The cat swished his tail as he leaned on the once-gold archway. He put a hand to his head and looked at the long table strewn dirtily with cups and plates, only to see a drunken mouse passed out on a plate and a silent march hare. The hare looked into his cup and only looked and stared, unmoving. At the end of the table, the thing the cat had been looking for sat there with closed eyes.
"There's some horrible news" The cat took a step forward. The mad hatter raised the tea cup to his lips and stopped short. He sighed and put it down on the table again, with an uninterested gaze and a stare urging him to go on.
"The next Alice has fallen into wonderland. She's here, she's made it past the wise caterpillar." The cats tail swished to and fro as he walked. An ear on the top of his peach colored hair twitched, and he looked at the hatter with dark purple eyes.
"What! She can't be here... that's impossible, Alice is dead-" The hatter looked back with worried blue eyes, pushing a strand of blonde hair behind an ear and tapping his fingers on the table.
"-There will always be another Alice!" the cat cut him off quickly, slamming a hand on the table. The march hare looked up to look at him, and then returned to the tea cup. The mouse never stirred, obviously too passed out and drunk to care.
"Don't you get it, Gill? There will always be another, and another, and another! There will always be another Alice to replace the next, no matter what!" The cats ears twitched and his back hunched over as he bared his teeth at the blonde. He closed his eyes, and began to walk away.
"Oh. And one more thing," The cats tail lashed at the air as he strutted away,
"Her name is Angela."
And in a flash he was gone.
*!*!*
Did he just say Angela?
MY Angela?
…...
Maybe this isn't going to be so bad after all...
*!*!*
Everywhere I seem to walk, I just end up passing the same row over and over again! There are the same trees, the same clouds, the same smells, and the same red flowers. They bloom a few feet in front of me every time I take a step, and they never seem to stop no matter what I do!
The sky is still green and smokey, envious of nothing. It feels like poison in your lungs after a while, but maybe that's because I've been walking and running for over an hour... I lost track of time, not that anything I do would be worth it. This world is so fucked up, time probably runs counter-clockwise. Maybe they don't even have time, maybe they just tell what is what by where the clouds...er... fumes are in the sky.
I kept walking, and the more flowers appeared the more I knew I was probably getting nowhere. I sighed and quietly laughed to myself. I didn't know weather to laugh or go into extreme depression.
If someone would walk by, maybe I could get somewhere...
Once again, something appeared at her whim. Not a 'someone', but more of a... 'something'.
It was a rabbit that appeared to have been once white, but now brown. It had mange and large eyes that looked around wildly, it's teeth were yellow and cracked, and it all around looked horrific. Angela suppressed an involuntary cringe.
It turned around, and stared at her with a blank look. It blinked a few times before looking down at a gold pocket watch that seemed to be falling apart, and then turned around to continue into the forest. It bound away hopping, and Angela picked up the pace and tried to run after it.
"Excuse me!" She said, leaping through the woods over flowers and the undergrowth that stained everything. The trees seemed to reach down like claws and tear at her hair, slowing her down in the process.
"I'm late!" It yelled back to her but not slowing down at all.
"Please, I need help!" She yelled to it, but it was too late. He fell into a hole at the bottom of a rotten tree, saying nothing in return to her plea for help.
She gritted her teeth and stomped her foot, resembling that of a child that didn't get something she wanted, she looked back at from where she was running, and there was nothing there.
No light from the path she wandered away from.
No path.
No red flowers.
Nothing but trees.
And plants.
And more plants.
Fuck.
*!*!*
It might have been minutes. It might have been days, to months, maybe only seconds. All Angela knew was it was already too long and she needed out. She looked around her again, for the sixth time in a row, and the only thing visible was trees that once again seemed to conjure out of thin air.
"You won't get anywhere unless you make sure you do." Angela spun her head around to look for the voice that sounded familiar. Something her mind had told her she wanted to hear, but at the same time, rejected it completely.
"Wha... What?" She paused for a moment before her mind rushed back filling her thoughts with a thousand words per few seconds.
