wonderland; a fantasy story featuring Yukimura Seiichi's younger sister.
A SEVEN PART SERIES.
I wonder if I've been changed in the night? Let me think. Was I the same when I got up this morning? I almost think I can remember feeling a little different. But if I'm not the same, the next question is 'Who in the world am I?' Ah, that's the great puzzle!
-Alice, from Alice's Adventures In Wonderland
'Only But'
DRINK ME AND EAT ME (INDOORS)
The first thing she could feel when she was able to stand on two feet was wow my feet ache. Actually, her feet weren't the only thing that ached. Her whole body experienced random aches and numbing pains, like she fell from a great height. Not that it matters much.
What she saw in front of her was something she had never experienced before, but it didn't feel like a dream. If it was a dream, she might as well dream on – dreams have never stayed so long before. She didn't know why, but she missed dreams. She felt lonely without them, like she was missing something.
What first got her attention was what she was wearing. A simple, light blue dress with rips at the end of it. Her hands and knees were dressed with dry mud, but since it was a dream, it didn't matter, right? She scratched her hair, which was, she guessed, equally messy.
Actually, who is she? Uh, uh… It didn't make sense. Who is she? What kind of life did she lead? What type of person is she?
Her toes tensed in the little black ballet flats that she wore. There was nothing else to do but to make sense of the situation. It was then did she feel a dizzy spell hurl her thoughts aside, and she thought she was going to fall on the floor and just never wake up and maybe that was the best. Maybe she was suited to take on this journey. Well, it looked like one anyway.
She was alone, and she didn't really know how to feel about that. Actually, she was indoors. The floor underneath her looked rustic and old, and quite dirty actually. A certain person would probably show distaste about that, but who that was, she couldn't remember.
She felt tired, so tired. It was like every step she made taken days instead of moments, and every thought sapped so much of her strength. But she tried not to think about it, because it would only get her nowhere, and now, she was sure as ever she had to get out of here.
The room she was in was quite strange, actually. Like size and shape were changed around and logic was questioned – something she was not used to at all. She was sure during days of sitting in classrooms and being told what to do sapped her imagination, and during moments like that it was difficult to just take it in and walk on.
She was standing in the middle of the room. The room was the size of a whole hall, if she could remember if that was a good way to describe it. Tables of different sizes and shapes were spinning, some clockwise, others anti-clockwise, and it made her feel even queasier than before. Some of those tables were big, bigger than her even, some where small, so small even an infant wouldn't play with it, and there were some on top of each other. There were some with interesting patterns of strips, circles and dots, and there were some which were just made of clear glass, or clear plastic. Some were too far away to tell, really. On some of the tables, there were sheets of paper threatening to fall but never quite making it, others there were glass bottles of every size and description, wearing labels like 'drink me'. That was kind of familiar, but she didn't know where it was from. There were also dishes on some tables, showing dainty cakes and mini sandwiches that all looked very appealing. She was sure some of them held flowers that looked so real but were only made of sugar and food colouring.
She took a deep breath and studied her surroundings a bit more. She had the feeling that she had waited for a long time to get here, travelled far and wide, prepared herself both mentally and physically. But that was strange. She had no memories of doing such at all. But nevertheless, she carried on. Actually, she had a lot of space in the middle of the room, where no table was taking it. To her alarm, slowly, the tables started moving. Some were just heading toward the ceiling and some were just given tilts and were stranded mid-air, like they were suspended with metal wires and the whole room was just a huge piece of one of those modern art things. Was this some sort of puzzle? She had to find the right table or something? Eat the right piece of food and drink from the right bottle? It was… likely, at least. Even though it was near impossible, seeing how almost every single table in sight had something on it, plus the whole room was filled with tables. Jammed packed with them, save for a little bit of space around each one, probably for her to walk past with.
Actually, when she looked up, she realised time was money, and there was also something else she might have had to do.
Chairs filled the ceiling, and it was a wonder how she didn't notice earlier. Tables in which she thought were floating away had stopped a long time ago. But what was most curious about it was that there were strings that came off the furniture. Yeah, strings like the kind you got from balloons, except they were all different lengths and thickness, and some were even different colours. Luckily, there were only about twenty chairs.
There were doors that nearly littered the walls of the room that were of all different sizes and of different designs, which seemed to be something of a reoccurrence, a common factor. There were doors which took part of the ceiling, and doors which were so small she wondered how on earth she could possibly fit through it. But strangely, she immediately thought of the cakes and the drinks. Perhaps they were as magical as the room and its furniture seemed to be, since she was pretty sure chairs didn't touch ceilings and act like balloons, and she was sure objects would fall if they were on tables that were on a tilt.
