Disclaimer: When I get this published I will own.
Thank you so much for your recent reviews. I really like the game but my computer is so slow that I can't really play it. Also thanks for the information on Lewis Carroll being the White Knight but I already knew this. I get all my information from the Annotated Alice. Also for those who have seen the Hallmark version, see if you can find the lines from that movie. Please as always R and R.
Alice spun around to see Hatter standing behind her, then she exhaling with relief, " Oh Hatter its just you." she said, standing up.
Hatter stared at her strangely, as if he didn't remember who she was, " Who are you?" he asked, a look of confusion on his face, " you weren't invited."
" Hatter don't you remember me?" Alice said, "its me Alice."
" I don't know any one named Alice," Hatter said then cast a glance at two of the chairs at the table, " what about you Marchy?"
Alice turned and to her surprise the two once empty chairs where now filled with what seemed to be images of the sleeping Dormouse and the March Hare.
" Nor do I Hatter." The March Hare said, " how about you Dormy?"
The dormouse jerked awake, " I don't." he mumbled before going back to sleep.
" That settles it then," Hatter said sitting in a large chair at the head of the table, " you're not invited!"
" But I know you does that not count for something?" Alice said sitting next to the Mad Hatter, " after all there is room for one more even if Time did stop at tea time."
" How do you know Time?" Hatter said, " he never spoke of you."
"Ah, but he has spoke of you." Alice said pouring her self some tea, " and this is not you and your friends are not real."
" Not real?" Hatter said, looking at the March Hare and Dormouse, " have you ever heard such nonsense?"
"No I haven't Hatter." Hare said, " but if she knows Time then she is a friend."
" Time is no friend of mine." Hatter hissed, as he poured each of his friends a cup of tea, " now Alice what brings you here?"
" I'm trying to help a friend." Alice said, then looked around the room, " but there is so many doors I'm not sure which one to go through."
"Doesn't matter which one you go through," the March Hare said, " you'll always end up some where."
Suddenly the Dormouse awoken with a start, " Officer, these men are criminals," Dormy mumbled half asleep, " arrest them…."
Hatter stared at the Dormouse then started to look around, " Who's got his ear trumpet?" he asked, as Alice started to get up and walk away.
" Thank you I guess." she said walking away as the Hatter and the Hare were trying to shove the Dormouse in to a rather large teapot.
I can see why my aunt didn't stay very long, Alice thought as she walked further into the door filled room, Hatter is worse when he is with his friends.
The further she walked the stranger the room got, doors opened and closed all around her, and the same silvery mist that filled the Fortress of Mirrors once again swirled around her feet. Carved into the walls seemed to be various images of Hatter's past. Then as her eyes followed a craving of a wall of rose bushes her gaze fell on a door that was surrounded by those same cravings. "Curiouser and Curiouser." Alice whispered as she turned the handled to reveal a beautiful rose garden, and a Wonderland that wasn't even described in the books.
Why is this one of Hatter's memories? Alice asked as she started to walk through the maze, then she got her answer, in front of her was a little red haired boy wearing an over sized top hat trying his best to hide among the rose bushes. He was crouched down as low as he could go as if ready to spring on someone.
"Nikki!" another young boy called, " Nikki! I give up! You can come out now!"
The young boy, Nikki, just smirked, " I'm really going to mess him up now." he snickered, grinning broadly.
Then Jack's voice cut through the air again, "Nicholas Hatter Madigan! I'm telling your mother if don't come out!"
Alice looked at the little boy in surprise, " Hatter?" she said stunned, as the boy ran off towards his friend, " Hatter? That was Hatter?"
She stood up again and then started to walk further into the maze and as she walked the sky seemed to darken a little. Then as she rounded another corner, she saw two club guards marching towards the Hearts Castle, between them a slightly younger Hatter then the one she knew.
"Oi 'Atter you better keep up," one the Clubs said, jostling him slightly, " and ya better 'ope ya can keep your 'ead."
