“Alice, are you listening to me? Shouldn’t you be studying? Not wasting your time here.” Whatever it was kept bothering me. Then I recognized the voice; it was my father’s. Images swirled around me and all of a sudden I was at home.
“Alice?” My father was now sitting across from me. He was mad, his eyebrows down, eyes glaring at me, his face redder than I had ever seen it. “You have been failing your classes! Why aren’t you studying more?”
Report cards laid before me, F’s all across the page. I shook my head. “This isn’t real. I am in Wonderland”
“What are you talking about? This isn’t one of your stupid Japanese comics,” my mother said. “How could you do this to us? How could you bring shame upon our family?”
I tried to say something, but couldn’t. I had no idea what was going on, there was no way that this was possible. It was all fake, it had to be.
Or was Wonderland fake, and this was the truth? Had it all been just a dream? Was I back in reality?
I tried to remember how I could have gotten these scores. Did I forget to study for those tests? Was it finals? I kind of remembered finals coming up. Yeah, that’s right, finals were last week. I was going to study but I thought up some cool art subjects, and then there was the dance recital I had to prepare for. I didn’t have time to study.
“Your sisters had perfect scores throughout school, why can’t you be more like them and not waste your time with trivial things like art and dance? That’s it, I’m taking you out of dance until you can get your grades up. This isn’t acceptable.”
I shook my head. “No! You can’t do that! I love dance!”
“You should have thought of that before failing.” My father stood up and started for my room.
“Where are you going?” I called down the hallway.
“I’m getting rid of your art supplies. They are a distraction of what is really important. School.”
“No! This is a dream! This isn’t real!” I shouted, holding my head. It had to be, right? This couldn’t be possible.
“Stop saying nonsense. This is real life, Alice, you cannot escape reality. You will never achieve anything at this rate,” my mother yelled. “Why do you have to be such a problem for us?”
“No,” I shook my head. “You aren’t real! My parents care enough in the end to know what I want to do.”
“But you won’t make it as an artist, you will fail and be all alone,” the voice drifted through my mind. Colors changed around me and now I was at my graduation. Kate was next to me.
“What are you doing here, Alice? Didn’t you fail your finals? You can’t graduate if you don’t pass your classes. Didn’t you get kicked out of school a few months back?” Kate asked.
“What are you talking about Kate?” I said, tears falling down my face. She looked at me in disgust. I had never seen her give me that look before. It was the same look that my parents gave me, the one they gave me when I talked about my dreams.
“This can’t be real,” I whispered. “No, Kate, you are my best friend. You can’t leave me. You are the only one who believes in me. If you leave me, I don’ know what I am going to do. I can’t do this, Kate, please help me. Please tell me it is going to be all right like you always do. Tell me that you are on my side.”
“Get away from me Alice, I don’t want to be seen with a failure like you.” With that she walked off.
I shook my head. No, my best friend would never do that to me. She was always there for me, through being bullied, through each and every argument I had with my family. She would never leave my side.
“This isn’t real!” I screamed out.
Colors shifted and I found myself on the street, all alone. No sounds, nothing. It was wet, as if it had just rained. I looked up. It was pitch black, no stars or moon in the sky. All the light around me came off a dying light bulb in the streetlamp.
“Hello?” I questioned. There was no answer. “Is anyone there?” I started running and looking into shops. All of them were empty. No one was around. “Where is everybody?”
“Gone, Alice. You are all alone. No one wants to be with you.” Morpheus appeared before me.
I shook my head, realizing what had happened. He was tricking me, making me see things that weren’t there. “No, this isn’t real! You are trying to trick me!”
He shrugged. “Doesn’t matter, Alice, this is your future, there’s no need to trick you. As you can see you have so many horrible things coming that I don’t even have to make any of them up. You will get nowhere and people will leave you.”
“That’s not true, I have people who love me!” I screamed out. I was starting to rock back and forth on my feet. There was no way this could be my future, I had so much more to complete. Sure, I wasn’t the best at school, but I was passing. There were plenty of art schools I could apply to, there were plenty of opportunities for me to succeed. I would never give up.
“That may be true now, but what if you fail? What if you don’t get where you want to go? Will people still be at your side? Think, Alice, will they still be there?”
More tears came flooding down
