ALICE: BLOODY WONDERLAND

CHAPTER EIGHT: The Sky Speaks in Tongues Not Even I Can Understand, The World Dances In the Beat of Old Playing Cards.

I don't know how many days, weeks even, passed since the first idle days. Often times, when I had nothing better to do, I would spend my times with Maurice and Roger in the jungle or on the mountain, marveling at the endless, churning grey sky and watching as Roger fixed playthings with the dust; a whip fashioned from fraying vines and splinters of wood. It seemed the sky wasn't the only thing darkening these days. Lately, Roger seldom talked. When he did, it was only threats and poison flowing from his lips; an endless stream of hatred and confusion…I don't know why he was confused. I heard him often mutter in his sleep about it, about the confusion and 'what should he do' and 'what am I after all', those sort of things. Lately, he'd stopped. Lately, the miniature terrorist he'd become had started to scare me, in that way that makes you stay up all night for fear someone would walk in your room and kill you. It was a fear I tried hard to bury, along with the hatchet.

"Preparation," He had said once when I asked him what it was about, "I must prepare. Something strange is happening here."

So, I hadn't been the only one to notice. There had been a shift in the attitude lately, a shift in the glances, a shift in the way we moved. We were no longer as carefree as we used to be. The storm loomed overhead, but it refused to break; instead, it only teased and jeered at us, flaunting its gloom and shouting its thunder. I never quite understood, whenever I thought upon it, why it had decided to wait and torture us more. It withheld its saving sustenance from us, and it withheld its rage. It was not being kind, but it was not being angry. I frankly didn't know what it was, if it was not one or the other, then what was it? Slowly, I turned my gaze upon it and all its doomful glory. The air above cast fleeting shadows on my expression, a reflection of the clouds that coated the sky, like snow, above. Roger and Maurice looked up from their business and looked over my face carefully; I could feel their stares, but chose to remain oblivious.

"What're you looking at, Alice?" Maurice queried with a smile.

I raised my hand a little, trying to feel for rain that might have been falling, but coming up dry. There was no response forthcoming in my mind, only wonder. I'm sure it mirrored in my eyes, luminous against the sky's hue and wide with fascination. Not once did I look away. The sky held all of my attention.

"There are changes in this world we cannot fathom." Roger picked up for me, also gazing up, but just slightly; not with his face but with his eyes. "There are no ways we can learn to see them, but some are born with this ability…to see the world change. I've never doubted that Alice can see the spectrum of this earth."

Peculiar. Those words seemed too deep for him, too wide of a gap to bridge from his mind to the greater view of things. I parted my lips just slightly, tasting the air for rain and trying to find words to explain what I was feeling. There were none in existence I knew of.

"She's just waiting for the revelations." Roger finished. Maurice and I remained silent, and we were all once more plunged into desolation.

The sky above my head, right in my line of sight, surely did seem to be speaking to me at that moment. All around me, invisible channels seemed to unravel and swirl around me in passages of light, sliding through the clouds, piercing the gray, floating up into the stratosphere above. Up there, it was quite and calm, but still looming down below were the threats of our civility, the small crumbling world we had built ourselves up in. Some below conspired, some below were fitful of nightmares of beasts and savage things, some below were simply trying to get by. As the pilot above maneuvered through these planes, I'm sure he saw it too. Or did he? Did he have the same insight as I? Did we share that thing? Is that why I was able to sense his presence above, even if I didn't know at the time that it was indeed a pilot and a plane?

The dark soon descended on us. At night, for the majority of the times, I stayed around Maurice in the tents. I didn't want to be on my own, and I surely wasn't going to risk sleeping next to anyone else. Except, occasionally, when the nights came where sleep was not withstanding and nightmares of Charisma and my old life gave me bleary delusions of solitude, I would wander into the woods and meet brother there. By brother, I mean Simon, of course. He never slept in the shelters or on the beach, but much preferred to be alone with sometimes only my company. There, I would lay by his knees as he gazed up into the sky and drift back to sleep. The sickly sweet scent of the orange honey blossoms would lull me into sweet dreams, back into wonderland. It was a nice trickery, the kind you longed for in a place as dark as the midnight moon. That was the only time they bloomed, was at midnight.

Tonight, I could not sleep. Even when I went to the meadow, I could not sleep. I tossed and turned in the grass, glancing at Simon and then back to the sky again. Even he had long since drifted asleep. So, why was I awake? I usually found sleep easy, especially since I was so 'dense' to the dangers around me, and never seemed to sense at all the looming perils that lay ahead. For a while, I lay on my back and stared at the sky. I hadn't stopped thinking about it today. The noise I heard before in the clouds, when I had been with Roger and Maurice…that had been no roar of thunder nor the clap of lightening nor the tumble of a boulder on the mountain. It sounded like…sounded like…

The last thing I saw before my flower-induced sleep was the illumination of the clouds above as a plane unloaded its cargo and tumbled into the oblivion beyond, meeting up with my leviathan in the sea.

It has been SO LONG since I updated this. For anybody who was actually enjoying Alice and her adventures, I'm dearly sorry D: It's just…I got caught up in so many other projects and such…and then things happened…and then….and then…you know, the old song and dance. I'm just going to cut the crap (And the excuses) and get to the AN already, gogdangit. And yes, I meant to type GOG. Deal with it~

So, if you're reading this now that means you were reading my fic. THANKS! No seriously, thank you guys for that. This definitely isn't the best thing I've written and if you would read and review, that would mean a lot to me!

And, for the people who have already reviewed:

REVIEW RESPONSE TIME!

FreedomWriter15~~

Oh, you have no idea how much your review meant. I was actually thinking of deleting this story when you reviewed. I mean, at least until I could re-evaluate and see what else I could do with it. YOU SAVED THIS FIC! Especially since, you know, I haven't exactly been that inspired of late. Thanks for reviewing though! I hope you keep reading and really enjoy it! I aim to get anyone who reads my fics deeply, emotionally connected to anything that might happen or anyone who comes in. So, I hope I''m succeeding C:

Also, I updated CX

So, thanks for reading!

SEE YA LATER! Or write you later, but you know what I meant, so…yeah. Oh, and on another note, I have set up my deviantart account! You might have heard about that if you read really early into AP or Epic Party Time; I had some doodles lyin' around. Well, they're gonna be up there as soon as I can get them up…yup. Not the best quality though, I'm just warnin' you. If you really want to see, my account there is posted on my profile page. Thanks!

Bye!