Alice ran back through Wonderland Woods, not looking back at her demented friends. Twigs scratched into her legs leaving red marks, limp spider webs hung in her hair and spores clung to her nose.

"Just a little more and I should be out" she thought to herself.

But the farther she ran into the woods, the more unfamiliar it became. The woods were dark and forbidding, not bright and vivid as they had been before.

"These woods have become strange to me, I seem to have lost my way." she said aloud, listening to her echo carry through the forest.

She sat down beside a tree and began to whimper.

"Oh...don't cry now dear" said a voice behind her.

Alice looked around the tree and saw the Duchess sitting on the other side.

"Fancy meeting you here" said Alice. "I seemed to have lost my way, can you help me out?"

The Duchess gave Alice an irritated look. "Do you think I've just been sitting here all day waiting to help you find your way?"

Alice tried to answer but was cut off.

"I'm not. I'm stuck here too! One minute I was playing croquet with the Queen of Hearts and I went to fetch a runaway ball that was in here."

Now the Duchess sat down and cried.

"I could tell you the moral but I'm too upset to remember" she sniffed.

"Oh dear" Alice thought to herself after a few unsuccessful tries to find a way out. "Perhaps this is how my story will end." She wiped a few tears from her eyes.

A branch above her head shook violently and caused Alice to look up at it. Slowly the familiar shape of a grinning cat appeared.

"I see you have lost your way again Alice."

Alice dried her eyes with her apron.

"I don't know what to do Cat." she whined.

"Well" he purred. "The jury's still out on that."

"What are you talking about?"

The cat jumped off his perch and pounced on Alice, digging his claws into her skin.

~*~

Nurse D stared out the window. It was raining heavily. The only light in the nurse's station was a candle flickering on a desk, and the occasional bolt of lightning that lit up the whole room. She hated the night shift, alone at night in the asylum was not the most pleasurable experience. She sat and stared at the window, the pounding of the rain on the glass lulling her into a trance.

The nurse was awakened a few moments later by a loud 'thud' coming from the hall. As soon as she got up to find the source, the door to the station was burst open by a young nurse, Maggie. This was her first night shift.

"The patient in cell 986 is going into fits!" she cried. "I don't know what to do."

"Calm down Maggie. Who is in cell 986?"

"It's Alice."

Nurse D rushed to Alice's room, while Maggie called for some help. In the cell, Alice was laying on the floor, writhing and scratching at herself.

Maggie came in, followed by two orderlies.

The two men held Alice's limbs to the ground while Maggie held her head still.

"Get off me!" screamed Alice, her eyes still closed, trying to wave her arms. "You're hurting me Cat!"

Nurse D left the room and came back with a syringe. Taking Alice's arm from an orderly, she pushed the syringe into Alice's fleshy arm.

Alice let out one last gasp of "Cat" and settled down. When her breathing became normal again the orderlies picked her up off the floor and put her on the bed, then they left with Maggie. Nurse D stayed behind. She picked up the white rabbit up from the floor and carried it out with her.