I am the insane sketch of a raven on the blackboard in violet chalk,

The blood on the roses, and the shadow that walks,

I am the Mad Hatter, Drinking tea, Killing time,

I am the voice that you hear in your mind.

"Punctuality was never one of your strong points or so I come to understand Cricket" spoke the pale man as he stared at the amber liquid in his teacup.

"And politeness is not one of yours." Replied Alice testily "You could at least have the courtesy of using my name."

The Hatter looked up at Alice slowly blinking his pale mismatched eyes at her, a leisurely smile spreading across his mercury redden lips "And what use pray tell have you for a name, little cricket?"

"Well how would you like it if I went around calling you some crazy madman who goes around obsessing over tea and hats and taking so much quicksilver that it's rotted to the very core of your brain?"

Hatter set down his cup and tipped back his hat so that its brim no longer overshadowed his face "Why would I care if you went around spreading false rumors of the truth cricket?"

This last question confused Alice no end, 'Just how' she thought 'was one to spread false rumors of the truth?'

"I think you've broken her." The March Hare said to Hatter

Hatter's slow smile replaced itself with a mildly psychotic grin "Then the little cricket shall need fixing shan't she Marchy."

"Oh what are you two mad creatures talking about?" asked Alice, snapping back to reality at the tone of Hatter's voice.

Hatter continued to grin as he picked up a sugar spoon and gazed at his reflection in it. "Tell me Alice," he said, using her name for the first time, "What is the source of my madness?

"Why," Alice replied, confused by his question. "I should think it was all that quicksilver, gone to your head."

Hatter shook his head, "No, my dear Alice, YOU are the source of my madness."

"I hardly think I understand that."

Hatter stood and walked towards her, "Think about it Alice, you are the source of my existence, and therefore the source of my insanity."

Alice took a step backward "But it can't be," she looked frantically from the Mad Hatter to the March Hare and then to the Door Mouse who was sleeping in a jam jar "Your all real…aren't you?"

"We nothing more then the conjured images of a disordered mind" Hatter continued "Refuge from a sane world, and you yourself Alice are a nothing but a gibbering idiot, a mad women, strait jacketed in a padded cell, locked away safely from the world outside, a fool with a broken mind, talking to herself, given into her insanity."

By now the surroundings had changed, the trees had become old rotting skeletons, the tea party a wake, the Door Mouse and the March Hare where nothing but taxidermied animals. As for Hatter, Alice shrieked and stumbled even farther away from him,

his clothes had rotted from their former velvet glory, his skin was bleeding from several hundreds of unseen cuts, blood dripped from his torn gloves, in the background a clock struck the time,

Hatter advanced slowly whispering. "You are insanity, nothing but madness, you don't even exist, save in the mind of others.

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Two orderlies passed by the locked door of a cell in the wards east wing as the clock struck twelve, "That's some screaming," said one to the other "Who do they have in there?" "Alice Pleasance Liddell, psychotic, she was put into solitary confinement after she tried to kill Dr. Seward with a spoon, intriguing really, that's the second time a patient has tried to kill him this year."

I dont own Alice In Wonderland or American Mcgee's Alice...Hell I don't even own the tiney Dracula reference, just the orderlies. R&R please (puppyeyes)