"So, how did you get here?"
Alice looks over from the window at Eliza's question, the bright noon sunlight streaming through the glass. The view from their carriage is unparalleled. The Park's Ferris Wheel is grander than any back in their world, tall enough to be a skyscraper. They'll have plenty of time on the ride to have some "outsider talk", as they had told their companions. Eliza thinks both of them are glad for the privacy.
Alice's posture is relaxed, and she sprawls a little against the wall.
"Hah, it was that asshole Peter. He picked me up and jumped down a hole with me in his arms. I thought he was trying to commit a lovers-suicide, but instead, we landed here."
Eliza boggles a little at that. That was... about as horrible as what had happened to her, actually.
"By Peter, you're talking about a role holder, right? Are they all... like that?"
'Insane?' Eliza's mind chirps. Gowland seems friendly enough, but Eliza still hasn't forgotten about the roller coaster that rarely kills the people riding it.
Alice laughs.
"Kinda, yeah. I mean, don't get me wrong, Peter is his own special kind of awful. But none of them care that much for their lives or others. It's the way it is around here."
Eliza sits properly in her seat, but she allows her shoulders to slump forward, her body curled in on itself.
"That's... not exactly what I would call encouraging."
Alice looks sympathetic, and she reaches over to pat Eliza's shoulder.
"No, I know. But you get used to it. And they're not all bad, only one or two are real jerks. You just have to get to know them... And not get killed trying."
"Getting killed is a possibility?"
Alice makes a so-so motion with her hand.
"This place is pretty dangerous, people die all the time. But they think outsiders are special, so they keep me out of it as much as possible. They've even protected me when fights have happened around me."
Eliza sighs and rubs her forehead. 'This is the world you're in, Eliza.' she thinks 'Improvise, adapt, overcome.'
She straightens herself to look at Alice.
"So what can you tell me about the role holders? I know their function, I guess you could say, but what are they like?"
Alice is clearly delighted to have someone to gossip to, because Eliza gets a brief but comprehensive overview of all 12 role holders in Wonderland. The way Alice talks about them, they're all some degree of crazy in crazier outfits with not an ounce of common sense between them all. From Seven, Eliza learned the role holder's names and appearances. From Alice, she learns which ones are friendly and which ones must be treated with caution, at least at first. But even as Alice warns Eliza about people like the Queen of Hearts, Vivaldi, or the Bloody Twins, Dee and Dum, her affection for them is plain as day.
Alice saves Peter White, her kidnapper, for last.
Uhg, Peter. He's such a creep. I knew it from the moment I saw him. What man wears bunny ears during a kidnapping? Well, it turns out those are actually his ears- he can turn into a little white rabbit. Actually, he's really cute like that- "
Alice continues talking, but Eliza has stopped listening. The bunny-man. The little not-stuffed rabbit. They had become so distant in her memory, but that didn't make sense. A lot had happened since Eliza woke up at the Clocktower, but it hadn't been more than a day, surely? But even now, Eliza can't remember what the man had been wearing, or what he had said in detail. Just that he had mentioned Alice, and he had looked at Eliza in a way that had made her scared.
"Alice," Eliza interrupts, "what is your relationship with Peter White?"
Alice looks a bit offended at the question, and Eliza inwardly curses herself.
"I don't have one! He's a stalker, always finding me to tell me he loves me, how he'll do anything for me if only I'll stay. Yrghh, it makes me sick just saying it."
'He's a what?'
Eliza's fists clench so hard her knuckles turn white. She speaks through a gritted smile.
"Alice, I think I would very much like to meet this Peter White. I have an awful lot I'd like to say to him." So saying, Eliza brings up one of her fists and strikes it into her palm, hard.
Alice gives her a malicious grin.
"Oh yes, that's fine by me. I already beat him up after he brought me here, but I think the lesson hasn't stuck."
Eliza is so happy that she and Alice are of one mind on this.
"Good, you can hold him down for me. I need to get my own revenge for being kidnapped."
Alice gasps.
"No, you too? That jerk, did he force-feed you your vial too?"
