Note: I hope you enjoy. Oh yeah. I have some shoutouts to make. :3
clairina19: Thankies, friend. =) I'm glad you told me to not quit on this.
ILoveReadingAndWriting: Thanks! Terror is pretty cool. And Alice is pretty evil in this fic… And later, though, it's going to turn out that- *SPOILERS CENSOR* oh wait. That's right. I can't tell you. O.O [Actually… I'm not sure exactly what I'm doing hehe]
ThunderStorm411: Awww thanks. =] Inspiration came from American McGee's Alice, Silent Hill, that manga "Heart No Kuni No Alice [aka: Alice in the Country of Hearts]", and even some music. And even some other fanfics.
James Birdsong: Thank you so much. You've been here since the beginning and you STILL feel up to reading it. That means so much.
Her name is Chaos.
We walked on for a while before I said something.
"Alice mentioned something about Chaos when I told her your name," I said. Terror stared at me accusingly.
"You told her my name?" he asked.
I looked at him suspiciously and nodded. "Sorry. I wasn't really thinking." Beside me, the Cheshire Cat purred.
"Yes, Hazel. I think you have something you want to tell us now, hmmm?" he said, swishing his tail from side to side.
I really liked the Cheshire Cat. One couldn't help trusting him immediately. I got the feeling he was wise as well. I trusted him more than Terror, even. But boy, it hurt sometimes the way that Cat could hit at something right on. No mercy.
The blood on my hands isn't mine. I could have said that. But even that was just running away from another fact.
"You said the Madness here affects everyone, didn't you?" I said. He nodded. "Well, it affects me too, doesn't it?"
I was the one feeling guilty and scared. But when I looked at Terror, I saw that he looked guilty as well. He had no reason to feel guilty.
"Yes," he said. "It does."
The Cheshire Cat laughed softly. "Come on, Terror. Give her a longer answer. I can already tell she's dying to know why." Terror just stared reproachfully at the cat.
"You can tell her if you want," he said dryly.
The Cheshire Cat grinned. "Very well then." He turned to face me and for the first time I noticed that he had yellow eyes. "Hazel dear, if there's something to want to know that you've already guessed, it's that the Madness is always closely tied to the Queen of Hearts."
"Yes," I said.
He continued, "Generally the Madness all on its own is just the side effects of living in Wonderland and just causes different sides of people and creatures to pop up randomly." I couldn't help but think of that as creepy. "However, whether or not the desires while being affected by the Madness are dark or light depend on who is Queen of Hearts, the ruler of Wonderland. The Queen can control many of us through Madness if she so wishes. I'm sure you've noticed, Hazel dear, how we sometimes call you 'Alice' on accident. That is because the Madness inside of us can tell you are an Outsider and acts up. We see you as Alice in that state."
My brain swirled. "Can I make it so you don't see me as Alice in that state?" I asked. The Cheshire Cat shook his head.
"No, dear. Not at all. If we in our state of Madness see you as an Outsider who is not Alice, we would most likely attack you. It is better that we mistake you for Alice. Because Alice wants to be the only Outsider in Wonderland."
We walked on and as wind blew about, I desperately hoped that glass wouldn't fly into my eyes. But something bothered me…
"But the Madness must affect me in a different way," I said. The Cheshire Cat opened his mouth to speak but Terror interrupted.
"—don't," he said. "Don't say anymore."
"I wish you wouldn't hide any more secrets from me," I said. And clenched my fists. "I killed a person because of this Madness. I want to know what it is. And what it's doing to me."
Terror looked pained. "Fine," he said. "But you're not going to like it."
"I never said I would."
The Cheshire Cat's ears twitched and his eyes looked rather amused. "As it happens, because you are an Outsider your Madness is not ruled by the desire of the Queen of Hearts. Every Outsider that enters this place has placed within themselves the want to overthrow and kill the existing ruler of Wonderland. The Madness generally gets more overpowering the closer the person is to the Queen of Hearts."
Oh. So in other words, some part of me desperately wanted to kill Alice. That's what that feeling was. That's why I was hearing voices. It was a truth that didn't necessarily comfort me. I exhaled.
"No wonder Alice is paranoid about me being here," I said. The Cheshire Cat laughed, but Terror looked unamused.
"Yes, she's got reason to be paranoid, but she wants to kill you too," he said. The cat grinned.
"Oh, but Terror…" he purred and his tail wound around Terror's legs. "It's a survival thing." Terror jerked away and glared murderously at the innocent (mischievous) teen.
"Everybody's out to kill me it seems," I said. I chuckled bitterly. "It hardly comes as a surprise anymore whenever something jumps out at me or when something strange happens." The Cheshire Cat simply smiled and twitched his ears, but Terror's eyes softened.
"Not everybody's out to kill you," he said. "Some people are on your side."
"I have a side?"
"They want Alice dead too."
I know he was trying to be sympathetic and comforting, but that statement just made me feel worse.
