Black Kitten Chara: Welcome to chapter 20 of Lucy in Wonderland! This chapter will be focusing on Carmen in the Kingdom of Spades, a very once-religious kingdom turned bad. I hope you enjoy and review please!
DISCLAIMER: I do not own American McGee's Alice or Hollow Fields.
She woke up to gallons of water around her. Everything burned her skin, but nothing seem to actually hurt her. The water was pitch black and smelled horrible, like mold over a pair of dirty socks. She floated there for a moment, completely shocked by where she was just at before she realized that she was underwater and not drowning. But that shock quickly left as she forced her legs, heavy and numb, to swim up to the top of the water where she saw light shining down to even the bottom of the water, making her believe that she wasn't in a body of water but maybe just a huge pot of water instead.
Carmen splashed onto the surface, catching her breath in heavy takes. She forced her eyes to open, looking around the world she was in. It was a barren world, with the brown dirt covering the land and a dark green sky that had dark grey smokes replacing regular clouds. The smell was horrible on the surface, causing Carmen to gag a little as she forced herself on her feet. She saw that there was a limited amount of small mountains, with nothing in sight as to make it seem like there was life here. She looked down the canyon she came from to see a long, huge vat of boiling water trailing inside the canyon.
As she turned around, trying to see if there was any place in sight, Carmen faced a boy around her age. He was trasnparent, proving he was a ghost. He had a curly mop of brown hair and sad brown eyes, while wearing chains around his ankles and wrist. He wore simple brown pants and a white shirt with no shoes at all.
But the boy had his ghostly back to her, so Carmen decided to be bold and walk right through him to get his attention. Not only she did get a chill, but the ghost boy freaked out and flew to the nearest rock, hiding behind it as he looked at Carmen.
The dark-skinned girl looked concern for the ghost boy as she spoke in a soft tone, "Hey there. I am not going to bite."
The boy came from out behind the rock, still a little nervous and frighten but he moved closer to Carmen as she held out her hand for him to reach it. He floated over there and touched her hand, and for a moment she thought he felt almost solid. But she brushed this off as she pulled him closer and smiled at him, trying to make him feel comfortable.
The boy mangaed to do a weak smile as he said, "I'm sorry I ran away."
"Well, I am sorry for going through you and scaring you." Carmen said with a warm smile, one she only kept for her little siblings. "My name is Carmen, by the way."
"I... My name... I'm Calvin." The boy said as he looked Carmen up and down, squinting his eyes like he was trying to notice something about her. The dark-skinned girl looked at him oddly as he finally sighed in defeat and said, "I'm sorry, but you... You look like someone I know. But I can't remember whom."
Carmen nodded her head as she said, "Well, I have to go."
"Wait!" Calvin yelled, causing Carmen's smile to become a frown at the yelling. He pointed at a piece of broken glass and said, "Look at the mirror and tell me if you look like anyone. I just need to know..."
Carmen sighed as she turned to see herself in the broken mirror, and she must say she looked very impressing. Her hair was in a loose bun that was held by a white band, with a small angel wing clip on each side on the hair band. She wore a long strand of black-and-gold rosary beads around her neck, with the necklace looping around her neck twice, with a golden cross at the end of it. Her costume featured a long-sleeved, faux leather black fingerless gloves that went to the middle of her forearms. She wore a white, sleeveless, hooded jacket with long tails that splited at the ends and her shoulders were protect by a piece of golden armor. She wore a black, faux-leather blouse that was strapless and had a grey stripe down the middle that had six black buttons shaped as crosses. She wore a pair of black short-shorts and black, thigh-high boots that laced up in the front.
She smiled at her new appearance but said, "Sorry, but I don't think I look like anyone familiar. I'm sorry."
Calvin looked disappointed as Carmen smiled and looked around for a weapon, since her Pepper Grinders were missing. She walked around and moved stuff around, trying to find a good enough weapon to fight with. It didn't have to be grand and extremely sharp, but it had to be strong enough and deadly enough to at least fight Ruin monsters.
