Alice stood in the clearing, her breath ragged and uneven, the twisted landscape of Wonderland stretching out before her. The trees twisted and gnarled as if recoiling from the fierce battle that raged between her and the Jabberwocky. Its eyes blazed like twin embers, and its scales shimmered with a dark, iridescent glow, every movement like the grinding of broken glass.
She clutched the Vorpal sword in her hand, its edge gleaming. The air hummed with tension, and Alice tightened her grip, eyes narrowing. With a feral scream, she lunged forward, the blade carving an arc through the air. The Jabberwocky roared in defiance, swiping its taloned claws at her, but Alice was too quick, ducking and weaving with a dancer's grace, each motion sharper and more precise than the last.
"You will not take me," she hissed, driving the blade deep into its chest. The Jabberwocky writhed, flailing wildly, but Alice held firm, twisting the sword until she felt the creature's heartbeat falter. With one final, choking gasp, it slumped to the ground, and Alice stood victorious over its broken body.
She looked down, panting heavily, watching as the Jabberwocky's blood pooled around her feet. For a moment, there was silence, and then everything began to melt away. The twisted trees, the impossible sky, the very ground beneath her - It all blurred and twisted, fading into darkness, until there was nothing left but Alice and the man at her feet.
Reality snapped back like a whip, and Alice stumbled, suddenly overwhelmed by the smell of copper and the cold night air. She looked down at her hands and saw they were coated in crimson. Her heart hammered in her chest as she gazed upon the man lying before her, his face frozen in a final expression of terror. He wasn't a monster, not a creature from some twisted dream. He was just... a man.
"No," Alice whispered, taking a step back, the sword slipping from her fingers with a dull clang. "No, this can't be right." But the blood on her hands was warm, slick, and it clung to her skin like an accusation. She fell to her knees, staring at what she had done.
She had painted him red. That was the only thought that echoed in her mind. She had painted him red, painted him in blood, and there was no Wonderland, no Jabberwocky - just the man, lying still and silent, his life drained away by her own hand.
Alice rocked back and forth, the world around her spinning, reality bending and twisting in the corners of her vision. "It was real," she whispered to herself, clutching her head, her blonde hair now stained with the man's blood. "It had to be real. It was real..."
But it wasn't. It was all in her mind, a beautiful, terrible illusion, and as Alice looked up at the starless sky, she realized that Wonderland had never left her. It had twisted itself around her mind, warping reality, until she couldn't tell the difference between what was real... and what was madness.
And now, as she knelt in the blood-soaked dirt, the truth finally settled over her like a shroud. She wasn't the hero of this story. She was the monster.
