Disclaimer: You know the drill. Oh, but Darren is mine.

Advertisements: READ RUNESPOOR EGGS, by Kelenariel. I co-wrote that, basically, and I'm quite happy with the outcome of it. Kel asked me to tell my readers about it. You might like it, it's a Harry Potter fiction that has a so far humorous tone that is going to get darker.

To my reviewers!

Supahfan and Muffins… I Love you both. Finally, foreign reviews, not from people who I more respectively know! hugs In any case, yes, McGee's Alice is, as I hear, a good game, and this was inspired a touch by it. Supah, thank you. This review was much appreciated, as I do wish to go professional. Indeed, I AM going professional in a year or so. . Please, feel free to buy a copy of my book…. Or many copies of my book! Fweee! Anywho, on with the chapter.

Chapter 4, Her Dark Majesty, His Wonderland

"So, Crow, where shall I, Alice, begin?" Alice wondered aloud in a manner that suggested that she was talking to herself and didn't quite expect an answer. Her eyes cast out their far-away gaze to some unknown place, as if attempting to reel something in with it. Still, Crow was not going to deny the delicate looking girl her answer.

"Well…. Could beeeeegeen at thee cassstle." He bobbed up and down amiably. Beneath that black exterior, the crow quite liked Alice's way of thinking, being a scavenger himself that enjoyed preying upon the weak often enough. Alice patted his beak once more with one of those misleadingly delicate, pale hands and continued on her way over the soft grass, feet turning the earth brittle, even infertile in some parts, in others changing once beautifully pigmented green grass into a ripe black. The woodland flanking her was a playground of death to those that graced it. Once thriving creatures were zombie-like and stinking of long rotted carrion.

"Where is this castle?" Alice paused, tapping her lower lip with a slender index finger, and she continued, "Ahh, yes, I remember. Just over the hill, Crow. Shall we leave?" Much to Crow's immediate confusion, Alice cast her icy gaze over her shoulder and towards some unknown source.

"Dinah, of COURSE you may come. I would order it if I could only do so, my dear, and you know it!" When the young woman turned her attention back to Crow, his wing was already extended for her passage onto his back, and he was pretending to take no particular interest in the recent goings on. As he was folding his wing, he was startled into an awkward hop by the girl's shriek.

"Let Dinah onto your back, you pathetic thing, before I cut your head off as well! You may not like cats, but Dinah likes you, so you had better just put that wing back down, Crow!" He complied with no complaint, subconsciously pulling his head close to his shoulders as it could be. There was no need to lose so fine a head, and so he waited until Alice seemed satisfied that "Dinah" was with them. Why had he been so startled at her outburst of insanity? Hadn't he known all along that Alice was an outright nutter? Yes. So it made sense to suppose that she was a crazy person in more aspects then one. Settling on this theory, the crow leapt from the earth at more then sufficient speed

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Quiet had long since descended upon the castle. Alice's castle. Crow was hopping about merrily, taking in his fill of the carcasses strewn about the castle. Perhaps all that was left was a single Smiget or Cloot. Alice had no idea what either of these creatures were, and so she contented herself with drowsing beneath the clouds in her field of corpses. With her crown hanging a touch over her forehead, a tiny, perfect smile played upon Alice's full lips. It was a smile of complete success. She had indeed been successful, rampaging through the castle and ripping still-beating hearts out of chests. She had even eaten a talking leg of mutton. Now it was time to relax, reflect on the perfection of the day.

"What do you say about all this, Dinah? Have I done well?"

"Of course," Dinah sat beside Alice beneath the clouds. "Her" paw batted at Alice's tumbling blonde tresses, and to Alice this was an honor more then anything else.

"Now you know what more you must do."

Just outside the eighth square, many a strange creature gathered, looking quite horrified at the scene before them. There was no more Red Queen, no more White Queen. Alice, the Black Queen, was all that was left to rule them, and by strict protocol, each bowed in her favor. Many ran as fast as they could so as to stay in one place to show their willingness to submit to her reign. Alice's smile widened at the show, eyes opening. So where was Crow? Ah, enjoying the meal she'd made for him. Well that was just grand, but it was time to go back home. She had other business to attend to… and now that the young woman had nearly an army of strange creatures on her side….. Alice smiled maniacally. Thunder roared overhead and her smile broadened into a grin as her fingers brushed over the back of a cat none but she could see.

"Well now, my dears, you will all come with me, or I will feed you to Crow," Alice stood, smoothing her skirts. Her words had been said without pause or even a crazy malevolence. At this, several of the strange creatures surrounding the eighth square turned and ran. In wasn't something to their advantage. Crow followed them, having heard Alice's words. Their screams resounded freakishly throughout surrounding woodland and the like. Alice inhaled deeply, as though refreshed, as Crow came swooping over the horizon, cawing down at the congregation, accenting Alice's proclamation almost eagerly.