She pushed the mirror back to find an interesting yet simple weapon. It was an elegantly crafter and slender longsword that featured a doubled-edged black blade, surrounded in its entirety by a narrow white cuting-edge. The handle is bounded with black leather and the completely smooth circular hilt is attack by an unconventional arrangement of two clear diamonds that form its guard. The tip of the sword looked sharp enough to break through skin.
Carmen picked up the sword and held it delicately in her hands. She smiled and held the sword in her right hand. Then she looked to see a steady stream of smoke somewhere far away to the right side of her.
"Well, I know where to go now..." Carmen said as she began going.
Calvin looked at her and grabbed her arm, saying "Let me come with you." Carmen looked a little annoyed, but didn't say anything as she let the ghost boy follow her to the smoke ahead of them.
~0~
After the first hour of having a scared ghost following her, Carmen couldn't decide whether to leave Calvin behind or help him find the person he was looking for, but then that would take her away from her mission. It wasn't that he was rude or she hated him, but she just found it a little annoying that he wasn't helping her and instead was looking around afraid.
But then, she thought about him leaving and felt a tiny emptiness in her. She realized that she would miss him if he was gone and she would feel awful she is just left him alone. So, as a small smile played on her lips, she didn't say a word as they crossed over a mountain and saw a strange home.
It was fairly big, though smaller than most mansions back in London, and grand-looking mansion made out of black marble, although it had slightly frightening with guillotine-like structures on either side of the barren courtyard and hangsman nooses hanging from the dead trees surrounding the mansion. A black iron fence with sharp tips surrounded the mansion. Skulls surrounded a dirty moat, with the mansion being made to look like an old Victorian home as steam came out of the tall chimney.
"Is that the home you were talking about?" Carmen asked as she pointed at the home.
"Yeah..." Calvin said in a scared tone.
Carmen looked at him with serious eyes as she asked, "You really never explained why we had to come here. Why?"
Calvin gulped as he pointed a shaking finegr at the home. "There is this man, the only man alive from the royal Spade family of our kingdom. He collects ghosts and people who are still alive, and takes them into his basement. He tortures them and he uses the ghosts he collects to power machines."
Carmen stood there in shock, completely shocked by the news of this awful man. She saw that Calvin looked upset, so she took a step foward and placed a hand on his shoulder. He looked up at her with scared eyes, seeing her warm smile. He smiled back, but then something caught his attention and he pointed behind her.
Carmen was confuse as she turned around to see a wooden door, with flames behind the window and the name SNOW written at the very top. She was the symbol of Zeus glowing purple on the doorknob and she thought about her amulet as she walked towards the door, leaving Calvin behind.
Then she opened it and walked straight into the fire.
[MEMORY DOOR]
Carmen opened her eyes to find herself right next to Lucy's burning home. She felt like a twelve-year-old again as she looked to she emergency personal and cops and firemen surrounding her, all of them running in different directions and screaming incoherent things that shot pass Carmen's ears.
She walked around aimlessly, not knowing what to do until she something that stopped her heart cold.
She saw Lucy on a gurney, red streaks covering her arms and face with a few bruises from where she jumped out of her bedroom. Her eyes were closed, but she was breathing normally as she clutched her stuffed rabbit in her arms. Luna, the oet Lucy owned, brushed her silky fur against Lucy's leg as she wanted her owner to wake up.
Carmen ran towards her friend, kneeling down as she brushed some brunt hair from Lucy's face. Her kept thinking that Lucy was dead until he heard a small noise coming from Lucy's mouth as the redhead opened her eyes.
"Lucy...?" Carmen asked.
But her friend didn't look at her as she began screaming, gripping the gurney's sheets as she called out, "Centaurs... They're everywhere!" Carmen looked around to see no mythological creature but humans instead. Lucy's sheriks continued to go on as she screamed, "Wonderland... destoryed."
Carmen felt hot tears run down her eyes as the hallucinations kept coming to Lucy, the redhead screaming louder and louder until emergency personal took her into the ambulance and put her back under.
[MEMORY DOOR]
Carmen left the Memory Door in a hurry, tears flooding her pretty face as she remembered what she had saw that night. She tried to buried that memory far back in her mind, not wanting to tell her friends about it as she knew it would break them. She acted surprise when they heard Lucy was in an asylum because she didn't want to accept the truth. She had even prayed that the first halluicnation Lucy had was her only one when she saw the ambulance leave the burning house that night.
