“When you step into this world of wonderful wonders you’ll never want to leave.”
“In hell we live. As below, so is above. We can never escape it.”
Two voices spoke to Alice. Her mind drifted away absently as she was surrounded by an impenetrable darkness. Her body roamed an empty purgatory. The last thing she remembered was running away from a White Rabbit.
She did not chase after the creature as per Frost’s warning.
However, the White Rabbit instead followed her. She recalled running around the alleys of Greenbirth. Her breathing seized at the violent memory of losing her breath. Corner after corner, Alice cut wherever she could to escape the creature.
Her legs eventually led her to a memorial park. Tombstones surrounded a sole, ancient oak tree. Names of loved ones were etched across its bark. She tried to hide behind the tree, but upon reaching its base, a pair of hands wrapped around her eyes like a blindfold.
And before she knew it, darkness consumed her.
Air was not needed here, not that her mind understood why. No matter how hard she tried to move, her body would not respond.
The warmth of a hand cupped hers as she helplessly wandered the strange place, unable to speak or see a thing. Terror filled her heart for she knew that this warmth belonged to the fake White Rabbit, and not the real one who she believed was Jury.
“Nothing will hurt you here so long as you take my hand.”
“Hold onto the thread of hope and willingly wrap it around your eyes. You will see the things you want to see.”
The first voice belonged to the White Rabbit. It sounded just like a child, but there was an air of mystique to it. She knew the inflection of an adult, and this entity had it.
So why was their hand so small?
The second voice belonged to another woman. It was sultry, with every word spoken like a slow dance. They were tantalizingly playful, like that belonging to a cat. She heard hisses in between her sentences, feeling a warm breath wash over her ears.
“So follow me into the rabbit hole.”
“Join me through the reeds of illusions.”
Both tugged against her. The paranoid Alice didn’t know who they were, let alone why they wanted her. And so, just like the child she was, all she could think about was her mother.
“Into a place where dreams come to life.”
“There, you will find nothing but twisted aberrations of memories painted to hide the pain.”
The world turned into a well as she felt the wind blow against her back. But she did not fall. She gently glided down like a feather. The walls of the well were black, obsidian bright with a red, pulsating outline. They seemed to brim with an unconceivable power.
“Where you can find what was lost.”
“The husks of the dead will be drawn from repressed memories like puppets.”
Candy fell into the well beside her. Pieces of gum and tasty treats rained from the emptiness above. The candy was oddly icky, and when one splatted against her cheek, what she smelt wasn’t the sweet scent of a treat.
Rather, it was the bitter scent of metal.
“All for you to live in this beautiful world as the real you.”
“The idealization of oneself, created by a fabric drawn over one’s eyes.”
An image appeared in the back of her mind. It was that of an egg. But upon closer inspection, the egg was no more than a white tail curled into itself. Though no more than a figment of her imagination, the object resonated with her as her body succumbed to a tingly sensation.
“You’ll come, won’t you, Alice?”
“You’ll do it because I’ll help you.”
Pins and needles. She felt hands looming around her face even though she couldn’t see them, and she felt the fuzzy egg touch her bottom lip.
“Just take my hand –”
Suddenly, her voice returned as ice ran through her veins. She shut her eyes tightly, violently shook her head and screamed at the top of her lungs:
The gliding aura that surrounded her disappeared as did the voices, causing her to free fall hundreds of meters. She didn’t even recognize the danger she was in as her arms dangled in front of her, failing to bring them close to her chest.
By some miracle, she landed safely with a silent thud. For a moment, she wondered if she could survive a fall from the roof of her mother’s store. In world of logic, both falls would have killed her.
But here, logic did not seem to be in order.
Alice’s body seized as she found herself surrounded by shelves of books. In the center of it all was a simple table made from a leather unlike any other. Stuffed teddy bears sat along the seats, dripping with colorful liquid from their eyes as they smiled with exaggerated joy.
She jolted, now fully in control of her body as she roused, panting profusely. She clutched onto her knees, terrified of the unfamiliar space as she quickly recessed to the corner of the room, sobbing to herself.
“Mother… Mother… I’m sorry. *hic*. The White Rabbit caught me! I’m… I don’t know where I am anymore. This isn’t my home. This is… No… No…!”
Alice shuddered uncontrollably, speaking out loud to distract herself from reality. Soon, her trembling subsided, almost fading away when she whistled one of her mother’s tunes to herself.
A veil of ignorance was wrapped over her eyes, and she willingly gave into it. An unknown amount of time passed before she was able to muster the courage to stand. Her legs were still shaky, but she knew that she couldn’t stick around here forever.
“… why does it feel like I know this place? Ugh… A-Ara must also be worried about me. He came home drinking bottles of liquid bliss. I don’t want to see him so miserable like that again.”
Alice was not normally a talkative person. It took an incredible amount of time and trust before she could open up. Her mind wandered elsewhere to another room where she sat with Ara, asking her why she needed liquid bliss.
“A-Ara would always say that I’m not allowed to drink it. Mother would scold Ara every time he brought back such things. ‘What would a kid who lived with their eyes closed know about liquid bliss?’. Dummy. My eyes are always opened. What does that even mean?”
She argued with an invisible Ara, eventually laughing to herself as she explored the small, circular room. Her eyes wandered to a jar of marmalade, but unfortunately for her:
“Empty. There’s a ball inside.” The jar was larger than her head, and she struggled to reach it. She had to grab an old, rickety chair from the table. “Nnn. There! It looks like a worm is eating the ball. I wonder if this is a new kind of sweet.”
She put it back into the shelf and hopped back down. Her knees didn’t buckle, and neither did she feel the impact of her landing. Alice scratched her head, wondering why this place felt so familiar to her before suddenly –
“T-The White Rabbit!” She exclaimed, catching a glimpse of a white tail slipping between a gap in the shelves. It was invisible from her angle, and she instinctively pressed her back against the wall.
However, she suddenly phased right through, falling into a long corridor lined by doors. Terrified, she quickly tried opening each one to hide in as she heard the rustling of something approaching in the distance.