The other guard laughed, " The queenie's gotten kind of violent 'asn't she?" the other guard said, shrugging, " oh well if 'e loses 'is 'ead then just one less person we 'ave to deal with."
Alice followed the guards into the castle and into the court, their in the center of the room was Hatter in the defendant's box, his hat over shadowing his eyes. The White Rabbit stood on what appeared to be a stack of dominos, as he read off the charges. The March Hare and Dormouse were in the audience and the eleven royal children and the court cards sat infront of the other creatures of Wonderland.
" The defendant Nicholas Hatter Madigan is being charged with murdering the time, there for ruining the Queen's concert by causing the audience to leave and causing the Queen to lose her temper."
Hatter's expression never changed as he stared down at the ground, but his lips moved silently as he muttered something to himself. Alice then looked up into the judge box there was the Queen of Hearts, she had cruel black eyes, long white hair , and her lips were pressed together as she tried to contain her fury, a red velvet cloak with a white fur trim was wrapped around her shoulders, and she was dressed in an Elizabethan style blood red dress adorn with the card suites. She clasped what seemed to be a bull whip tightly in her hands as she glared at Hatter furiously.
"It was a honest mistake," Hatter said hoarsely, " I was nervous and I missed a beat, an one could have done it."
"It doesn't matter Hatter!" the Queen roared standing up her full height, the whip unfurling, " you wrecked my concert! Now I'm going to wreck that handsome face of yours!"
As quick as a serpent striking the whip streaked across the air and struck Hatter in the face, leaving a bleeding whelp in it's path, then just as the Queen of Hearts moved to take another strike at the Mad Hatter's face, the Knave of Hearts shoved Hatter out of the way and took the blow himself. The prince glared defiantly at his mother, the blood slow trickling down his cheek, and Alice could see that he had lost an eye for his friend.
" Jack you idiot!" the Queen roared, " I could have killed you! Now move so I can finish that fool off."
"No Mother," Jack said, " I'm not goin to let you hurt my friend. He has done nothing but a simple human error."
"Fine, Jack," the Queen said, shaking with fury " I will not execute him, but for your insolence, both of you will serve jail time."
Alice couldn't believe her ears, the Knave was standing up to his mother, and protecting Hatter. " Hatter is his half cousin you know," the Cheshire Cat purred, " of course the Queen doesn't know that. She thought he was one of the maid's son."
" What happened to Jack?" Alice asked as she returned to the rose maze, the cat preached on her shoulder.
"He was beheaded before you came here," Cheshire said, " he tried to stop his mother from taking over, but look where it got him."
"Hatter saw the execution didn't he?" Alice asked, turning another corner in the large maze, as the sky over head began to darken even more.
"Of course he did. Why do you think he stopped working?" Cheshire said, " losing all his friends to either his madness or that of the Queen was incentive enough to start a resistant movement."
" I feel rather sorry for him now," Alice said, " every one that he loves dies."
Then the sky fully darkened to its current shade as Alice entered a new area. As she looked around she soon realized she was back in Hatter's workshop. Hatter was in the corner on his favorite chair from the table outside, the Cheshire Cat was perched on top of it glaring at him.
"Everyone I love dies violently, unnaturally," Hatter gasped on the verge of hysterics , clutching a knife in his hand, " why should we carry on? Others will just get hurt! I'm cursed!"
"No you're a fool!" the cat snapped, " Alice needs you! You know your way around here just as well as I!"
"I'll just lose her again too!" Hatter snapped, slashing at his arm with the knife "I'm better off dead!"
Hissing the Cheshire Cat smack him with his paw, his grin turning into a scowl, "Idiot! Fool!" he growled, " you think killing yourself is the answer to all your problems! Has you insanity left you completely blind to what is going on around you?"
Hatter just stared blankly at the blood as it started to drip on to the floor , his muscles twitching as the cat growled at him. " I don't know, Cheshire I really don't know," Hatter said, trembling, " I have nothing now, Alice probably won't even remember us. She may be to old. She won't remember me!"