But, she wasn't sure where she was in the first place. She could be anywhere and not realise it.
She decided that looking time was over and walked around the room to think of an appropriate approach to that 'impossible task'. If logic still existed, she would have to eat from the right tables and give them appropriate chairs. But if fate wasn't too kind, she could die from whatever door she went through. At that point, she didn't feel like going over to each door and trying them, because her gut was telling her the door she will have to go through will make itself shown after she'd made her choices.
She wasn't actually afraid of death, but she was wry of what she could meet through those doors. She had a terrible feeling that picking the wrong choice could bring very serious consequences. She didn't like the sound of that word, it sounded cold and it attached to the realm of fear.
Even though she considered herself close friends with logic, she decided that there was no other way to do this without leaving a single regret than to choose the tables and chairs she feels is right.
If this was her dream, then she should have some sort of subconscious control over it, right? Even if she wasn't aware of it, it should at least be true. That was how dreams were, right?
She didn't know how long it took for her to look over each individual table. She was sure there were almost a hundred altogether, but it was time that needed to be spent.
If there were twenty chairs that would mean that only twenty out of all those tables were the right answer, but, what if she didn't need a chair? But, that could just be the situation in hand. What sort of table would you sit at? What sort of table could do fine without chairs?
She scratched the back of her neck, a gesture she would always do when she was nervous. What would she do now? The options were so many, plus she didn't consider herself a genius of any kind, so there could be options she hadn't even thought about yet.
Just that thought made the panic inside her raise like a wave. She bit her lip, and forced herself to calm down. There was a reason for everything. Someone had told her that. She didn't know who though. She couldn't remember.
It was funny, how everything in the room seemed to change according to her thoughts and feelings. Like how the tables moved before and how she suddenly noticed the chairs and their silence. Reason and logic told her she was just imagining things, but she couldn't bear to write it off just like that.
It was there, a table. Although it looked and felt like wood when she ran her fingers over it, she thought of one of those table things which contained water and was placed outside so that birds could drink from it. As if she was correct and the table was in disguise, the sides of the table were raised a little and the centre was slightly indented so water could have been stored. But, a strange print (although the surface was painted on and it wasn't wallpaper at all) was all over the table. It showed continuous images of a round clock face with gold edges and roman numerals. The clocks were all pointing to five o'clock, strangely. In the middle of the table, there were five pieces of cake, in colours of blue, green, pink, yellow and purple. Each piece of cake had a letter of the two words 'EAT ME' iced on them. Below each piece of cake were five other bottles, wearing five delicate labels, which had each letter of the word 'DRINK' baring the colour of the cake that was placed in front of it.
She had a good feeling about the table. For some reason, it triggered empty memories of the past. It was like she could tell it belonged to her personal memories, but she didn't know where it came from in her years of living.
She frowned.
Well, she decided that that table in question, or the 'clock table' was the one she was going to stick with. She didn't need a chair, since who would sit at a bird fountain in the first place?
She gasped when she saw water starting to pour in from the middle of the table. The delicate slices of cake and the tiny bottles were torn from their positions, and panic washed through her as she watched some of the slices of cake sink along with its corresponding bottle.
She just grabbed the blue cake and bottle, which were thankfully unspoilt. But then a horrible feeling started to boil. Who said you had to have two of the same colour? That seemed to really fire rounds of doubt into her stomach. So she went to pick up the purple piece of cake, even though stereotypically, purple meant poison. But she was sure that blue was the right colour, and the purple cake had the same letter as the blue cake.
The room started to dim, and a nasty feeling started to stir, and she didn't like it. Quickly, she ate the cake and drank the liquid, and tried not to worry what could happen.
By that time, the entire room was dark and she could hear the tables moving, plus a soft growl.
That did not sound good.
It was like hope gave her a thin thread, as she noticed a neon glow coming from the other direction of the room. She turned, and found a bright blue glow surrounding the door, like luminous lights in a city at night. She ran to it, trying to dodge tables and not think about what was brewing in the darkness. She got there, thankfully, and opened the door with the heart shaped symbol on it.
"Ah, you're here then, Satsuki. You should hurry up, you took too long. Your brother Seiichi is waiting for you."
notes. i think this peice will end up being quite personal, but i don't think it's something others can see too clearly. so yes, this will be a seven part series that is loosely based around lewis carrol's alice in wonderland, in which i am a big fan of. the ultimate idea isn't really mine, but i suppose the little things about the scenary is, i guess. i hope you enjoyed it.