Blood Wonderland.

Chapter Two.

Black. Liquid black. Solid black. Dark black. Light black. Darkness enveloped me. It welcomed me like an old friend. Well, it was an old friend. My best friend. Beckoning me forward. But there was no forward. There was no backwards. There was no up. No down. Just... as it was. Nothingness. But my mind was still conscious. How could that be? I was dead. Wasn't I? Maybe this was what death was like. Conscious minds being held in a state of disarray, left alone with your thoughts for eternity. Infinite torture. Alas, no. Something flickered in the distance. A candle. A small, dying flame, but a candle nevertheless. I ran? No. I couldn't run. I floated towards it. Floated through the darkness. My small white hand longed to touch it. I had no idea why. No motive. But I did it anyway. My fingers wrapped around the flame. It burnt me. The flame was sharp, painful. But... despite my death, it made me feel alive. I tried pulling my hand away, but to no avail. Panic gripped me. I tried removing my hand from the flame, but it was as though some force wouldn't let me. The pain travelled across my fingers, through my hand, up my arm, until it covered my entire body. If my heart was beating, it would have been going extremely fast. The pain was too much. I blacked out.

Days passed. Or was it minutes? I couldn't tell. Time did not exist. Nothing did.

I woke up in a room. My eyes stung and my whole body ached. Especially my hand. The walls were coated with blood. Black hugged the walls. It looked like shadows, moving and curling, twisting and expanding. I sat upright, my movements slow and sluggish. I went to inhale, to take a deep, calming breath. But I couldn't. I physically couldn't. Worried, I pressed my hand against my chest, feeling for a heartbeat. Nothing. Not one beat. I was a walking corpse.

Was this a dream? It was possible, but everything felt so real. Then again, it's not until you wake up from a dream that you realise something was astray. I decided to push the thoughts to one side of my mind, locking them away for a while. They were not getting me anywhere. I glanced around the room, and my eyes focused on a bottle on a small table. Walking slowly, I picked the bottle up and swirled it around slightly. The liquid inside was thick. And black. I popped the lid off and gave it a sniff. It smelt revolting. Attached to the small bottle was a large piece of paper, and on it were the words 'Drink Me.' They were written hastily, yet whoever wrote it had rather elegant, if not messy, handwriting. This all seemed awfully familiar to me. I remembered... I remembered something to do with drinking... and growing... No. It must have been a dream. A far off, scattered dream. But no matter how many times I tried to, I could not escape the feeling as though I had been here before.

"Here goes nothing." I thought to myself as I drink the liquid in one. I immediately wished that I hadn't. The liquid was thick, impossibly thick to be liquid. It stuck to my throat, refusing to wash away, no matter how many times I tried to cough or swallow. Suddenly, I things changed. The room looked bigger around me. The table grew around me, the shadows and the walls enlarged. It wasn't me that had shrunk, definitely not. My dress was still the same size, for one thing, and I felt the same, for another. My head span at the thought of it all. I ran around the perimeter of the small room, looking for any exit possible. None. The shadows covered the entire bottom part, covering up any potential exits. There had to be a way to get rid of them. Without really knowing why, I extended my hand forward, the same hand which had touched the candle. It glowed bright purple, and the shadows, one by one, sank into it. They wrapped their way around my entire arm, sending shivers up my spine. Despite the freezing cold temperature of the shadows on my already cold skin, I felt empowered.

A wind blew from a gap in the wall, where the shadows had been removed. I wrapped my arms around myself, in an attempt to reassure myself, I suppose, and walked out. Below me we hundreds of trees. They were dead, and seemed to be... moving. On closer inspection it was revealed that they were coated in shadows. The sky seemed to dance, it was daylight, yet it was purple. Stars dazzled in the daylight, bright white beacons of hope. Perhaps one of those stars was my world. Back home. Home where nobody understood me. Home where everyone thought I was insane. No. This was where I belonged. Why else would fate bring me here? I followed a path through the woods, a chill wind forcing me along. Then, out the corner of my eye, I saw something dart between the trees. I ran after it, diverging from the path. It was difficult to run, what with being a corpse and all. Thorns ripped at me, and my dress, at my hair, but I didn't care. I saw the image again, it was dark grey, and kept flying away from me.

"Wait! I just want to talk!" I shouted after it. It was like trying to catch smoke with my bare hands. Impossible.

"Then talk we shall." The creature appeared in front of me. It was a cat, a fat grey cat. Along it's body were several slits of electric blue. They pulsed and oozed, giving off energy. The cat's eyes were blood-red. No, they were made of blood. Blood filled the eye sockets, overflowing and running down the cat's face into it's grinning mouth. It's empty gaze seemingly fuelled by it's own blood. At least, I hoped it was it's own blood.

"W-where am I?" I stuttered, the first of many questions which filled my already packed mind.

"There." The cat said, rather unhelpfully.

"And where is 'there'?" I asked, trying to keep my tone sweet.

"Where you are standing." The cat twisted through the air.

"What is this place?" I asked, beckoning to the trees of shadow.

"The Forest of the Hatter. But you should know this. You've been here twice before." Was his reply. His eyes widened, and blood poured out.

"I- I have? W-Who are you?" I stammered.

"Many call me The Cheshire Cat. But you can call me... Chess." It grinned. The tips of his sharp teeth were coating in blood, and appeared to be rotting.

"Okay, Chess... Why are your eyes so-"
"So?"

"So... red?"
"Why are your eyes so blue?" It continued to twist.

"Can you help me find where I'm supposed to go?"

"Where do you want to go?"
"I'm not sure..."

"Then I can't help you."

"Wait! Take me... take me to the see the Hatter?" I asked. I had no idea who this 'Hatter' was, or why he was named as such, but something deep within me, my gut instincts blurted the words out before my mind could engage. Maybe it was one of the perks of being the walking dead. Chess smiled.

"Follow me." He said, before evaporating into a cloud of red smoke.