Meanwhile, Alice was beginning her stroll to the borders, prepared to pick her slaves and just what purposes they would serve. After that… well… it would be time to go to Wonderland.

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It was time to go to Wonderland. Well, after school, of course…

Darren sighed and let his head fall down onto his desk with a sickening thud. Why the hell was history class always so damned long? His limp, shaggy black hair brushed the surface of beat-up wooden desk around him and he ignored the teacher when she prompted him to sit up. Then the bell rang. Shoving away from the desk with a satisfied grunt, he stood, stuffed his books in his bag, and awaited more official dismissal. Finally. Time to go. Darren managed to get out the door before the teacher even had the opportunity to scold him on his lazy behavior in class. He wouldn't have listened anyway, so did it even matter? Darren sure didn't think so. Wonderland wanted him. He wanted Wonderland. The sixteen year old felt as though nothing else in the world mattered much, save for his close circle of friends.

The tall, handsome teenager observed Los Angeles, California, as though it had no surprises to offer. Shouldering his backpack up with a tired sigh, he cast his hair-obscured hazel gaze down at his beat-up, high-top red converse and their perpetual bipedal motion…. Left, right, left, right, over and over again. The sky above him and the rest of Los Angeles was a bleak grey, reflecting the young man's mood with uncanny accuracy. Winter was always like this, really. Smog clouded the skyline as always, in every season, during every time of day. Whether or not one could see it, the smog was omnipresent, like the dark side of the moon. One would always know it was there.

Wonderland was like that for Darren. He couldn't always see it, but the reality, or lack, thereof, that was Wonderland always loomed overhead. In 2005, where people judged everything they saw, there was no way Darren would tell the world about his discovery. They'd send him to the funny farm, he knew. Still, the boy knew he would have to tell his friends sooner or later. They would sense that something was different.

Darren shoved past a tense business woman, a couple of balding fat men who were in his way, a strange old woman with blue hair and almost didn't hear their protests. Los Angeles was full of strange crowds, and Darren himself was merely another stranger in the endless flow of time here, just another kid in black jeans and a black t-shirt. He was nothing special, not here, where he was no more then a passing ripple on the surface of time; there one moment, gone the next.

Wonderland was different. Time didn't matter there. Darren mattered, and everything and everyone seemed to know everybody else, which was strange, considering just how many people lived there. Then again, nobody really died of age, no matter how old they seemed to be. It seemed they had all the Time in the world to meet everybody else. So why was Darren still here on earth? He had close friends. His parents were drunkards. They weren't even thought of when he considered who was important. Soon, though, everything would change. His friends would like Wonderland too. Maybe they'd want to stay. Darren ran his fingers tiredly though his limp black hair, kicking dismally at a tin can in his path. He was stuck between finding his closest companion, Mason, and going to Wonderland. The latter won out.

Darren managed to get home after fifteen minutes of restrained walking. Still, he made no effort to quiet his entry as he shoved opened his front door. His mother was home, at least, and she was, not surprisingly, quite drunk. She was sprawled awkwardly on the couch, smiling vaguely up at a son who had virtually raised himself. He blinked down at her lazily, not even bothering to glare at her pathetic state. It was a wonder they even lived in a dump like this, what with his family so dysfunctional. Sliding his backpack from his shoulders and onto the squalid wooden floor, he turned to face the fireplace, ignoring his mother as she wagged a sloshing beer bottle in his direction.

She was so drunk….Darren had no doubt that his mother would never comprehend his leaving into Wonderland through the fireplace, would probably believe him if he told her where he was going; hell, she'd believe him if he told her a giant purple bunny rabbit named Pubic-Hare was going door to door selling guillotines made out of frozen whisky.

Darren smiled wryly at the thought and stepped into the cold, unlit fireplace, disappearing in its red brick wall with ease as if the wall had been gauze. He was gone. Gone into Wonderland.

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"Lucy, I really don't see why you have to argue with Dinah all the time," Alice snapped, quite suddenly, at thin air. She glanced at the place where she saw Dinah, blinked apologetically, and smoothed her skirts. Alice was back in the Looking Glass House, arguing with an old voice that had suddenly surfaced once more. About her were creatures that looked quite reasonably puzzled at Alice's out burst.

