anything that could remind me of my parents, what remained of my dresses, every last one of my toys…except Rabbit. One could hardly blame them, perhaps. Better to remove these tokens of my painful past. Better to encourage the possibility of a future without needing to think, to remember my loss.

Perhaps it was all going well. And I did really try. I tried to leave my past where it belonged. To forget those I'd left behind…

Then—somebody touched Rabbit. Tore him apart and put him back together into something he was not. When my trembling fingers touched his face I realised what I'd been doing to myself. Trying to remove the parts of myself which should be mine to bear. Trying to be something I shouldn't be.

I knew it wasn't too late to change. Make both of us right. So I ripped out that eye which did not belong.

And, with the little sewing scissors I managed to smuggle in, I cut into myself. Ripping myself from this world, to which I did not belong.

But in a fit of misguided kindness they caught me in time before all the life flowed out of me. I kicked and screamed in defiance, not knowing why they wouldn't just understand, that I had to die, I was trying to pay for what I had done to my family, but despite the blood splattering their clean white suits the strong asylum personnel pinned me down on a table while the doctors wrapped countless rolls of thick white bandages around the fresh wound. Then they did the same for the other, as yet uninjured one, just for good measure.

Thus even that choice was taken from me. A choice that should have been mine. As were my parents. Were. They were taken, just like everything else. My property. Which I lost. My fault. In the fire. It was me. I didn't rush back in. I didn't pull them out and hug and thank them for saving my life. Three lives were lost for mine. Elizabeth, Dad and Mom…

My fault. And there is no solving that.

Pain pain is good which I won't get good I don't deserve good I've been a bad, bad girl I'm sorry I'm so sorry, Mom I wasn't good enough I wasn't good enough to save you Dad I'm so, so sorry, Elizabeth, it was ALL MY FAULT I DON'T DESERVE TO LIVE.

Down the hallway, I hear as if in a dream, the mutterings of the Rutledge asylum workers…

"That annoying Liddell girl again…still a mess. So much more trouble than she's worth. Complete waste of Dr. Wilson's time, if you ask me…"

I used to wonder how asylum residents could scream and yell or continue on other related mad behaviour for so long. I mean, I was sure it would get tiring or boring at some time. But then again, I was the one locked up in the madhouse so who was I to judge?

My first-hand experience seems to have proven my theory right, though. Except being tired or bored just aren't sufficient to stop madness from consuming you. Even after beating myself up for ten years, it just won't let up. Nothing can even come close to assuaging the pain that gnaws within me. This probably explains these strong leather straps securing my limbs to the bed frames. Now I can't even touch the new bandages.

I spot a movement near the edge of the bed.

Well, with my new accessories I can't really do anything about it even if it was a demented killer determined to slaughter the first person he sees.

One mad person deserves another, I guess.

Then Rabbit grabs my hand and rasps, "Save us, Alice!"

I couldn't even sputter at the improbability of that before the room, straps and all, dissolved into a swirling whirlpool of dizzying colours. And as gravity took its hold, all I thought was, What the Hell?

To the uninitiated, falling is a boring activity as well. A three-hour long one even more so. It is occasions like this where the random insane thought comes really in handy. Anything was better than dwelling upon the inevitable hard landing.

Strangely enough, the impact didn't shatter every single one of my bones, as I expected. Though it may have once been a sanctuary, I'd forgotten how odd Wonderland was.

Shaking off the effects if my sudden descent, I smoothed down my dress—burnt and bloodstained, but still in much better shape than the shift I'd worn at Rutledge—and stared about, trying to get my bearings. And this…thing resembling a skeleton with four legs simply appeared out of the air and sauntered towards me.

"Chessur," I drawl, unimpressed by his, well, unimpressive appearance. "I hope they've been feeding you. If you were considering getting as mangy as possible, thinning down that smile shouldn't have been too much of a trouble."

"I much prefer to see myself as…'lithe'. As for the smile…you can't help who you are, can you?" Grinning complacently, he licked his paws and continued, "You, on the other hand, have gained quite an attitude since the last time you were here. Still adventurous and willing to learn, I hope?"

"Whatever, But I would appreciate it very much if…damn."

How typical of a Cheshire Cat. Simply vanish when a girl needs help in an alien place.