Eliza has no idea what Alice is talking about. When she asks, Alice looks as puzzled as Eliza feels.
"You know, your vial? With the Medicine of Heart?"
When Eliza informs Alice that no, she does not know, Alice brings forth a small object from her pocket. It is a vial, made of what looks like a clear crystal with a heart-shaped stopper. Inside, about half-way full, is a strange pinkish liquid. Eliza carefully takes it from Alice to inspect it, but she is certain she's never seen anything like it before. Taking it back, Alice tells Eliza what it means.
"Peter said that because I drank the liquid- not that he gave me any choice- I had to stay in Wonderland and play the 'game'. But once it fills up completely, I can take it and be sent home. Or rather, wake up."
"The game? You mean the quote-unquote Greater Game the people here play?"
"Greater Game? That's what they call it? I've just heard them call it the game. And no, apparently outsiders play their own game. The rule is the more you spend time with the people here, the more your vial fills up. Easy, right?"
It is easy. Too easy. Eliza doesn't trust it. Maybe because it came from the mouth of Peter White, her new arch-nemesis.
"It's weird that you don't have one. You should talk to Nightmare about it, he knows a lot about stuff here."
Ah, yes. Nightmare, the role holder who was apparently an incubus and lived in people's dreams. The one who could read minds. The one Alice described as "Nice, but tries so hard to be cool and cryptic he just ends up looking kinda dumb". Yes, Eliza is definitely interested in talking to him, for the novelty alone.
Eliza thanks Alice for her advice, and the two sit in companionable silence for a few minutes, watching the scenery below them. Then a thought strikes Eliza, and she turns from the window.
"Alice, what did you mean Peter force-fed you the medicine?"
Alice's face pulls into a grimace of disgust.
"I said I wasn't gonna drink it no matter what, so he put it in his own mouth and kissed me. He made me open my mouth and wouldn't let go until I swallowed it all."
Something snaps. Eliza's moral objection to murder, perhaps? Whatever is happening on her face, Alice is clearly relishing it.
"I... am going to kill him."
By the time their carriage descends to the landing pad, Alice and Eliza have moved on to the more pleasant topics of their jobs. Alice apparently works at the dreaded Clocktower. According to her, her job is to fetch materials and make coffee for the master of the tower, Julius Monrey. Eliza prods gently about this Julius Monrey, protective instincts activated and on high alert, but he doesn't seem too bad. Just a gloomy workaholic. Alice, for her part, is surprisingly interested in Eliza's work, both as a teacher's assistant and at an amusement park.
As Eliza disembarks, the lighting changes suddenly. She turns her head up to see the rapid changing of the sky. Stars ripple overhead, and the bright blue of the sky darkens within seconds.
'It looks… like a PowerPoint transition.' Eliza thinks with amusement.
The Park is unphased, a wave of bright lights turning on with the smoothness of routine. The air feels a bit chillier now. Eliza holds her cardigan closed and tucks her hands under her arms.
Alice yawns as they are approached by Seven, Gowland, and Boris.
"I don't care how long I've been here," she says "Night is never not going to make me tired. I think I'm going to head back to the Clocktower."
Gowland and Boris's faces fall.
"So soon?" Gowland says "We barely had time to talk! You know, I've been working on this new piece of music, just for you-"
Alice cuts him off, her eyes gone a little wild.
"SORRY! No, really, sorry but I have to go. No, I don't have time to stay and listen, really. No really, sorry, but I can't. Maybe next time."
Boris, nodding frantically, chimes in.
"Or maybe never! Never would be good. I only have so many lives to spare, and Alice only has one!"
'Note to self,'' Eliza thinks, standing next to Seven, 'never offer to listen to Gowland play. Ever.'
Alice looks like she's about to cut and run, so Eliza quickly jumps in.
"Um, excuse me- "
Alice, Gowland, and Boris stop to turn to Eliza, the latter two looking as though they had forgotten she was even there.
"Sorry to interrupt, but do you know where I could stay for the night? I don't have money for a hotel…"
'Or anything at all.' Eliza finishes, the anxiety settling in her gut. What is she going to do now?