"You won't get anywhere unless you make sure you follow the voices, I thought I said that!" The voice seemed annoyed. It came from a tree, showing the silhouette of a person that seemed to be part cat.
"Who are you, I mean..." She said, holding her ground and staring at the outline.
The person seemed to glide gently to the bottom of the forest floor and began to walk towards her, hand reaching out, and tail swishing eagerly through the air.
"I am 'The Cheshire Cat' as I am most commonly known, but however the hatter likes to call me a problematic troublemaker and a menace to society... It's all in good fun." He said, putting his hand back down and coming into view.
Those purple eyes were the least common, and she knew it was him.
Chase.
He winked at her cheekily, very Chase-like and yet it wasn't at all.
"You know me, love? Expectant. I know you were expecting me sometime." He said, leaning back on a tree that had magically appeared, putting hands in the pockets of his white and purple striped outfit.
"How do you know that?" She side stepped, looking at him and examining his every move.
"Your eyes... They scream the truth. No lying with innocence like that." He said, opening an eye to look at her.
"My eyes? You couldn't possibly know what I was thinking or planning on doing by looking at my eyes!" She hissed at him, expecting something like he already knew she was wanting him.
"Why not? It's perfectly logical." He retorted.
Before she could open her mouth he placed a finger to her lips to silence her. He smiled and an ear twitched.
"It's best not to question this world, Angela." He explained.
"And how did you know my name? I never told you! This is a dream, I know of it! I'm in the hospital being cared for this second, most likely in a coma like state." She said, trying to put the pieces of the puzzle together to make them fit and make sense... to her.
"Listen up!" He snapped his fingers in annoyance, and vines of trees reached out to grab her. They lifted her hands and parted her legs, making sure she couldn't escape.
He walked to her and put two hands on her face, looking her in the eyes with his violet eyes and sent fear down her spine.
"I am Chase, but I am not Chase. I have his memories, his feelings, his thoughts, his body, his antics, and everything he said... imagine I said. I am the one that controls him, like a subconscious, only more. So technically we are the same person, and yet we are not. Understand."
Angela moved to open her mouth but a tree branch slithered out of nowhere and blocked her mouth.
"I am him. I control him. I gave him his feelings. But, technically we are two separate things."
The branch moved and she spit up bark. The trees retracted, leaving red marks on her hands and ankles. She looked pissed.
"Was that really necessary? And yes, I think I understand. So... Chase's personality is that of a cat?" She raised an eyebrow, rubbing the red marks to ease the pain from the iron grip.
"Yes."
"So... you're like a doppelganger?" she questioned.
"Exactly. But I'm not exactly an evil, we call them Perfectica, that stands for perfect replica." He noted, taking her hand and leading her in the direction that would lead them the fastest to civilization.
"I see." She said, taking his hand in hers and smiling.
"So... Then you're the one that made him fall in love with me?" She asked.
"No. We control many emotions, but love is an action only he can control. It's the only thing he has to himself, I suppose." Chase said as their retreating figures went through the green.
"Okay, so does that mean... YOU don't love me?" She looked puzzled.
"It's only a coincidence I fell for you as well." He said, looking down at the small girl with a tiny smile.
Over to the left of Angela, a twig snapped.
Chase held on her hand tightly, gripping and gritting his teeth.
"Angela, you have to trust me. I won't let anything hurt you, so you have to trust me when I tell you to do something." He said quickly.
"How do I know you're not a perfectica?" She asked simply.
He sighed to himself and leaned forward, resting his arms around her tiny waist and whispering in her ear.
"I would kill myself before something touched you. I love you, and even though you love Gill, I'll still be here." He muttered. Angela nodded and decided the worst thing that could happen was that she would fall out of the hospital bed.
"Fine" She replied meekly.
"Then run."
*!*!*
Fun stuff. Soooooo, I have a question: WHO DO YOU THINK SHOULD ANGELA FALL FOR? Bam!
~The Bloody Mad Hatter~