Seconds began to feel like minutes and minutes began to feel like hours as Riley kept falling and falling and falling. She was screaming like a banshee for the first few seconds until she noticed gravity seemed to slow down, making her rapid descent slower. It felt really nice actually. The hole at the top grew smaller and smaller until she could no longer see it.

She had been falling for what felt like a long time. Maybe she made it to the center of the earth. But wasn't that supposed to be really, really not? She should've been sweltering by now. If she got to past the center of the earth, she could make it to the other side of the world. She pondered where; in a straight line, maybe she would come out of another hole somewhere in the Middle East, more specifically in the desert countries like Afghanistan, Pakistan, and the other "-istan" countries. If diagonal, She'd probably land somewhere in the Indian Ocean. How unfortunate that would be! She tried to think quickly; were there any islands, even small ones, in that ocean?

While she wondered, she saw different framed pictures, books, and furniture. They looked pretty old-fashioned. She reached for a book about horses, according to the title on the book's spine. But there was a big problem with this book—the words and sentences were backwards. Had she become dyslexic during this fall? She could barely make out the words.

Down by her feet, Riley saw a full-length mirror. They say if you hold up words to a mirror, they become backwards. Maybe if she held this goofed up book to a mirror, she could read it normally. She prepared by holding the open book face forward to show the pages to the mirror. What she expected to see in the mirror was very much not what she expected at all. In surprise, she accidentally let go of the book.

Her hooded blue jacket, red-blue-purple-yellow striped shirt, jeans and high-top tennis shoes were gone. Instead, she wore a light blue dress with white tiny polka-dots. Her sleeves were puffy and reached to her elbows, the scrunched hems laced with fine white lacy trim. A light yellow ribbon bow wrapped around her waist. She wore red-purple-white striped long stockings and black Mary Janes. A headband clasped around her scalp and held a yellow bow hanging a little on the right side of the band.

Well, this was something. It would be a type of dress one would see on a girl's toy doll, but hey, it was cute on the little girl. She rarely wore dresses or skirts (mainly to formal events like a wedding), and she realized one con to wearing one or the other was the risk of it flying up towards your face and showing off your undergarments. Embarrassed, she worked hard to keep the skirt of her dress down.

Riley thought in frustration about this predicament. Aha! She got it! Against the slow but working forces of gravity, she leant her body head down, upside down, allowing her dress to stay down. She didn't feel the need to worry about it because there would be more falling to do.

"Oof!"

Or not.

Riley found herself doing a handstand and her dress now over her face. "Drat!" She hissed as her legs swung over her head and led her into a somersault. "Ow…" She added, now lying on her back. She bent her head back to see what was laying ahead of her, even if it was upside down.

"Ohmyohmyohmyohmy!" She heard a familiar scream. She rolled over onto her stomach to correctly see who it was. Her soul lit up as she started to get up.

It was the White Nerve!

Even still, I think I've lost her, thank goodness! The White Nerve thought to himself.

"Hey!" The girl called out.

Oh shoot! She's still on to me! Each call injected a booster shot of adrenaline into his legs. He dashed as quickly as his short legs could carry him to a large room. Where's the door? He thought in a panic and visually scoured the room. There it is! He fidgeted with the door knob and sped through upon opening it.

"Wait!" Riley called out again, even if the Nerve was out of her site. She ran in his direction only to enter a large room. It was so wide and empty, big enough to hold a royal ball like in Cinderella. But it was too bland to be a beautiful ballroom. The floor was a hard with a white-black checkerboard pattern, and the walls were covered in what looked like a dark shadow. How many walls were in here? Where was the door she just came out of? Was there another door?

Why, yes there was, she noticed. She shivered and rubbed her arms in response to the mysteriously brisk cold hanging in this room. She could see her breath. If only her jacket stayed with her. Maybe what was behind the door would be a much warmer place.

But alas, the round door was too small. Only her clenched fist would be barely able to go through the frame. She was indeed puzzled as she knelt to the ground next to the door. How on earth could the White Nerve have fit through the door?

First, she had fallen at a very slow speed and now found a door fit for three toy soldiers. Where she was so far was the strangest place she had ever been.

"If I could only fit through that door." She wished.

In thought, Riley looked down at her legs and tried to concentrate. Unbeknownst to her, a thick vial sat next to her. Her thoughts were canceled when she saw it. It fit into her hand perfectly. A ribbon tag was tied to the cork lid. "Drink Me," its message read. She removed the cork. The liquid inside had no color or scent, like water. A small puff of fumes rose from the newly open vial; it smelled sweet.