Alice turns to Gowland with an expectant look, but whatever response she was expecting, he doesn't give it. Instead, he just looks at Eliza.
Eliza turns to Seven, the person she feels closest to at this point.
"Is there any way I could bunk with you and the others?"
She knows the answer before Seven even opens his mouth, the look of regret is all she needs to see.
"I'm sorry, I don't think it'd be safe. The barracks only have enough room for so many people, and people fight in them all the time, to the death even."
Eliza pales at the thought. No, she does not want to spend the night in that kind of place. Hell, she doesn't want Seven to spend the night in that kind of place. How can anyone be used to something like that?
Alice looks irritated now. She closes the distance she had opened with Gowland, saying "Gowland, why aren't you offering to let her stay here? You're always asking if I want to make the move."
Gowland finches a little at the sight of Alice's face.
"Well, I know you, Alice. She seems like a lovely girl, but I only have room for one freeloader in the Park."
Eliza's eyebrow twitches in annoyance at that assumption, though it is a fair point. But weren't they just talking about where she was staying for the night? No, wait, Alice is trying to hustle something better for her. Eliza has to chip in.
"I wouldn't be a freeloader." Eliza steps forward, drawing the two's attention. "I worked at an amusement park in my world. Operations, retail, food service- I have experience in all of them. I'll work for food and board, and I'll be the best employee you could ask for!"
Despite her best efforts, her voice grows desperate towards the end of her plea. In the five years she has been supporting herself she's had to sit through a lot of interviews, but the stakes have never felt higher. Eliza can feel a bead of sweat drip down the back of her neck.
Gowland considers her for a moment, to Alice's outrage and Eliza's dread. At this, Boris cuts in.
"C'mon, geezer. You're really gonna leave her to fend for herself at night? And she has an actual resume! With experience! Where else are you gonna find that?"
Gowland sighs, convinced.
"Ok. You can stay here, and I'll give you a wage on top of food and board. That's standard policy. But don't you go slacking off like him!" Gowland sends a dirty look at Boris, who sticks his tongue out in reply.
Eliza's shoulders untense, and she eagerly agrees that she'll work very hard- the hardest, even!
Alice finally says goodbye, her parting words to Gowland noticeably curt. Boris accompanies her through the crowd, presumably to escort her home. Eliza is left with her new boss and Seven, who had stayed silent from the start. Gowland, visibly rallying himself, pats Eliza on the shoulder.
"I'll have an employee show you to your room. It'll be a bit small, but you won't have to share."
Apparently disinterested to continue the conversation, and still looking a bit disheartened, he saunters off in another direction. It's back to just her and Seven. They meander their way to the front of the Park, neither saying much. Finally, Eliza speaks up.
"Will you be in a lot of trouble if you get caught sneaking in?"
Seven smiles at her.
"I won't get caught, don't worry."
'So that's a yes.' Eliza thinks, feeling a bit like a wrung-out washrag. Ever since she had woken up, it had been one insane thing after another. After everything else, it was hard to muster up the energy to be worried. But Seven had gone out of his way to help her, and to make her day enjoyable, despite the risk of punishment, so muster she will.
"I'll come looking for you." She says "So you better be there when I come. Heart Castle, right?"
Seven laughs, and makes a token protest that she doesn't have to go out of her way for him. Eliza won't hear any of it. She will visit him, so he better be there.
Seven's face may be blurred, but Eliza can still see the soft joy on it plain as day.
Seven's gaze is caught by something, and he wanders over to another booth selling accessories. Eliza, still wearing her ears and mittens, wonders what he's going to buy. Seven comes back from the register with something hidden in both hands.
"Here," he plops a simple charm bracelet into her hands, "you wear this, and I'll wear this matching one. That way, you can just ask for the soldier with this bracelet when you come."
Eliza puts on the bracelet, the gesture warming her from the inside out.
"Couldn't I just ask for Seven?" she idly asks.
Seven shakes his head wryly.