"Alice, keep Lucy quiet or I'll do it myself," Dinah spat sternly. A look of fear leapt into the young girl's glassy blue eyes. It was a very real, very sane fear that germinated from three very real scars that traced the length of her back… Dinah seemed to know that Lucy was a part of Alice, and if it meant slicing Alice to pieces to get rid of Lucy……..

"Alright, Dinah, dear, it shall be done," Alice managed hastily.

"No it won't. I don't feel like being shut up. You two are being mean!" The moth, Lucy, whined insistently. Alice swatted at where she was sure the moth was and she eluded the girl's small, pale hand. At this point, she was so engrossed in this little argument that she did not notice when a few of her new soldier slaves began to creep away. Fortunately or unfortunately, Crow was on his watch.

"Lucy, do you want Dinah to hurt you?"

"No. You shouldn't be hurting these poor, defenseless creatures either!" The moth alighted on the corner of the mantelpiece and gestured widely with one tiny hand at the confused onlookers.

"I believe she's talking to nobody…" the astonished Red King to the White King at his left.

"Oh, do you think so? She must have very good eyes. I couldn't see Nobody, much less hear him!"

"No, she's talking to Lucy!" argued an uprooted daisy, gesturing wildly with a leaf.

"Who's Lucy?" inquired a portrait with genuine curiosity.

"Nobody," replied the daisy heatedly, flailing about with dramatic effort, and, being quite unanchored, fell over.

Meanwhile, Alice was carrying on her conversation with "Nobody," quite verbosely.

"Why oughtn't I, Lucy, why oughtn't I?" Alice demanded venomously.

"They can't defend themselves!"

"They are weak."

"So make them strong!"

Dinah was growing impatient, and Alice saw this. She took a few very tentative steps backward as the cat began advancing slowly upon her.

"Alice, I told you to shut the moth up," The cat spat sharply, tail flicking from side to side in irritation. The other creatures, impossibly numerous and still quite with ease fitting in the House, sensed the fear in Alice and they themselves became tense. Crow, who'd taken his place in the house itself, glanced about nervously from his perch on the suddenly elongated rafters above.

"Now Dinah, I can't be back in time for supper if you tarry on such silly things as Lucy….." Poor Alice had herself backed against the fireplace at this point….. But her fear had done well. Lucy was gone even from her sight. Dinah sat back, satisfied, and grinning widely as she leapt to the mantelpiece and slid through the mirror as though it had been mist.

Alice glanced about nervously, finding that a great many of her creatures had become contorted forever with the fear that she had exuded. And Alice crawled up to the mirror as she had before, pushed against it, beckoning silently, commandingly, with her sword for her creatures to follow as she disappeared into the disgustingly real world. It was time to check in with her family. Alice smiled as she heard Crow urging her slaves through the mirror.

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The look on her mother's face when she, garbed in crown and all, came through the mirror followed by beasts of impossible size, was one not even the distorted little Alice would ever be able to forget. It was a look of complete horror and even indignation that pleased the fourteen year old quite a bit, sharpened her bloodlust, and quickened her boiling pulse. The fear on her family's face as they gathered in the front room to look at their daughter… or whatever she was, at this point, with outright fear . This sparked a distinctly predatory instinct within Alice's most primal impulses.

"Dinah said you'd be afraid," the young woman said with a sickly sweet smile and an unnerving twinkle in her cold blue eyes. Her pale, petite fingers traced the hilt of her sword, touched on the blade. It drew blood as red as garnet to stain her creamy white skin. The smile was slowly expanding, like syrup in cold weather. The fear expanded too, only much more quickly then Alice's increasingly dangerous façade. It could be likened to the spread of one's condensing breath on a cold window….. Unlike condensing breath; however, the fear did not fade.

Alice lunged and her mother screamed as the sword quite deliberately graced her arm, drawing the faintest of blood. Alice looked almost like a giant to her mother, and to the creatures by the mirror, she looked like their wonderful queen…. She had to be, for to whom else could they turn at this point?

"Mother, I know you tried. Oh Daddy…" She turned on a heel to face him, letting the back of her shoe scrape the thin, oriental carpet.

"Don't try to stop me. You're going to die anyway."

Her father was staring, gulped……. He had indeed been about to defend his wife…. But he did not have the sword, or the creatures that aided Alice. Most of them were harmless, and in this world, she had hardly any control over what happened to their generally clumsy, gentle natures, but they did not know that. It was a good thing they were afraid, really. Anita had almost fainted as Crow had squeezed through the mirror. There were others behind him, looking through the looking-glass eagerly.

