Drabble 2: Forgetting Wonderland
Takes place four years after Alice's first trip to Underland.
Because the back of my mind is holding things I'm relying in
But I choose to ignore it because I'm always denying them
Ten year old Alice Kingsleigh just wanted to know what was wrong with her. She dreaded night time. She feared sleep. She wanted nothing more than to stay awake forever so long as it meant she would never have to dream again. She practically didn't sleep as it was; nearly every night a pinch aroused her and she would then fight to not fall asleep again.
However, when she was inevitably lost to dreamland, as her tiny body could not handle going too long without some rest – if rest was even the proper term for it, strange images of Dodo birds and blue caterpillars resided there. At first such creatures had been curiously welcomed until after a few nights of dreaming only of them, or at least having recalled dreaming only of them, the feeling of falling began.
After that, falling down and down what seemed to be a frightful hole is how her dreams would always start. And as if that weren't frightful enough, eventually she was no longer greeted by only Dodo birds or blue caterpillars. Instead, there were things chasing her and something about heads being chopped off. Then there was a cat which had a most enormous grin that would appear almost fiendishly on its own.
Night after night, Alice felt the uncontrollable need to pinch herself and wake up. After awhile, the dreams became more and more like nightmares which she could never quite recall in the morning, save for the horrible falling and a blue caterpillar here or an immaterial cat there. The falling and the few creatures she managed to recall was her proof she only ever had the same dream.
The poor girl felt as mad as, well, as mad as something. What that something was, she didn't quite know. All she knew was her father promised her the dreams could never hurt her and it was the only peace of mind that allowed her to deny that her dreams could ever possibly be real.