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Once Alois passed through the door, he walked right into a world darker than what he had expected.

It seemed to be only mid-afternoon, around the time families would be finishing up an after-dinner stroll. The sky was dark purple, mixed with an orange hue, and was just slightly lined with white dots that Alois guessed were stars.

When he was in his own home, reading in the library, it had been pitch-black night outside, and a blizzard had been raging, and the winds had been screaming. Here, the winds were calm; though, when they did blow, Alois hissed and shivered from their wrath.

But now he knew for certain that he was in an entirely different world. Everything seemed to be in reverse. There were odd things like clocks with faces, chess pieces that looked like statues, an entire living room awaiting guests that never came, and food that made him grow and drinks that made him shrink.

Despite this, he was intent on something else. So he rounded the house, looking for the beautiful silver ghost.

Nothing.

Instead, a hill and a path came into view. The path, however, seemed to loll on forever in a zigzag, corkscrew-like fashion, but it seemed to lead right up the hill.

With nowhere else to go, he attempted to climb the hill, hoping to be lead to some place where someone could explain things to him. However, even though he walked forward, the hill did nothing but lead him right back to facade of the house he had just been inside.

"What?" He jumped back, mouth open wide as his eyes flashed towards the hill, scrutinizing it with a bit lip. The hill seemed so far away. It was almost as if he hadn't even moved an inch!

He tried to reach the hill again, running this time, only to receive the same result. This happened four more times before he stopped trying with a stomp of his foot, crossing his arms like a child, huffing. But just as quickly, almost as if to pacify his angry, the corkscrew path beckoned to him again, and his brain told him to follow it. It couldn't possibly give him the same result as when he directly climbed the hill...

As luck would have it, it didn't, but he still never reached the top of the hill. Instead, after various twists and turns, he arrived in a world of flower beds.

All sorts of budding treasures met his gaze, and Alois, being quite the flower-lover, admired them with a smile only seen in his mind. It wasn't a hobby or anything, but he took great pleasure in flowers, and on many occasions, he had gone into the garden, threw a new bag of seeds at his butler and left, ordering, "Plant them."

Among his floral favorites was the beloved rose, though just recently, he had been reminded of a species called 'bluebells'. He had heard of them before, but it was only the week prior that he actually gotten to see them up close. These flowers were captivating and blueberry-colored, but they were modest and submissive, always carrying their heads down in shame.

After he had seen them, he had instructed Claude on growing them, despite the butler saying it would do no good to plant them in the winter. Alois even kept a nice spray of them in a vase on his night table, even though Claude insisted that they needed more sunlight than what they were being given.

His obsession with the campanulate flowers didn't stop there. In the mornings, once he was dressed and primped for the day, he usually bent over his blue treasures, kissing their leaves and petting their curved and recurved edges. On a special day, he would snip one bell off its stem and attach it to his shirt, greeting Claude with a cheerful yet mischievous smile and the promise of a game of "notice something new?"

He found himself searching through these flower beds for the cerulean beauties, but was rightfully disappointed when he found none.

Instead, he saw tiger lilies, safflowers, flax, phlox, and a few bunches of roses, all of varying, yet pleasing colors. In the very least, the roses made up for the bed's lack of bluebells, and he bent down to pluck a few to take home with him.

His fingers hadn't even brushed a single petal before the flowers sprung to life, screaming and holding their leaves in front of his face to shoo him away.

"No! Don't pick me, I'm only a petunia! The flax is more satisfying!"

"Me? All good little ones love roses!"

"No, no! Roses are too popular, too common! You'll do better with something a bit more rare like... phlox!"

The flowers blubbered and gabbed, begging for their lives as Alois stood there, astonished, hand half-outstretched. Flowers were speaking to him now. He was nonplussed, but a tiny, tiny bit of him wondered if he should have been scared.

He eventually retracted, and the flowers breathed sighs of relief in unison.

"You look as if you've never seen a talking flower before," a tiger lily in the front of the bed presupposed, nodding its head towards him and waving its leaves. "Well, I'll have you know that we flowers can talk just as well as you can!"

"I'll say!" another jumped in, shaking its leaves as if to shame Alois whom was still standing there, waiting for the shock to wash out of him.

"You should have been the one to start the conversation! It's all in good manners," another chimed in.

"Maybe she knows no manners," said a pink cosmos, also jumping on the bandwagon.

"Maybe she's a flower that wasn't trained properly?"

The tiger lily turned towards Alois, moving its petals as if it were surveying him closely before saying, "You seem to be a very interesting flower indeed. Your bright pink petals are gorgeous, but you don't look to be a smart one!"

