A/N: This is something I'm considering handing in as coursework – so could you please review with thoughts on how to improve? It's meant to be a dramatic monologue from the view of the Red Queen.

A woman sits inside a cell, wearing a ragged red dress which appears to have hearts embroidered all over. She is holding a mangled golden crown which has clearly been aflame, but she clasps it as though it is the only thing keeping her sane.

Everything changed when she came. It was... disconcerting, to say the least. Alice. You must know Alice. Who doesn't know that despicable creature, with her blonde curls and her blue eyes! She ruined everything. She ruined me.

When she first arrived she was no more than a foolish girl, but the Hatter said there was something about her – a "muchness" that made her original, that made her belong. I knew differently, of course. He was broken hearted when she left, he couldn't understand what could be better than staying in Wonderland with the man who loved her. She was gone for so long, he began to go insane – and now he is known as the Mad Hatter. He's not my close friend anymore; that man has vanished.

It was written in the prophecy that she would come back eventually. Most of the people had forgotten about it, or so it seemed to me – but there was always an air of waiting, this constant delay to an unobtainable ultimatum. They all knew. The Hatter especially was always waiting for her, and when she finally did return he was certain she had been drawn back to him. A fool's vain hope. Was it really just me who was in the dark? I feared it, of course, but I was consistently confident that she could be defeated. After all, who was she in comparison to me? No one. I was the Bloody Red Queen, known to all, the woman who single handedly removed any competition with the swish of a sword. It was all so easy. And her? Some silly little blonde with no clue of her supposed destiny – how was she supposed to kill my beloved Jabberwocky without knowing how? That was my thought; I didn't consider her to have help. Who would dare defy me? Who would have the raw courage to do so, with the knowledge that I could tear their heads from their shoulders with a single order? Alice arrived and with that, that damn and blasted Cheshire cat, that caterpillar who's always high whatever the situation, the flustered rabbit who's late for everything, the Mad Hatter... and the White Queen... they all belonged to her. To this day, I'm certain that ivory-clad innocent bewitched them all. That she caused this. I didn't deserve this.

My wonderland was so utterly perfect before Alice came and ravaged it, whether under the influence of some bright white magic or not – she made me the way I am. When she left, things were changed for the worse, and these changes were permanent. I never spoke to my sister after Alice left the first time. I saw her again, just once, on the opposing side to the unavoidable, unwinnable war.

And what am I left with now? Someone from my Wonderland arrived here yesterday. She told me the whole of Wonderland was better without me, and not to come back – and then she locked the door behind her. I didn't know where I was when she left, I was losing everything. My sanity remained intact, I thought, until my vision was constantly filled with grey. That is, until I tried to escape through that window. When the glass broke with the force of my weight, I watched my grey skin turn redder and redder, and as I fell...

The ground hit me, breaking brittle bones – and then the earth slowly turned red, a spreading sticky liquid escaping my clutches.

"Off with her head!" They laugh.

I don't know how long I've been here.