But as she wiped the tears away and looked to see Calvin, she instead saw hands shot from under the ground and grabbed Calvin's ankles. Carmen looked down to see zombies come up from under the ground as they grabbed the girl next, showing they had no interest in feeding on them. Carmen screamed as she swung her sword and cut off a zombie's head.
The other zombies screeched as they went after the dark-skinned girl, faster and stronger than zombies in movies. Carmen was caught off guard by this and she was grabbed by one of them, her sword falling into other zombie's hand as her and Calvin were dragged to the house against their free will.
Carmen kicked and screamed as the zombies opened the gates and brought them to the front of the house, where they met a man standing there with a smirk on his face.
He was a tall, muscular man with dark skin, almost like Calvin's skin but much darker. He had a shaved head where black hair should have grown at and his dark brown eyes pierced into Carmen, trying to scare the stubborn teenager. He had a goatee with fang-like teeth and a hooked nose, making him seem a little scarier than he should be. He wore a black three-piece suit with a red cape around his neck and black dress shoes on his feet, making him look like he was on a business trip more so the ruling a kingdom.
Carmen glared at the man as she said, "Who the fuck are you?!"
Instantly, the man's face twisted into a face of sheer anger as the bones in Carmen's body began to shake in fear. She knew what she said casued this as the man spitted into Calvin's face then brought down a huge hand against the girl's face, slapping her so hard that Carmen became unconscious right then and there.
~0~
Carmen fluttered her eyelids open to find herself in a small, dark cell. The brick walls were aged with mold and dust, with her cell bars being strudy still but covered in rust. The floor was covered in water that came from the ceiling and a dried red liquid, which Carmen was afraid was blood, covered the small window she had. Markings of dates and random drawings covered the walls where mold wasn't growing at, and the ceiling looked like it was about to collaspe on itself.
Then came the screams.
At first, Carmen could only see as her senses tried to come back to her. But once she got her hearing back, she wished it went away again. Because all she could hear were the blood-curling, heart-wrenching sheirks of men, women, and children that were both alive or dead being totured somewhere near the dark-skinned girl.
Carmen felt herself go cold as she clutched her ears tight, trying to drown out the heart-brekaing crys for help. But she was forced to look back up when a rock, or multiple rocks to be correct, hit her back and she snapped her head to face the person in the cell across from her, only to be surprise by who it was.
"Lucy...?" Carmen asked in shock.
The redhead smirked as she looked her best friend up and down. She a long white dress that ended at her knees with long, wide sleeves. The dress was torn and had a V-shaped cut-out at the middle to reveal her navel. The top was off her shoulders, with the edges of the shoulders being sharp and pointed, but also torn and tattered. The dress was tainted with dirt and there was dried blood on the torn-up bottom hem. She had cuffs on her wrists and ankles, with the chains broken into pieces. She wore simple gold cross earrings and a black bead necklace that went to below her chest with a gold cross pendant at the end. She was barefooted and her hair was longer, dirty, and a little curly at the end.
"Looks like they caught you too, huh?" Lucy asked in her silky-soft British accent.
"Yeah. Where are we at?" Carmen asked as she tried to find something to keep her mind occupied from the screams.
Lucy let out a cold chuckle as she said, "This is the holding block for people, dead or alive, to be tortured next. And trust me when I say this, there is no way out."
Carmen narrowed her eyes at the negative comment, thinking there has to be a way out of her cell. She looked around as she saw a guard, vaugely human, sleeping in a chair near her cell with her sword next to him. She smiled as she looked around to see both people and ghosts waiting around like they were on death row.
Carmen stood up straight, gathering her confidence and strength as she yelled "Why are we all waiting around to be killed?"
Everyone in the cells, including Lucy, looked at Carmen as she continued. "Here we all are, probably a thousand of us in total against one man. And yet you guys are letting him torture you? We not fight back? With both ghosts and humans working together, there is no way that man can continue this. We can fight back! We can win and take down this awful man!"