With out thinking Alice spoke, "Please hold on Hatter."
She wanted to hold him comfort him and tell him everything was going to be alright and that she would come to Wonderland, and she would stop the Queen from hurting him and those he loved, but she knew that he could not see or hear her.
As if hearing her kind words, Hatter stood up still shaking but slightly calmer, " Listen to me," he said to the Cheshire Cat, " I'm whining again. I thank you for slapping me Cat, I think you may have knocked some sense back into me."
"I'm glad you recovered," Cheshire said, purring, " and I'm also glad you have realized this is bigger then you."
Hatter nodded walking over to a workbench. Picking up a strip of cloth he started to wrap up his arm, " We just have to find Alice." he said, " here take that knife and stick somewhere so she can find it. I will stay here until I'm needed."
"Why not bring her here?" Cheshire asked, as it started to vanish.
" She doesn't need to see this."
Then as if she was being pulled by a vacuum, Alice was sucked out of the maze and into the main room and was pulled down the hallways which she had traveled, doors opened and shut as she was pulled past and she could hear bits and pieces of conversations from Hatter's past.
"Your hair wants cutting!"
"Why is a raven like a writing desk?"
"Not the same thing a bit!"
" Two days wrong!"
"Have you guess the riddle yet?"
"If you knew time as well as I wouldn't talk about wasting it!"
"Twinkle, Twinkle little bat…"
" I'd hardly finished the first verse when she bawled out…"
"You mean you can't take less…""I'm a poor man your honor…."
"I'm on the floor as it is, I can't get any lower."
"Waiting for them now…"
"I like what I do is the same as I do what I like!"
"Yes your highness the Marionettes will be finished soon!"
"I'm finished your Highness, I refuse to work any more!"
"Everyone I love dies violently, unnaturally!"
Then Alice was flung out of the mirror and back into the Fortress at Hatter's feet. His eyes had returned to normal as he looked at her, a broad smile on his face. " Thank you Alice." he said, pulling her off the ground " I heard you when you told me to hold on. I'm not entirely fixed but I should be able to hold on for a while longer."
"Good for you." A cruel voice hissed, as the room started to fill with a thick black mist. Alice spun around knife in hand, but who she saw caused her to nearly job her prized weapon. The reflection Hatter stood in front of them, a taunting smirk playing on his lips.
"You thought you were rid of me?" he said, " you'll have to do better then what you did to me in my clock tower."
"I killed you!" Alice hissed drawing back to the real Hatter.
"So you thought." The reflection said, and as he drew close Alice noticed something had changed.
"Your not real." Alice said, " you're the mist. Your nothing to us!"
"Wrong." he hissed, a red hot flames started to form around his body. Then raising his hand blasted Alice and Hatter into another mirror. When they awakened they had arrived on the outskirts of the Red Pieces castle. It was built much like the White Pieces' castle, only it was bright red and surrounded by flames. Lava pools swirled around them and the air was thick with smoke and heat. Instead of the bruise colored sky that had coated the rest of the Looking Glass World and Wonderland, the sky over the Red Pieces' castle was pitch black. Pawns patrolled the gates that were the entrance to the castle, with viscous looking dog like creatures.
"Bandersnatches." Hatter said, watching the guards closely, " smaller then a Jabberwocky but twice as mean, and at least you can try to reason with a Jabberwock."
"Scared, Hatter?" the Cheshire cat asked, also following the guards path, " Or are you planning something?"
"Planning of course." Hatter said, then he squeezed Alice's hand. Reaching into his vest pocket he pulled out the Dead Time Watch.
"Beat the clock?" Alice suggested, tightening her grip on her knife, " Ready any time you are Hatter."
Grinning, Hatter hit the knob on the watch causing everything to freeze. Cheshire grinned as he watched them sprint towards the castle, then as he vanished whispered "Time to raise some havoc. The dogs of war are loose."