“The Queen of Hearts, she made some tarts, all on a summer day; The Knave of Hearts, he stole those tarts, and took them quite away,” Kenny whimpered in his sleep. He was telling his story. Again.
They were tired, we were all tired. They put their lives on the line for me and I wasn’t going to wake them up from a sleep they all desperately needed.
“Alice ate the tarts, I swear,” Kenny went on. I frowned. Well maybe I would wake him up if I needed to. It was quite tempting, but he was loud and would probably wake the others.
It was strange, though, that I wasn’t cold in this cave. In the movies, if a person had to camp out in a cave it always looked cold, but not here. It was always warm in Wonderland, which I was thankful for. There could be some slight chills, but that was it. It may have been moist in this forest, but at least I didn’t have to suffer the coldness. Even being from Oregon, I hated the cold as much as someone from Arizona or something. It was just so… miserable.
“Alice...” a voice called out from the distance. I had no idea who it was or where it was coming from.
I jolted up. “Who’s there?”
The sound of a little girl laughing surrounded me. I just hoped it wasn’t those flowers again. Or something worse. I glanced over at Malcolm, wondering if I should wake him up or not.
“You ask far too many questions, you are definitely Alice.”
The voice sounded like a little girl. I looked around but saw no sign of whoever, or whatever, it was.
“Who or what are you?” I called out in a whisper.
“Silly Alice, can’t you tell? I’m you.” A form began to appear in front of me. It was me, or at least me when I was younger. Blonde hair in pigtails, a little blue dress, black shoes. I remembered that outfit, it was for the first day of kindergarten.
“That’s not possible,” I whispered. Well, it probably was, this was Wonderland after all.
She turned around and started skipping to the entrance of the cave. “Come on Alice, we can go play. Don’t you want to go play?”
“No, wait!” I ran after her into the darkness. Before I realized it, I was out of the cave. Shit. I spun around to find that I had already become lost. I couldn’t see the entrance any longer.
“Crap, crap, crap!” I hurried back the way I thought I had come to find nothing. “They’re going to kill me,” I gulped. “If something out here doesn’t do that first.”
The girl laughed. “Silly Alice, where are you going?”
“I want to go back to where I was,” I answered, as if the little version of me was real.
“Why would you want to do that?”
“Because that is where my friends are.”
“You don’t need them, I will be your friend.”
Suddenly blue lights appeared on the ground, making a path. They twinkled in the darkness, only lighting up little parts of the path.
“This is the way you need to go Alice, Come on! Let’s play!” She appeared once more in the path, running and laughing.
I started after her. “Wait, where are you going?”
“Just trust in your friends, Alice, they will know where to take you. This way!” She giggled as she skipped.
More and more lights lit up before me. I couldn’t see anything but the blue lights, like little bell-shaped figures. Not trees, no stars, no plants, no creatures trying to kill me. Just the little blue lights and me as a little girl.
I hurried after her, but the faster I went, the farther she seemed from me. I had no idea what was going on and I just wanted to be back with the others but I had no idea where that was anymore. It was pitch black other than the blue lights, and with the little girl looking like me, I had to know what it was and how it could do that. I still had my katana on me, I knew I would be fine. At least, I hoped.
“That’s it, come on Alice!”
The next step I took, I felt the rock give out. I screamed as I fell down. Quickly, I grabbed the ledge and held on with all my might. The blue lights kept on, but I could now tell that below them was nothing. I was on the edge of a cliff and the only things below me was the never ending pit of darkness.
“Let go Alice, you never will know what’s down there if you don’t let go.”
“Are you crazy, I will die!” I exclaimed, my arm feeling as if it going to give out. Why had I been so foolish to think that the girl would lead me to somewhere I needed to go?
“So?” she giggled.
I tried to pull myself up, but I felt the edge I was holding onto start to give away a little. I screamed as the dirt began to move under my hand.
Something grasped my arm and I was forced back up onto the ledge. It was Malcolm.
“How did you?” I began after he pulled me fully up on the safe ground.
He painted, out of breath. “I woke up and you were gone. Then I saw the blue lights and followed them.”
I wrapped my arms around him. “Thank you. You saved me.” I realized how close I was and backed up away from him, I was a little embarrassed by that action.
“Don’t ever do that again.” He turned back the way he came. “We better hurry back before the lights disappear.
“It was me,” I whispered.
“What?”
“The little girl, she was me. She brought me out here.”
“It was probably a trickster, they
