Wondrous Nightmares
by Bloodysword99
Recommended song: Army of Me (Sucker Punch Remix)- Bjork
Fanart: Up for Another Nightmare-Mellownoiz
Chapter 4: Nightmares and Awakening
"Alice, it's been eight years. How much longer do I have to wait?"
Pitch loomed over Alice's bed; watching over her. The Boogeyman, almost night and day, stood by her. He had spent so long just staring, waiting for Alice to speak…or at least open her eyes. At times he was compelled to leave for just a second to rest but he was afraid he would miss Alice's sign of waking. Sometimes, Pitch would imagine her moving just a couple of inches but it was just his mind playing tricks. The only moment Alice moves is when the nurses take her away to…He couldn't even piece together all the horrible things they've done.
Pitch had tried to stop them by messing with their equipment, making the power go out, and even hiding their tools but he was just delaying it. Soon, it was useless. They continued to conduct disturbing experiments on the poor girl. She was strapped to a chair, electrocuted, drilled tools into her head, and leaching blood from her body. All of it was torturous yet Alice did not wake from her trance. Even when she was thrown into solitary confinement like a dog in a straitjacket, she made no fuss. Alice would stare blankly at the wall, soulless. Pitch tried to call out to her. Once when he was desperate, the Boogeyman would sit next to her and slip Nightmares into her head, trying to scare her awake but she never reacted. It was a surprise when Pitch lost hope and was stuck to waiting and sometimes talking to her.
This lasted for eight long years. For eight years Alice had been under a spell. For eight years Pitch waited. Hoped.
"Alice, you troublesome child, you really like making people wait, don't you?" Pitch muttered before taking her hand. Cold. So very cold. The Boogeyman might have thought she was a corpse if she wasn't breathing.
She lay stiff in her bed, eyes closed. The Boogeyman studied her. She wasn't the girl he met once upon a time. The little Liddell grew into a beautiful 18-year-old lady. A sleeping insane beauty, clothed in a blue and white toned dress, Alice was breath-taking, tranquil, and strong. It painfully reminded him of his own daughter. Pitch never got to grip his daughter's hand like this. The touch of reassurance, care, and love, a fatherly touch.
As Pitch let her hand slip from his, her hand shot up to grab him.
"Alice!" He gasped, her eyes snapped open and her grasp firm, warm and demanding.
'End this Madness once and for all, Pitch.' Her eyes spoke for themselves. And Pitch instantly got the message.
And he wasted no time despite the shock; he melted into the shadows and raced into her mind. It was finally time to save Alice and her Wonderland.
Queensland was a shadow of its former glory; a gory and disgusting shadow. Pitch had to admit, it was a fine land for a Red queen. Mutated, fleshy, and revolting, it was expected since most of Wonderland was a raving hell hole. It was as if Wonderland had been twisted into a dark frenzy of insanity. The Boogeyman knew Alice's mind was a complete mess but this was just beyond his imaginings. Blood almost everywhere, creatures crawled and were deliriously hungry for your head, if Pitch wasn't on a mission to save the little Liddell, then he would marvel at the artistic Nightmare land Alice created from her years of madness.
"Halt!"
He saw the Card Knights guarding the gates of their queen's castle. And Pitch grinned. This was going to be so much fun. And he did have the time of his eternal life, slicing each Card Knight with a brutal swing of his scythe. Pitch entered the Red Queen's atrocious bloody barbaric castle without a scratch on him.
"It's about time you showed up." The Cheshire cat appeared before Pitch when he was outside the Queen's throne room.
"Well, excuse me for being late, you fatuous feline," Pitch said with a thick layer of sarcasm. Next to the Mad Hatter, the cat was on Pitch's most annoying list.
"Better late than never, I suppose. But I can't blame you for your tardiness. Alice did summon you at a very crucial hour." That feline's grin was always irritating to see.
"She knows what she's doing, cat." The Boogeyman defended. He knew Alice had a plan and she has a fantastic stupid reason for summoning Pitch at the last minute.
"Indeed, she does. Now hurry before the Queen digests her into nothing."
As the cat dissolved, Pitch took a deep breath before walking through the double doors.
"Ah, if it isn't the Boogeyman." The Red queen greeted when she saw her doors open for the Nightmare King, who didn't look too happy.
Pitch strutted down the tattered red carpet to face the new ruler of Wonderland. And the queen was beauty was as horrid as her heart. She was absolutely hideous; tentacles and all. As the ugly Red Queen sat on her throne, she presented a consisted leer, like she was all mighty and Pitch was nothing but a speck.
"I would have thought you'd arrive sooner, naughty King, you shouldn't keep the queen waiting."
"Where is she?" He demanded and the Queen laughed.
"Why, right here." The red Queen directed him to a fleshy cocoon hanging from her ceiling. Surrounded by her squishy tentacles, as if guarding it like a treasure, Pitch saw someone trapped within the cocoon of flesh. His eyes widen as he realized Alice was the prisoner.
