“You know Malcolm and the others?” I asked, surprised that I had been thrown into a prison with someone else that knew the situation we were in. I wondered if all the other ones were full or if Bill had simple forgotten he was here. Either way, I was glad to have some company.
“Aye, they are friends of mine. I helped them out here and there.” He gestured around. “Until I got caught. Which was just a matter of time, really. I’m very unlucky when it comes to getting captured…” He trailed off, as if he had many memories of being captured. I wondered how many times he had been locked away.
I examined him. He had quite a cute face, actually, like a puppy dog. He was a bit older than me, probably about thirty. As for his eyes, they were large and brown. That’s when it hit me. “Wait, your face isn’t masked with a shadow.”
He raised his eyebrow. “Just now noticed that? Brilliant, you are.” He sat down on the ground, cross-legged. He was quite a character indeed. “Now, tell me, what did the idiot boys do to get you trapped down here? Why did they mess up protecting precious Alice?”
I turned, letting my eyes focus on the distant shore across the water. “It wasn’t them, it was me. I screwed up.”
“Ah, what did you do then? Had to be pretty bad to land you down here,” he teased. I didn’t appreciate his attitude, not in this situation at least. I had messed up badly and he only saw it as fun. I could see why he found himself in prison more often than not.
“I let Bill capture me through the mistake of following the others to the Circus,” I answered. “It was… terrifying, to say the least.”
“The Cirque de Rêves. I know it very well.” He rubbed the scruff on his chin. “Morpheus has definitely done a fantastic job being the God of Dreams, or I should say Nightmares. You have to at least give him credit there. None of us realized he was so powerful until it was too late. Hell, none of us even suspected a thing. I should have never let the King and Queen…” he trailed off, staring off at nothing. After a moment he blinked then smiled to me. “So I take it you didn’t survive it too well either.”
I shook my head. “No, I didn’t.” I looked down at the water and remembered jumping into it in my mind. The memory would always haunt me now every time I saw the ocean. “Malcolm had to take the shadow out of me.”
Kenny nodded. “That boy eats darkness for breakfast, nothing can scare him. That’s what makes him such a good warrior, but also one scary-ass villain if he wanted to be.”
“How do you know Malcolm?” I asked as I moved away from the window and sat across from him. I was done being reminded of that Circus. I wanted to take my mind off it.
Kenny smiled. “Oh, me and Malcolm? We go way back, and I do mean way back.” He started rocking back and forth, as if excited to tell his tale. He acted like a little kid yet he appeared to be in his thirties, and I figured he must be a lot older than that being in Wonderland. “I used to be a knave for the Queen of Hearts, you know, until I stole one of her tarts. Those damn tarts, she didn’t eat them, she just let them sit there until they wasted away. It was a disgusting waste of great food. So I ate one and I liked it!”
“Just like the story then…” I was actually quite amused at how that still pissed him off, being so many years ago. I mean, did time still move the same here? If so, then it was over 150 years ago.
He shrugged and scratched the back of his head. “I suppose so. I had a trial and everything. Malcolm was there, he lied for me, said I didn’t do it. He was always a trouble maker, even back then. Though more comical than anything. He just hated the injustice of the system and caused the Queen a lot of trouble.”
“He doesn’t seem to be a troublemaker now.”
Kenny laughed. “You wouldn’t consider going against the Queen and King of Dreams, bringing you here, and trying to stop the Circus troublemaking?”
He had a point. Although he wasn’t as blatant as Chase, he had caused a lot of disruption in Wonderland. I really hadn’t thought about it that way. No one here saw him as a hero, they all saw him as the enemy. “I guess when you put it that way.”
“He is and always will be a troublemaker. Although he stood up for me, there were others who testified against me, and the Queen found out Malcolm was lying. Although he had caused a lot of trouble, there was never any evidence against him until then. So we were both sentenced to the Dark Forest for life, never to come out again. We shrugged it off, being two young guys that never imagined anything defeating us. So we were dropped in the middle of the forest, in the darkness. The things we saw there...” he trailed off, his eyes becoming dark as if he was gone, lost in his memories for a moment. He came back and smiled. “Let’s just say nothing can scare us after that experience.”
“How long where you there for?”
He shrugged. “Who knows, really. Alice found us, tamed us in a sense, and brought us back. Or at least she tamed me.” His voice became serious, which was strange after talking to him for a bit. I didn’t think he could ever be serious. “Malcolm, on the other hand,