"There are a lot of soldiers with the number 7 in the Castle."
Ah. Eliza can feel the chill of the air again. It's only been a few hours, but Eliza really doesn't want to say goodbye.
Eliza sits on the narrow bed in her room. It's small, with only just enough room between the bed and drawers for a walkway. Other than that, Eliza has a chair, a lamp, a rack to hang her new uniform, and a small opaque window. When she wakes up, she'll use the waterpark showers to scrub herself clean. For tonight, she'll sleep in her clothes and figure out how to do laundry later.
Every time she starts to unwind, she hears the clacking of heels pass by her door and she tenses back up.
Her knee bounces in a quick rhythm. She's finally alone, it would be ok to have that long-overdue breakdown now… But it doesn't come. She waits for it for a few more minutes before she begins to empty her pockets. If she's not having a crying fit, she might as well do something else productive.
A headband, mittens, pens, chapstick, her fake and real wallets, her car keys, and a bunch of receipts. This is all she has to her name, now. From tomorrow, she'll have to figure out how to live in this new world.
"You've been through this before," Eliza whispers to herself, "you can do it again."
'Without Lauren?' her mind whispers back.
Lauren had been the only reason Eliza didn't crash and burn their first year. She had been Eliza's crutch, anchor, and guiding light. Then graduation started looming, and Eliza secretly dreaded their inevitable separation. Now it was here, and she was facing the gaping void in her life as though she was staring into the abyss itself.
The abyss…
A warning throb of pain, right behind the eyes. Eliza is reminded of her conversation with the soldiers, how trying to remember had caused a backlash that had bent her in half. She doesn't like that, she doesn't like that at all.
Eliza has a plan. It's a stupid plan, but the only person at risk is herself. The reward? Answers.
It's worth the risk.
She has quite a few receipts left to write on. She shoves the chair between the drawers and bed and uncaps a pen. She throws her mind back, what's the first thing that happened today? She writes in her smallest handwriting about waking up, about going to school, about the text, about her classes. As she writes about her phone breaking, she feels the headache begin.
She gets a new receipt, grits her teeth, and remembers. She had seen a stuffed animal (pain), but it hadn't really been a stuffed animal. It took her phone (pain), and she chased after it. She ran into the trees and saw a hole. She turned around…
Her handwriting is becoming shaky, but Eliza inhales and continues to focus.
She had turned around (pain) and saw a man with bunny ears (pain). She had cut her hands (pain), to see if she was dreaming (pain). He had said (pain) … something about Alice (pain). But the way he had said it (pain), it had been so cold (pain). His eyes were so cold (pain). Why? What had Eliza done? And then (pain), he grabbed her and threw her into the hole (pain).
After that-
PAIN
Eliza groans, her body curling in to protect itself. It hurts. It hurts too much to continue.
Her face is buried in her arms. As she lifts her head, resolve wavering, she sees the words still written on one of them. They are badly smudged, but just legible enough for Eliza to read.
Your role is to keep the dreamer from waking up
She had written that right after she woke up at the Clocktower. Why?...
PAIN
Eliza waits for the aftershocks of the earthquake in her head to subside. When she can think again, she tries to get her thoughts in order. She had written that right after she had woken up. Trying to think about what happened between falling into the abyss and waking up was excruciating. But she had been able to write one message for herself, one phrase in the freshness of the moment.
'This… is important, somehow. But what does it mean?'
Under the last sentence she had written, the memory of being thrown in, she writes the phrase and underlines it three times. On another receipt, she records what happened next, leading her to this room. By the time she is finished writing about her attempt to remember, she is no longer in pain. Instead, Eliza is certain if she isn't in her bed within the next 5 minutes, she'll pass out in this uncomfortable wooden chair.
She throws herself onto the bed, not even bothering to take off her cardigan or get under the blankets. On the brink of unconsciousness, she thinks of Alice's advice. Talk to Nightmare, the dream demon role holder…
'Nightmare' she thinks with her last wisp of energy 'I want to talk to you.'
Then sleep claims her, and she knows no more.