"Alice, dear, please don't do this! Come back to us, sweet child! We have supper ready for your return. How we've missed you!" Her mother kneeled before her daughter with outspread arms. There, in her eyes, was genuine love. She missed her daughter, who her daughter used to be. Couldn't they pretend that Wonderland wasn't there? No, that was what had made Alice what she was now. She would have to accept Alice for what she was and work with what she had. The woman could only hope that her eldest and her husband would catch on.

She continued relentlessly, "I know Wonderland is real, dear, but you don't need that place, really, do you, sweet child?"

For the vaguest, briefest moment, Alice was seven years old again. Her eyes became comprehensive. Things became clear, the glassiness was gone. She was inquisitive and mature for her age, as she had always been. Hope leapt up in the hearts that made up her family and behind her many a creature looked relieved. Crow released a breath he did not know he'd been holding. They were all so happy… this little girl, could she really be sweet? This was something to be content over, and indeed they were.

Well, Dinah didn't like it, not one bit. "She" saw Alice wavering toward the love that was her family, saw the child within, attempting to break forward. Dinah was losing control, could feel it as "she" began to fade from Alice's mind. The cat let out a low snarl as the fourteen year old she'd been driving fell into the arms of her mother

"Alice, they will betray you. They will forget you again. You know it. Don't let them trick you, girl, you know what they will do. Remember what they did before? They said you were a liar!"

"But Dinah…." Alice whispered for a confused, tense moment as the warmth of her mother lifted her up.

"They wanted to send you away! They'll send you to the Nutters' House just when you think they believe you!"

The girl's eyes glassed over after a painful moment of indecision and the sword that had almost slipped from her tiny fingers buried itself into her mother's back. All at once things were like they had been for the more recent past, only now they were much, much worse.

The screams that pierced the air were ones that merely elevated the maniac of a girl's more vicious manner. In a moment, her father was on his knees, begging for his life, or at least for Anita's. His eyes flickered momentarily over to the form of his shallowly breathing wife and the blood that was slowly but surely spreading over her dress, soaking her petticoats, pooling on the floor. Her father's words fell on ears deaf to any perception of good sense and now, love. She cut down her father, pulling the sword through his throat with a painfully slow tug. How had a girl so small, so petite, managed to bring him down? Simple, really, as crow had pecked at him, torn strips of flesh from his back, and ultimately forced him to the ground.

Anita was gripping a chair arm for support, screaming wildly and watching the massacre of her own flesh and blood occur by her own flesh and blood right before her very eyes. She found herself unable to tear her eyes from her father's stricken face as it rolled away from his neck, fell with a sickening thud to the floor, staring uselessly up at her. Horror still lingered in his dead, cold eyes. That was when her turn came.

The girl, with her bloodstained apron and pale, gleaming locks now tinted with red, strode slowly, eerily up to her sister. Dinah grinned malevolently, perched on the mantle piece, watching, waiting. The creatures about "her" were all watching tensely, for Crow would take them down if they ran. Most of them wanted to.

"Anita," She began silkily, "Remember when you used to listen to my stories? Remember the affection? Why did you let it go? Dinah had to come and save me, sweet sister. Now I fear you are in dire trouble." HEr fingers traced over the rim of her obsidian crown, a sign of power.

"Just kill me…."

"That would be too easy, now wouldn't it?"

"Alice, Mother loved you, and you killed her. You are too far gone. Nothing I could say would change it," Anita's words, so laced with irritation earlier that very day, held only fatigue. It was the kind of haggard tone that a person so old and so in pain with age that they felt life was not worth living anymore. They just wanted to die. Anita just wanted to die.

Alice blinked, but her eyes did not clear this time. There was no more hope for her. She was indeed too far gone, damaged like a raped child.

"Do it," Dinah ordered sharply. And Alice complied that very instant. Hesitation was dashed, her family was gone. She held no emotional ties to the world but for……..

"White Kitty, Black Kitty," Alice called out gently. She had stopped calling the white cat Snowdrop a long time ago…. It was too annoying a name for her. The cats came running, the bells about their necks jingling. They came at the promise of Alice feeding them but even the cats were unnerved by the stench of death. Alice's sweetly smiling face and her suddenly inviting posture brought them forward, Black Kitty first, White Kitty just barely.

"Dinah, look at your kittens! Aren't they just lovely?" She crooned, picking up the black cat and holding her against he bloody apron.

"Lovely," the wicked cat replied with a grin, "just fine, but we best be off to Wonderland, my dear."

"Right, right," she answered to the air as White Kitty rubbed up against her leg.

Crow, meanwhile, was pecking down bits of what was left of Alice's broken family, and only because he knew he was to clean up after Alice. They were just bodies anyway, right? Yes, just bodies….. But what about the countless others that would follow. Were they already just bodies, too?