For a moment, everyone was silent as they gave the dark-skinned girl odd looks. Lucy rubbed the bridge of her nose, sighing in slight embarrassment over Carmen's speech even though she was proud of Carmen trying to rally everyone together. The curly-haired girl looked sadden by the fact that nobody wanted to help her at all.
But that feeling went away as the whole cell block bursted into cheers.
Carmen smiled widely and Lucy had a look of complete shock mixed with amazement on her face, as the other prisonsers began pushing their bodies against the bars and some were able to break through easily. One person grabbed Carmen's sword and handed back to her as she had her hand out through the bars.
The only guard there woke up as the freed prisoners grabbed him and took the keys away from him, choking her to death while a child of no more than seven began going around with the keys and began unlocking the other doors so more humans were able to be freed. But the keys would not unlock the doors of the cells for the ghosts as they were made out of some kind of magical metal.
Carmen and Lucy were last as the redhead said, "I'm going to find Raphael, the man who runs this prison. Carmen, stay behind and help everyone free the ghosts."
"Right!" Carmen said as she took out her sword and began slashing at the cells for the ghosts.
At the first hit, the bars of the cells broke into tiny pieces as a group of ghosts in that cell cheered with happiness. Carmen smiled as she continued down the block, breaking part the cell doors as ghosts flew out of their prisons and began attacking the group of guards that came to restrain the riot.
Carmen finally got to the last cell and broke the doors as the ghosts of that one flew out. But disappointment filled her stomach as she didn't see Calvin anywhere in the last few cells she broke, realizing he wasn't here at all.
She looked back to see that the ghosts and humans she freed were doing quite well on their own, their newfound sense of heroism helping them defeat all of the guards that came their way. She smiled for a moment before she walked over to the set of stairs that led downward to the basement and raced down them, hoping to find her ghost friend soon.
~0~
Carmen was finally at the end of the stairs, finding herself in a darkly-lit room with the only light shining down on an operation table that was covered in dried-up blood. A plate filled with sharp and rusty tools, knives and hacksaws and things of that nature, with restrainants on the operation table so whoever was in it couldn't move or escape. She smelled a strong mixture of blood and acid in the room, burning her nose and causing her eyes to water. She coughed a little before looking to see that there was a machine near the operation table, one that looked like it was supposed to give more pain and torture to whoever was unfortnate enough lay on the table.
And standing near the operation table was Calvin.
"CALVIN!" Carmen yelled as she raced other to him and caught him in a bear-like hug. "I was so worried!"
But she felt that something was terribly wrong with him as she let go of him and kept her hands on his shoulders, looking at him as his sad eyes looked at the floor. "Calvin, is everything all right?"
The ghost boy looked at her with sadness covering his being, saying in a trembling voice "That man who brought us here, who slapped you... He is... He is... He is my father."
That shocked Carmen to the core. "W-Wh...What?"
"After Princess Esther died and her mother, the queen, was excuted, my father went insane for some reason and took over as King Raphael. He... He loved torturing people, but I didn't. He was so angry at me that he banged my head against the wall until I bled to death. I became a ghost, which is like being a slave to my father." She heard the pain and suffering in Calvin's shaking voice, knowing that he was broken by this realization.
The curly-haired beauty pursed her lips together as she grabbed her sword. She aimed it right at Calvin's chains and in one swift motion, she broke the chains into pieces. The links were shattered across the room as Calvin looked down at his wrists and ankles in shock, but a small smile came on his face.
"T...Thank you." Calvin said.
"No problem!" Carmen said with a sunny smile.
But the moment did not last as a hidden door opened and King Raphael came through. And holding her by the hair, he gripped a strugglinh Lucy as he held a knife at her throat and his face was twisted with insanity.
Carmen glared at him as she placed herself in front of Calvin and drew her sword out. "You will not hurt him anymore! I won't let you!"
King Raphael laughed as he threw Lucy on the ground so hard that Carmen swore she heard something break in the redhead's body. But Lucy turned to face King Raphael as she smirked, like she knew Carmen was going to give him the beating of a lifetime. But he oushed her head down with his boot, keeping her from seeing what would happen next.