"Why, I never saw anyone that looked stupider!" a purple lisianthus shot out, and all the flowers burst into an eruption of girlish laughter and giggling.

"Even that other flower that came by looked prettier than you!" a freesia retorted between laughter, and others joined the conversation again, beginning with a hollyhock that squealed, "What a nice blue color she was!"

Then a dogwood added, "Her petals were drawn up close, almost like a closed bud! But at any rate, she was much prettier than you."

They continued giggling to themselves, waving their petals and leaves. Their laughter carried along the gentle wind until Alois simply stomped on each bed, grinding every petal under his heels until all their horrified screams ceased, as if they had died.

"They all died so quickly!" he jeered, while standing on a bed of orchids, making sure ever last squeal was silenced before stepping off, cleaning his shoes against the sidewalk path. "How pitiable."

He turned around to set off again, but nearly rammed right into the shoulder blade of a fairly tall, blonde young man. The man was dressed all in red, even his glasses were red-rimmed. And upon his head sat a crown.

"Who the hell are you supposed to be?" Alois' question was curt and was said with a slightly disheveled face. Even though this person seemed to be dressed as the Red King chess piece, Alois didn't believe that it was the Red King. After all, game pieces didn't just come alive and take human form.

Instead of answering, the blonde waved a hand, saying, "If you're trying to get to the hill, you're going about it all wrong."

"What do you mea−"

Without any form of explanation, the Red King piece had taken his leave by walking backwards until he vanished into thin air, leaving Alois confused. Not even two seconds into silence, the wind rustled by and a soft crinkling noise came from below.

The blonde turned his eyes to the ground, and noticed a thick, maroon-colored book titled in gold, 'Memorandum'. He had no idea how it had gotten there, but he picked it up and began paging through it while unconsciously walking backwards.

The book was filled to the brim with notes, sketches, facts, explanations, and miniature lectures, but Alois didn't know any of what it meant because the book was written all in a language he couldn't read. Not even the sketches made a bit of sense to him. Though one in particular caught his eye: it was a sketch of someone who looked very much like his butler. The man lay against a tree, a gray scribble of what looked like liquid dribbled from his mouth. His expression was one of pain, and Alois felt his body tense as he traced each crease in the man's face.

The man's eyes were shut, his glasses were cracked, and his hands lay limp: one against the ground, the other clutching his side. But what held most of Alois' attention were three long scratches across the man's chest that looked as if he had been clawed by some kind of animal.

Closing the book quickly, Alois looked around to see the entire atmosphere had changed. It looked to be around noontime, and the wind wasn't as vicious as it had been. It wasn't as cold as it had been either. The greatest change was the ground, as it was now divided into squares that looked exactly like that of a chessboard.

He traipsed along the ground in awe, glancing this way and that as his eyes took in the sight of large trees, men dressed as knight clashing with one another, and other chess-like pieces.

Near one of the trees, he spied the Red King-looking piece from before, measuring out the ground with a large red ribbon marked in inches.

He'd probably know something about the book, Alois began to muse. It might have even belong to him.

Alois quickened his pace to the Red King's side, holding the book out to him before ordering, "Tell me about this book."

The King didn't bother to look up. Instead he went on to say, "At the end of two yards, I'll give you directions," and he stuck a peg in the ground to mark his distance.

"At the end of three yards, I'll repeat them. At the end of four yards, I'll say bye, and at the end of five yards, I'll leave." He placed pegs at all of these measured spaces, standing back up to stretch his back.

"What are you even talking about?"

"At this point in the game you're still a pawn. By the eighth square, though, you'll become a queen... or king, whichever," the man instructed, again ignoring everything Alois said.

"On its first move, a pawn goes two spaces, so you'll be able to reach the third square quickly. Oh, and you'll have to go by railway. On the fourth square, you'll meet three knights. The fifth square is filled with water, and the sixth belongs to Humpty Dumpty. The seventh square is where you'll meet another knight, and he will help you through the forest, and in the eighth square, you'll be crowned. Make sense?"

"Crowned?" Alois questioned, but the King went on to say, "Well, that is if the other Alice doesn't get to the square first. If she does, she'll be crowned instead."

Alois simply stared at the King, ignoring his proposal of what he guessed to be a chess game. "How do I get home?"

"That's what I just said. You and the other Alice are both trying to get home. The one to reach the eighth square first gets crowned then gets to return home. The loser has to stay in Wonderland."

"Wonderland?" Alois repeated. He connected that that must be the name of the crazy, previously-unnamed mirror universe where he was now.

"And who is the other−"

"Well, good luck!" the King replied, yawning shortly before throwing back a wave. Before Alois could say anything in response, he was gone.