"I don't want to kill Alice, though," I said. "I want Alice to stay Queen and I want to be left alone. And possibly get back to my home."
The Cheshire Cat nodded. "Homesick are you, Hazel dear? We can sympathize."
I looked at him, puzzled. But that's when Terror said, "Here's the Looking Glass."
It was a déjà vu moment.
"I don't like those things," I said nervously. Both the cat and Terror laughed. I gestured for the cat to jump in ahead of me, but he shook his head.
"Ladies first," Terror said. I frowned at both of them.
"Be that way," I muttered. I placed my finger on the Looking Glass as I had done before and I saw her face again—Alice's. It sent that feeling over me, just by seeing her. An wave of anger in my stomach, an itching feeling in my fingers to handle the dagger. Everything was dipped in red. And then I felt the familiar feeling of hotness and dizziness, saw the familiar colour and lights and heard whispers all about me.
Long live the Queen of Hearts…
I saw Alice dressed in a beautiful crimson ball gown, smelling a red rose, a sinister shadow always haunting her every move, poised to strike at any time. I saw those who lived in Wonderland being forced to bow down to her rule, always unable to fight against her will, but always wanting her to leave them…
A woman's voice tickled my ear. She's killing us all.
Kill her. Overthrow her.
Hazel dear. Give me the throne.
When nobody is ruler, chaos reigns.
And then the noises started to get quieter, the colours fading. For the first time I braced myself for "landing". When I opened my eyes, I was standing. There were people and… creatures and things and around me. My feet were planted on a road made of some clear crystal. On either side of the crystal road was some building, and out in front of those buildings there'd be some musician having a performance. What was creepy, however, is that all the buildings appeared to be made of the oddest materials. And I couldn't hear the people perform unless I stepped off of the crystal road and into their spot in front of their building.
I looked down at my feet once again and came to another realization—wherever we were, we were floating thousands of feet in the air. Heights. If there was one thing that I was very uncomfortable with, it was heights. I stumbled backwards… and something caught me.
It turned out by my amazing luck that that "something" was Terror. Once I was steadied, he let me go and arched his eyebrows. I smiled sheepishly.
"Heights," I said. The Cheshire Cat appeared next to me.
"And that explains things how?" he asked.
I grimaced. Wouldn't they get a kick out of this one—
"I'm scared of heights," I explained. And they burst out into fits of laughter. The Cheshire Cat dabbed his eyes with his tail.
"I've never heard of that fear before," he said. Terror was grinning.
"That's so irrational," he said. I stood my ground.
"Where I live it's a perfectly rational fear to have," I said. I decided to quickly change the subject and asked a very familiar question. "And where are we?" The cat was still trying to get over my having fear of heights, so Terror had to answer.
"We're in A Bene Placito," he said. "It's a very famous place."
It was hard for me to imagine that Wonderland had "famous" places.
"—not to mention it's a tourist attraction," the Cheshire Cat said momentarily. I couldn't believe my ears.
"You get tourists here in Wonderland?" I asked. "Where do they come from?" Terror stared at me like I was a mad woman (now that I think back on it, technically I was).
"Of course we do," he said. "We get them from places Around Here and Over There. Mainly we get tourists from Out Yonder and Neither Here Nor There—apparently they're all boring places to live."
The sentence was so confusing that I decided not to ask any further questions of what type of tourists Wonderland attracted.
"Why are we here, then?" I asked.
"Because we have to cross through here to get to where I'm taking you," Terror said. And he didn't say any more on the subject which was a bit unnerving. Instead he stepped off of the crystal road and walked to the place where a young woman was playing a very strange instrument. I followed him, as did the Cheshire Cat, and walked closer to the young woman.
She wore a plain but cute black dress and the instrument she was playing looked like it was made out of white gold and looked like a saxophone… almost. But it definitely wasn't a saxophone. It was too long and straight to be a saxophone and its range was really low but it also could play the sweetest and highest of notes. She was drawing in quite a crowd.
"What is that thing?" I asked. Terror was preoccupied listening to the music, so he didn't answer. He was concentrating on the tune and looked completely into it. The sight made me smile. It was the cat who answered.
"That, Hazel dear, is the famous Barricanna," he said. "I would think that a Barricanna would be known in your Outside word too. I'm surprised you could not recognize it." I was puzzled, as I often was.
I was getting used to the feeling of being constantly puzzled. I just accepted this as the reality.
"Well, we have flutes and pianos and guitars and saxophones, but definitely no Barricannas," I said. The Cheshire Cat sniffed the air and twitched his tail about.
"Well that's very disappointing. Those are all the boring instruments," he said. "The Barricanna, you see, is the hardest instrument to play in all of Wonderland because one must be perfectly in tune to Wonderland and Wonderland's logic to play it."
"Wonderland logic?" I said, envisioning the idea. "That wouldn't make much sense."
