Bottom of the hole
…Alice…
She lay on the floor, broken.
…Alice…
Of course, she couldn't really have survived the fall.
…wake up, Alice…
From thin air materialised teeth, sharp and yellow. Shortly after they were followed by a head, and it was followed by the body.
He was the Cheshire Cat.
He was.
His body was thin, and coloured in a strange and sickly green. Obscure and arcane symbols carved into his skin changed with every movement of muscle. His eyes shined.
"Alice, it's time to wake up…"
But of course she wasn't waking up that easily. He had hoped. If she was to save Wonderland, he had hoped she could take some blows.
She's a fragile little girl and you expected her to shrug of THAT??
She will have to go up against things much more lethal than mere gravity.
But maybe she'll be expecting it THAT TIME.
No point in bickering now.
He had come to the strange habit of talking to himself. It wasn't just because that way he got sensible answers, but he was always around when he needed himself.
And that way, if his companion died, he wouldn't be in a position to cry.
…You still remember…
He didn't have time for memories.
He lifted his paws, and placed them on his chest.
Sacrifices have to be made.
He thrust inward.
And this is not the last one.
There was pain, lots of pain. Pain engulfed him, strangled him, burned and froze him as he ripped a part of his meta-essence, his very soul, straight from his living body.
Pain, overwhelming.
Burning, searing, cutting, shredding.
Paralysed.
But he couldn't give in. If he succumbed to the pain, he'd die. And then Alice would die, and then
But now wasn't time to celebrate yet. He had to quickly gather the released essence, and fuse it into a Crystal. If he failed, he'd have to bleed again. And he wasn't sure he could survive another try.
He held out his aching paw, and formed a heart in the air. Gripping the earth, trying not to faint, he forced the released energies into the crystal heart. It filled up with the sweet and healing purple dust, and closed with a soft click.
He saw the beautiful crystal heart, floating in the air before him. The way the light broke as it passed through…the way it seemed to shine…so perfect…
He collapsed.
Losing may not be,
My dear exhausted friend.
Out of the corner of the eye he hadn't totally closed he saw a small mouse suddenly run up to him and begin to nibble on his tail. It wasn't so mush a pain as it was annoying, but it was a chance.
Slowly, he raised his paw, and then brought it down with fierce speed.
With a splat, the mouse lay smeared all over the general vicinity of his tail, soaking the earth with fresh blood.
And the earth drank.
From it's wrecked entrails came forth dust, so purple, so perfect.
Need. Must have. NEED. MUST HAVE.
It danced around him for a brief moment, and then formed a small pyramid.
His heart sang with joy as he consumed it, for he knew he would live to guide Alice.
You/We may live to see this land redeemed.
But now that he lived, one that was more crucial did not.
He took the great shining crystal heart, and taking great care not to let it pass into him, he stuffed it deep into the chest of-
Dead but dreaming
-sleeping Alice.
"Wake up, Alice…Time to wake up…time…"
She awoke. Opening her eyes to gaze around the ragged and destroyed land. The hate and malice that had twisted it had not omitted a single inch.
You should never have brought her into this. Look at her! So fragile, so defenceless. Why did you damn her to the sick and disturbing hellhole you live in?
She is the Saviour.
She is a little girl, traumatised and left in a loony house for YEARS! She hardly even saved herself!
The land still stands. She guarded her sanity for years, haunted and hunted by terrors of her own make. The ones that you fear most. She will fight, and she will win. She will win for us all.
Ah, my jewel has awakened.
Bet I can guess the first thing she'll say.
"Uh…Where am I?"
I win!
Slowly, Alice rose from the ground. She squirmed, her neck and back still aching. Then, like a slap across the face, her question answered itself, as her vision cleared, and the blurry shapes that formed her surroundings left and were replaced by a grotesque view of the world around her.
The last time she had seen Wonderland, it had been made of beautiful, rolling hills, the plants and blooming flowers bathing in the warm sunlight from the gentle sun in a clear blue sky. It was so beautiful to the point of being surreal, and that was it's special charm, the way the sun made you feel warm but never hot, the clouds never threw any actual shadow, and the air itself seemed to have a joyful happiness woven into it's fabric. Time didn't fly when you were having fun, because it was always just right. And the inhabitants were silly, in a good-natured way as they considered their silly actions to be awfully important.
She liked that wonderland.
She didn't like this wonderland.
Where her wonderland had been beautiful, this one was bizarre, A horrific nightmare of swirling chaos, and where there had been a near solid joy in the air, now lay a feeling of dread and a sense of some evil, nameless horror that had turned her wonderland into this perverse parody of beauty.
The sky was a gaping blackness, a dark and cold void above their heads. Shadows swirled in and out of that hateful dark, a gloomy display of the sinister power which had claimed this land.