Then King Raphael looked at Calvin as his dark eyes became golden, his voice becoming deeper as he said, "Servus meus es tu. Interficerent eam."
Carmen was confused by way he did that, but before she could think she felt her arm being grabbed and her enture body being thrown on the operation table. Her sword dropped as she looked to see Calvin, with dead-looking eyes and a small smile on his face, strapping her in with her arms over her head.
Carmen struggled as she saw King Raphael grab Lucy off the floor and drag her back through the hidden doorway. She heard him say, "Now it is time to deal with you, little bitch." That is when Carmen knew that her friend was going to be killed soon if she didn't get out of this and snap Calvin out of whatever spell his father put him under.
She saw him pick up a rusty knife as she screamed, "Calvin! It's me, Carmen! Calvin, this isn't you! You said yourself that you hated torturing people, so fight back! I know you are in there so, listen to me and fight ba-AAAAAAAAAWWWWWWWWWWWWWW!" She didn't have time to finish as she felt the knife cut through her skin, bringing blood to the surface.
She screamed and cried, trying to moving as the knife started to go down her arm and leave a longer and deeper cut. Tears flooded her face as she looked at Calvin once more before he hit a vessel and she gave her loudest scream yet as blood flooded from her arm.
Then she heard the knife drop.
With tears blurring her vision, she still turned ehr head to see Calvin looking at her with shock and horror. His eyes were full of life again as sheen of wetness began to cover them, showing he was back and horrifed at what he did to his only friend.
"You..." Calvin began before he broke down into sobs. Carmen looked at him with sadness as he wiped away some tears and was able to speak for a few seconds. "You look so much like my mother and you sound like her too. She... She was Princess Esther and she... She had me very young, as you would in this kingdom."
Carmen smiled at the complaint as Calvin grabbed a cloth and held her arm to keep the blood from coming down anymore. From the table, he took a thread and neddle as he smiled sadly at her. Once the cloth came off, he began stitching her back up as he took off the restrainants that held her down.
But as Carmen got off the table, the hidden door opened again as Lucy came through in array of pink butterflies with a blue wind and green leaves follwing her. She was bloodied and covered in sweat, her dress drenched to her body as the bloody cuts on her face dripped down to her shoulders and the blood rolled to the floor by traveling her body. She held each Vorpal Blade in her hands, as she glared at the open doorway.
King Raphael came running through with an axe, but his attention was turned away from the redhead to see his son and Carmen glaring at him as she grabbed her sword off the floor and held it towards the man. "It's over, Raphael. Your son is back on our side and you are finish!" Carmen said in a serious tone.
King Raphael looked confuse as Calvin said, in a stronger voice than he has had in a long time, "I will not hurt her like you did Mom. I ill not be the son of a sickening, evil man nor will I ever become like you."
At first, King Raphael looked just as hurt as a real father would. But then, anger and insanity overcame he as he charged towards the two teenagers near the operation table. He held his axe up high, ready to strike them and cut them into tiny little pieces. His eyes, wild with anger, locked on Carmen first as he lowered his axe and...
Three sharp Jacks came at him, striking him in the face as he dropped the axe. He yelled and screamed as the Jacks flew back to Lucy, being grabbed into her delicate hands as she smirked at the cruel king like she had won.
As he held his face in pain, Raphael still charged but this time at his own son. Calvin held his arms up in defense as his father forced his body to collide with his son's, the both of them skidding backward due to the sheer amount of strength that was used. Calvin and his father was pushed up against a hall with a huge window, the boy still trying to block his father.
"You shall never win!" King Raphael laughed madly.
"I don't think so!" Calvin shouted back as he grabbed his father's collar.
King Raphael seem taken off guard as his son, using basically sheer force and energy, threw his more muscular father out through the window.
Carmen and Lucy ran over to the window, watching with Calvin as King Raphael fell into one of the vats that stood within the canyon. They watched as his skin began dripping off his skin, blood and bones being shown as his eyes popped out of his skull and melted into the water. He chin fell off his skull and was hanging off beofre it turned into ashes. His clothes burned into nothing as the blood on his skull turned black before his skull turned into ashes and his disappeared into the water.
"Oh my god..." Carmen said in shock as she covered her mouth. "What happened?"