Weird that the fumes should smell. She thought. But did she really want to drink it? Vanilla extract, she remembered when her mom did some baking, smelled sweet but tasted nasty. The vial's message seemed rather important, that perhaps providence smiled down on her and delivered this potential potion to her aid. With hope for the best, Riley took a small sip. As soon as she swallowed, she felt strange. Was it poison?

The answer to that question was no, for Riley had shrunk to such a small size that she was as big as the vial was. As soon as she saw the door, she dashed to it with a jolly kick in her step and a wide grin on her face. She breathed a blast of warm air into her cupped hands before reaching for the golden knob on the wooden door, so her hands wouldn't stick to the knob. But alas, the knob was stuck—not to her hands but rather locked.

"Uh oh." She said under her breath. How would she get through now?

Suddenly a faint shadow grew over her. In a quick reflexive response to seeing such a large object, she turned around. It was a tall table made out of crystal. It was so beautiful and was something one would only see in a fairytale. Through the clear glass tabletop, she could see a key. She smiled widely—now she could get through that door.

Riley didn't discover until later that the crystal was so smooth that any sort of traction to climb was impossible. After five tries, she found herself on the floor each time. She felt like an utter idiot and even more like one once she finally saw a small square of something by her feet. The square looked like a cake, like a type of shortbread. It even had a small, think trail of red jam-like stuff that formed into a message.

"Eat me." The little girl read out loud. It had a similar message to the vial, so she supposed that it would possess the same impact the drink had, only in reverse. Accepting the hypothesis, she took a bit of the shortbread lookalike. She felt herself grow like the shadow of the crystal table until she stood three heads taller than the tabletop.

She smiled again as she saw the key and picked it up off the shiny surface. Happily, she bent down next to the door and unlocked it. What was outside the door was something one could barely describe. She saw a beautiful garden far more beautiful than all the city park gardens in Minneapolis put together. She couldn't wait to go through, but all the while chasing the White Nerve, of course.

But something was wrong. Horribly wrong. Riley was not only too big again to go through the door but she was bigger than before. Now only her middle and index fingers put together on one hand could barely fit through. After a few short seconds, the door shut on its own.

She was at a loss. She was stuck and couldn't go anywhere, neither forward nor backward. In great despair, she began to sob.

Riley cried for much longer than what she usually did. In such a hopeless case, she couldn't stop. She cried until she noticed that her tears sounded as if they were absorbing into the ground once they fell and landed. Riley looked at the floor. The checkerboard floor was gone. She realized right away that she was now sitting on a sheet of ice. She cried so much in this frigid cold that her tears formed a thick layer of ice.

Wow. By some odd means as well, a blade of steel had formed on the sole of each of her Mary Janes, turning her shoes into ice skates. She carefully stood up. The Mary Janes weren't as secure as her high-laced ice skates, so she had to take extra caution.

"Woo hoo!" She heard in the distance.

"Watch it!" Another voice shouted. "We've got a lot of work to cover here!"

Riley looked in the direction at where she heard the voices. She couldn't understand. There was nothing but darkness. Yet…and yet…this ice "rink" made from her tears led in all directions outside the checkerboard floors and out into the surrounding darkness.

"So, what have we got to do again?" She heard the voices again.

"Um…I don't know." Another one replied. "Something to do with some dorky-looking guy, you know? Something white, thin, taller than the majority people or thingamajigs in Wonderland…"

Wonderland…so, this is where I am. Riley thought. Or where I probably am.

"Sounds like something else." The first voice commented.

"Oh, yeah, he is alright." The second one agreed. "One heck of a wiry thing, always so jumpy and jittery. The last time I saw him he was gibbering and jabbering about being late."

"Late for what?"

"I don't know. Whatever. He wanted us to do something or another. For what grand reason, I have no idea."

Riley's soul bubbled up. Perhaps they knew the White Nerve went. Excitedly, she began to skate in the direction of the voices. She continued to glide but then stopped. She was about to head into darkness. She had very little to no idea as to what lay beyond the pitch black.

But then again,…She thought. She had already fallen down a hole at a slower speed and in the meantime had an unexplained outfit transformation. She had grown and shrunk with a single bite of an "Eat Me" cake or a single sip of a "Drink Me" vial. She had cried an ice rink of tears.

All this was impossible in the real world. But now, she was in Wonderland. And in Wonderland, anything could happen.

Thanks so much for the reviews; it makes my day! Btw, in case anyone is curious, I am willing to take requests to feature their Inside Out OC's in "Riley in Wonderland". Just PM me your OC's name and description, and I'll see how I can put them in this story.

Inside Out (c) Disney & Pixar

Alice in Wonderland (c) Lewis Carroll