"Alice,"
"Poor creature, she was so close but her insanity got the best of her. A pity, yet, this is the price of ultimate domination of the mind!"
"Release her before I sever your tentacles and send you back to the hell hole from whence you came!" Pitch threatened as he summoned his scythe to his hand.
Insanity must be a trait for Wonderland folk because the Queen just cackled at his threat. Her Highness was a pompous delusional creature yet Pitch knew she was forced to be reckoned with.
"You STUPID impudent Boogeyman!" She raved.
Pitch remained silent and gripped the shaft of his scythe, his anger escalated.
"What has she done to you?" said the queen before snickering with a dark warp voice.
He growled when her laughter got louder and crazier than before. And her voice was like a distorted feminine monster as it echoed through the chamber.
"My god! She has poisoned you with her ugly childish decorum, Pitch. Are you blind to what she's done to you? Can't you see what you've become?"
Pitch only stood there, beyond furious. But he was taking the Queen's words to heart. Why did he change? How? For a child?
"The merciless King of Nightmares, the Caster of Nefarious Fears, and the Notorious Nocturnal bed creature, the Boogeyman, being reformed by a mere child! An insane little brat!" She blathered. "The reality is absolutely sinful and pathetic!"
Pitch cringed at the insult, tempering his boiling anger. The Queen could destroy Alice with a snap of her fingers if he wasn't careful.
"What is Alice to you, Boogeyman? What importance does she hold?" She asked while the tentacles around the little girl's body tighten. The Queen was so amused when Pitch squirmed for the answer.
"She's…" The Boogeyman started before looking at Alice's fleshy prison.
What was she to him? What could a child like Alice hold anything special to the Boogeyman? What separates her from other children? What quality does she possess to make Pitch act like this? Was it her smile when he came to her every night during their early friendship together? Was it the fantastic imagination of her Wonderland? Was it her clever little mind? Was it her fearlessness towards him? Or was it…?
"My, my, Boogeyman, speechless, are we?"
Pitch's glare rested on the Queen; thinking of many ways to destroy her. The Nightmare King had several vile ideas but he had to consider Alice's safety first. Glancing at the little unconscious Liddell's flesh prison than at the Queen, Pitch gripped the shaft of his weapon with both hands for more effective use.
"Her importance to me is none of your concern!" He yelled, readying an attack. This made the Queen's fear rise. She knew a swing from the Nightmare Scythe and she could dissolve into a world of madness and hell yet she was somewhat confident. Pitch would never let Alice sink further into the insanity.
"If you destroy me, you destroy Alice!"
"I know," Pitch murmured before charging at the Queen.
With a swift motion, The Boogeyman hacked off most of her tentacles and ripped open Alice's prison to set her free. The Queen screamed in excruciating pain and rage and tried to attack with her remaining fleshy tentacles but Pitch managed to evade them and sweep Alice away from the Queen's attack range.
Pitch hid behind one of the pillars of the throne room and set the girl down, gently. He caressed her sleeping face and smiled; mirroring his relief that she wasn't hurt. And when Alice fluttered her eyes open, Pitch could only hold back his anxiety and frustration from his 8 long years of waiting.
"Took your sweet time, didn't you, Alice? Eight years, girl, Eight years, you know how annoying that is." Pitch muttered in a low heartbreaking voice.
"I knew you wouldn't abandon me." She replied.
Pitch didn't know what to do with this girl. Everything she does irk Pitch. "Selfish little brat, do you have any idea what I—"
But before he could finish, Alice pulled the Boogeyman down into a hug.
"I knew you wouldn't abandon me." She repeated on a verge of crying.
Pitch returned the hug awkwardly before clearing his throat. "I wouldn't. I couldn't."
And after the tender moment, Alice laughed, pulled away from Pitch, and summoned her Vorpal blade in her hand. Both came out of their hiding spot and faced the raging ugly Queen of Hearts.
"I rule Wonderland alone; your interference will not be tolerated, especially from you, Boogeyman. This realm is for grownups; raw, well-ordered, ruthless, careening on the jagged edge of reality. Self-pitying dreamers are not wanted here, Alice. They cannot survive here. You fear the truth, girl while you, little Nightmare king, live in shadows. Your pathetic attempts to reclaim her sanity have failed. Retreat now to the sterile safety of your self-delusions and petty-Nightmares, or risk inevitable annihilation!" She roared before stretching her tentacles out to grab Alice but Pitch deflected them with his weapon.
"If you destroy me, you destroy Alice! Leave now, Pitch, and some hollow part of Alice may survive. Stay, and I will break you both. And you will lose yourselves forever!" The monster decreed in a scary distorted voice but Pitch and Alice showed no fear.
"Oh shut up and die!" The girl cursed.
Holding his Scythe and swinging her blade, together, they battled against madness.