Lucy sighed as she said, "That was one of the first things Raphael put in as king. A vat of acid within a canyon, threatening to kill any poor unfortunate soul that dares to jumpacross the canyon to escape from this prison."
Carmen whipped her head towards Lucy as she stared at her with an open mouth. The redhead looked confuse for a moment, rasiing an eyebrow as Carmen stammered out "I... I... I woke up in the vat. How come... Why am I not dead? Not saying I want to be or anything but..."
Even that question left Lucy speechless.
But then, Calvin smiled at Carmen and said, "Because you are special. You have a strong will, just like my mom did."
"Though Esther didn't have the attitude Carmen has, I will agree that both of them possesses very strong wills." Lucy said while Caremn glared at her for saying she had an attitude.
Calvin smiled as he rummaged around in his pockets, looking for something. Lucy also had a smile on her face as the ghost boy pulled a clover amulet made out of stitches of different clothes, one having dried-up blood on the edges of the stitches. He placed the amulet in Carmen's hand and said, "This used to belong to my mother. It is called the Clover Amulet."
She smiled a little as she looked down at the Clover Amulet, thinking about how much she will miss Calvin. Then her mind wandered off to her friends, thinking how much she needed them, as her vision faded into darkness and she felt her body being lifted away to somehwere far away from the Kingdom of Clovers.
~0~
Carmen found herself back in the penthouse to see it was nighttime, back in her causal clothes and watching Claude and Simon argue over something as Francine watched in annoyance in one of the spinning chairs. She dropped the Eyestaff on the floor as she looked to see it changed to its fourth color of the day, a bright red with streaks of gold and black swirling around in it.
"There is no way I am trusting that creep! You heard Nan that he had those kids in his orphanage running around with questionable men!" Claude shouted at Simon, a look of anger on his face.
"Come on, Claude! What do we have to lose?" Simon shouted back.
"Listen, I am not trusting this man that everyone we met so far has talked bad about. What if he hurt Lucy while he was seeing her?" Claude said, his eyes giving away that he was about to lose his temper again.
Carmen got to her feet as she took out the Clover Amulet and placed it on the table, Francine being the only one that noticed that she was awake. Then she placed ehrself between the boys as she said, "I know I am going to regret asking this, but what the bloody Hell is going on here?"
Claude looked at Simon then back at Carmen as he said, "Dummy over here wants us to go visit Dr. Edward Dales, but I am not agreeing to a stupid plan like that."
"Oh yeah! Got any better ideas, Captain Genius?" Simon snapped back.
Claude glared at the blonde, but Carmen pushed him away. Then she forced Simon to go sit in the kitchen as she turned back around towards Claude, but sighed as she sat down next to Lucy on the couch and groaned, "I'm too tired to deal with this."
Claude snickered as he grabbed the Eyestaff and said, "I'm taking this so nobody else will get harmed by it."
He began wlaking towards his room as Simon snuck back into the living room and looked at Carmen as he asked, "So, where did you go?"
The curly-haired girl sighed as she began her story on the Kingdom of Clovers, going over every detail like the clothes Calvin was wearing to who King Raphael was. Francine gasped when Carmen told about Calvin hurting her and she even lifted up her sleeve to find the stitching still here. She talked about how the vat of water she woke up in was actually acid and how she was special, just like Esther was to the Kingdom.
After she was done, Francine had a thoughtful look on her face as she said, "Every kingdom we go to, we are mistaken as these royal people. Do you think Lucy created them based off of us to remind herself of us?"
"Maybe, maybe not. All I know is that I am tired as crap." Carmen said as she rubbed her temples.
"You should be after what you just told us." Francine said as she looked at the clock to see that it was already 7 o'clock. She sighed as she looked to see that Claude was still in his room as she said, "I wonder what is taking Claude so..." But she trailed off as she realized something horrible.
She looked at Simon and Carmen, with sudden fear gripping their faces as they all yelled "CLAUDE!" and ran into his bedroom.
There, their worst nightmare came to life as they saw Claude on his knees on the floor. His eyes were close and his face was covered in red markings, while the Eyestaff glowed an even brighter red than it did before.