"That is because all Outsiders are usually exceptionally narrow- minded," the cat said. Part of me really wanted to refute that statement. But the other part one out.
"I guess that's because the Outsider's world is so extremely opposite from Wonderland," I said. I paused before continuing. "It always helps for me to rule out physics and any sort of rationale." I heard chuckling that wasn't coming from the Cheshire Cat's direction. It was Terror who had momentarily stopped listening to the Barricanna player.
"You always did learn fast," he said. I smiled. Compliments were always nice and something I usually didn't get. The cat was looking at me with a sort of pondering look on his face.
"I think we've found out what our Hazel's gift is," he said. I gave a little jump.
"Really?" I said. Terror simply awaited the cat's further explanation.
"It's acceptance," the Cheshire Cat said. He looked extremely proud of himself. I didn't get it.
"… Acceptance?" I echoed. The cat nodded.
"Indeed. Acceptance. You accept things for what they are, Hazel dear. That must be why you're so good at adapting to Wonderland. You accept Wonderland for what it is, nonsense and all," he explained. He looked even more proud of himself after this explanation.
Terror seemed to agree with the cat.
"You're right," he said.
As for me, at the time, I didn't know what to think. But it did kind of make sense. There was some awkward silence which was thankfully covered by the Barricanna. It gave me just the right amount of time to come up with a good distraction.
"Ah, it's getting dark out already," I said, pointing to the sky. The Cheshire Cat blinked and Terror looked at me with questioning eyes.
"It is?" he said.
"Yes," I said firmly. "In case you haven't noticed the sun is lower in the sky than it was the moment before." It was. Barely.
"What are you getting at, Hazel dear?" the Cheshire Cat said.
"I'm saying that we had better find a place to stay for the night considering the current time. Either that or a make a move on," I said.
"Oh. Yes. Places to stay," the cat said. "I do believe she's right, Terror."
Terror nodded after a moment. "Fine then. We're going to have to go the next level down to find a place to stay at, though." The Cheshire Cat and Terror both looked at me with a mischievous gleam in their eyes as he said this. I grew suspicious.
"Next level down?" I said. "And how do we get to the next level down?"
The Cheshire Cat purred. "No worries, Hazel dear. You'll be just fine." Terror was trying very unsuccessfully to hide his amusement at the situation.
"We just have to find a hole. They're very common, as you well know," he said.
I sighed. Holes, rabbits in tuxedoes, Barricannas, glass deserts, Madness. But in a twisted way it made absolute sense.
Because everyone in Wonderland was mad.
So the three of us walked forwards, looking for a random hole that would allow us to go down (in other words, fall) to the next level below. It was by my luck that I nearly tripped into it. It was simply in the middle of the crystal road. Some people were jumping into it while other merely skirted around its edges.
It looked very black. One couldn't see where it would lead you. But I didn't dare ask the question, "Are you sure this is safe?" Because of course, this was Wonderland. The Outsiders' world's logic did not count.
I shivered. I was really beginning to think like one of them.
Acceptance. A good thing or a bad thing? In the eyes of Wonderland, accepting things for what they were seemed to be good. So I decided to go with it.
This decision still didn't stop me, however, from hesitating at the edge of the creepy looking hole. It looked more like a menacing pit, and once I were to jump it would be sure to swallow me. Whole, naturally. A very scary feeling crept upon me and it occurred to me that even with Wonderland logic, a pit that could swallow you seemed like it could be a reality.
Really, I was just having a good old fashioned panic attack. I was thinking too hard.
"Scared, Hazel?" the Cheshire Cat murmured. His breath tickled my right ear and I wondered how he had appeared suddenly right behind me. And then, to my left, Terror whispered, "I can help with that."
And with that he pushed me. Terror pushed me. He. Pushed. Me.
I was very angry with him for the split second he did so, but after I began falling and the blackness began to close in on me, I became too scared to really be angry at anything. It just kept on going. I just about had a heart attack when the Cheshire Cat appeared right next to me (again) and said, "Isn't this fun, Hazel dear?"
I gasped for some air and said that no, I was not pleased, in a very pitiful voice.
"She wasn't joking. She really is scared of heights," Terror said, as though he had been there all along. They both chuckled, and their laughter at my expense was beginning to make me laugh at myself as well when suddenly, in the blackness, we all heard that familiar eerie high pitched whine.
We all turned silent. Instantly Terror grabbed my hand. He didn't say anything, but his intention was clear. Stay close. The Cheshire Cat, for all his wisdom and words, did not say anything but fell in silence. But even though Terror with all his fighting skill was holding my hand, and although the Cheshire Cat was right next to me, the fact that I could see virtually nothing and that I was falling made me feel powerless. The Cheshire Cat's tail swished against my leg and Terror's hand held mine tightly. Too tightly, but I didn't mind. We were all bracing ourselves for what was to come.
I felt a prickling at the back of my neck and felt something dig its teeth deep into my right leg and felt it hit bone. That's when I screamed.