The Cheshire Cat saw what she was looking at.
"Much has changed since you lived here, my friend. This is no longer your dreamscape."
"But…it's my wonderland."
"No, dear Alice. It is your no more. It was taken from you while you slept."
"Who…who took it?"
"Were it known, we would have long ago taken it again. But no, girl, we know not. Most believe that the Queen of Hearts is the thief of dreams, but I do not."
"Why not? It would be just like her."
"As Wonderland, as we all, so she has suffered. Before I fled her court, she was in an unenviable state. Her body had been as if twisted and turned inside-out, and her veins leaked a foul smell."
"So, who could it be?"
"If only I knew, Alice."
There was a pause, in which Alice seemed to ponder the new data. After a brief consideration, she asked:
"How have I come here?"
"The screams of a dying world have summoned you. Wonderland tears at itself, and like a volcano, the rumblings are the sign of inside pressure. Soon, Wonderland will erupt."
"Why is the evil destroying the world?"
"The evil cares not, my dear Alice. And the motives of this evil are difficult to comprehend."
"What do you mean?"
"The evil searches for you."
"Does…it…know I'm here?"
"It should not. It has no way of knowing. But it knows, Alice. And if it wants you, we must find out why."
"It probably wants me because this was once my wonderland."
"Alice, stop thinking of this place as your wonderland. Your wonderland died, and this is the thing that has spawned on it's grave. You have no more power than a person born here. You can DIE, Alice."
Die? That was no problem. She could deal with dying. Generally, it was easier than living.
Easier than living, living and remembering…
That was where Alice fainted, and fell to the ground like a bag of bones.
There was The Night, the Night of the Burning. It was an evil night, and her memories were clear. Many a time had she hoped, begged, that the memories would fade away, reducing themselves to a hazy, blurry recollection of inaccurate fear. It never happened. Her memories of it were clear as crystal, and vivid as the flames of the Night of the Burning.
She could remember every detail, as if it had all happened only yesterday. As if it had happened only a second ago. As if it were happening now. She could smell the burning of her mother's fair hair, could see how it seemed like the fire was growing out of her skull, and she could see her eyeballs melt away oh god and the blisters, there were so many blisters, the way her skin just cracked open and the scream oh god make it stop she could remember the screams, so strong, so please make it stop fierce from the pain, and then her gaze would pass over her father, and he was crawling, fighting the pain and the agony and the misery and THE PAIN, THE BURNING PAIN, and he was losing, he would never make it, he was I don't want to remember and she knew, she saw, she was aware that he had lost a leg, and it was under a huge piece of burning wood, and she could see the bone and it looked like he had torn it off? In a frenzy to save his wife, but and I survived how could I survive it was too late, and it had been too late a long time ago, because she was dead, and dead, she was screaming until there was no more air in her lungs, her dead lungs, and there was the horror of blood and fire and death.
Here, her memories ended. The rest was a blur, the way she fought her way out of the house, each flame a demon, screaming, taunting, dancing their mad dance of destruction. How she collapsed on the soft, green grass, and turned, and saw the house in flames, the song climbing and climbing, a thousand hateful voices screaming in the night, like a chorus of ravaging thunder, and she couldn't resist that song, she had to watch, watch the house go, and the song reached it's climax. The thunders, so hateful, roared and so did she.
They found her the next day, staring at the smoking remains of the bonfire that had once been her home. She had watched it burn all the way into ash.
She opened her eyes, and found the Cheshire Cat looking at her, worried. As mysterious as he was, as hard as he tried to hide his motives and his feelings, sometimes, he slipped. She saw that slip. It crossed his face like a vague shadow, and disappeared as quickly as it had appeared.
It said "I should have never brought into this."
It said "I knew her memories as well as she does. I should have never brought her here."
And she didn't like that, because that suggested she was weak, weak and fragile, a thing of porcelain, made to sit on a shelf and look pretty.
And she knew she wasn't like that. This was her wonderland, no matter what the Cat said. Who…Whatever stole it from her, came from the Night of the Burning. And this was a chance…a chance to strike back at an aeon of injustice, of torture and fear, of longing for the Good Times, and the hateful song.
It was a chance that there would, once again, if only once and never again, be justice.
She knew she would do it.
"Cat, I'll do it."
"What?"
"I'll do it, Cat. I'll show the evil what little princess perfect can do."
"It won't be easy, know that. There shall be-"
"Yes. There shall be bloodshed."
And then she smiled, and it was a nice, kind smile, but that wasn't all. Somewhere back there, there was another part of Alice, the Cheshire Cat noted. It was smiling as well, but so does a shark before it tears it's victim apart. It smiled at the promise of blood.
It was submerged, and Cat hoped it stayed that way. And if it tried anything he would stop it.
Because he needed Alice as she was.
Because he wanted Alice as she was.