Or it was all real, and the rabbit was a sign.
God, why was I so inclined to follow that stupid rabbit?
I moved toward the tree trunk again, glancing inside it again. Like a well leading deep down below, the inside of the trunk led to God knows where. What was the worst that could happen, besides the obvious: a horrible and painful death?
You only live once, I told myself while I crawled on top of the tree trunk, hoisting my legs inside of the trunk one by one.
I took a deep breath. It was now or never. Either I jumped, giving in to the unknown, or I crawled back out, back to safety.
But I always played safe. Maybe it was time to take a risk for once.
I screamed and let go, falling into the tunnel leading below, into the dark abyss.
Chapter 9
Four Days in Wonderland
The entrance to the labyrinth closed behind us, squeaking like a machine that needed oil. It was real now; there was no way out. Survival was the only option now.
The walls of the labyrinth were easily four or five meters high, and the hedges were too well-kept to be able to climb the walls, with nowhere to hold on to.
We were in the middle of an open place, a square. The ground was made of gravel, and above us was the open sky, the only reason why the place didn’t feel claustrophobic.
“I don’t like this,” the Snark said as it stared at the towering hedges. “I don’t want to die.”
“Don’t worry, little guy,” Billy the Lizard said. “You won’t die yet. Those are just hedges, they can’t hurt you.”
I wasn’t so sure about that. I figured pretty much everything inside the labyrinth could hurt us, depending on the Queen’s mood and fancy.
“Hatter,” Hare said while he shook the almost-unconscious form of the last-minute addition to our ltitle group. The Hatter kept on going in and out of consciousness.
“So, he’s your friend?” I asked Hare while I knelt down next to them. I inspected Hatter’s face, opening his eyelids one by one. He was totally out of it. From up close, the Hatter didn’t look too bad. At first glance, with the strange hat and out-of-fashion clothes, I thought he looked a little strange. He still did, but then again, everyone in Wonderland looked strange.
“He’s my best friend,” the Hare said. “We can’t leave him. I’ve known him since I was a baby Hare and he was a baby Hatter.”
He started dragging the Hatter along, desperately clinging on to his friend’s arm.
Common sense told me that at this point, the Hatter was dead weight and bringing him along would only diminish our chances of survival. But as I looked at his face, so peaceful as he lay there unconscious, I realized I would never be able to live with myself if we left him behind.
“Okay, fine.” I took the Hatter’s other arm and started pulling it. Together, the Hare and I managed to pull the Hatter for a few meters, before Billy came to our help.
“Allow me,” the Lizard said while he knelt down in front of the Hatter. He pulled his hand back, and then slapped the Hatter across the face as hard as he could.
“Hey!” Hare cried out angrily. “Quit it!”
“I’m just trying to wake him up. I read somewhere that slapping someone across the face is most effective.”
It didn’t seem to have had any effect at all, as the Hatter was still as unconscious as he had been before Billy slapping him across the face.
“We should throw some water on him,” Tweedledum suggested helpfully. “That always wakes me up.”
“We just do that because you smell,” Tweedledee told his brother.
“Water is a good idea,” I said to my companions, “but I don’t see any here.” I glanced around the location we had stranded at. It was almost completely empty, safe for a few chests haphazardly dropped around the area. From our starting area, we had four options, four routes that could take us straight through the labyrinth, or straight to our doom.
“Maybe in one of the chests,” Tweedledee suggested. “Or we could find something there that can help us?”
“Hm.” I doubted the Queen would’ve dropped anything even remotely designed to help us anywhere in this maze, let alone so close to the entrance.
Hatter’s eyelids fluttered open, only to promptly close again. He was as pale as a fresh corpse, and I wondered if he would survive, even if nothing in the labyrinth managed to kill him. “H… Hare?” His voice sounded faraway, weak.
Hare reached out for him immediately, grabbing his hand. “I’m here, Hatter. I’m here.”
The Hatter squeezed the Hare’s paws. “She messed me up good, didn’t she?”
“How did she catch you?” Hare asked. “You were always better than the rest of us when it came to escaping those playing cards.”
The semi-unconscious Hatter shrugged. “Tea party gone wrong, my friend, tea party gone wrong.”
“Hey, look what I found!” The voice of Tweedledum suddenly disrupted our conversation. The boy was shouting from in the distance; he stood nearly twenty meters away from us, lingering above one of the chests.
I cringed, a sense of dread flooding over me. “Don’t do that!” I yelled at Tweedledum, trying to warn him, but the boy had already opened the lid of the chest and peeked inside.
Just as he did, the chest transformed. Legs sprouted from underneath, two thin, spiderlike arms poked out from the sides. Perhaps most horribly, a gigantic, saliva-drenched tongue snapped out of the chest, wrapping itself around Tweedledum. The tongue pulled the boy into the chest, and then the lid snapped shut.
“Tweedledum!” Tweedledee yelled. He ran toward his brother, as fast as his short legs could carry him, wobbling left and right in an almost comical way as he rushed forward.
“Oh no, oh no, oh no!” The Snark, which had been sitting on top of one of the other chests until now, jumped up and started running around in circles. “This is not good. This is not good.”
“That’s one down,” Billy commented without a hint of emotion.
“Not on my watch,” I told him. I raced forward too, passing by poor Tweedledee who barely made any speed, no matter how much the little boy tried. My hand locked around the dagger strapped against my legs. I pulled the dagger out, and lifted it in the air.
A scream that went through marrow and bone echoed from inside the chest. “Help!” Tweedledum yelled. “Help!”
The monster was now dancing around on its huge legs, which were easily twice my size. I snatched at its legs, and once or twice, it cried out in agony, but it didn’t drop down.
If we lost someone on the first challenge, we might as well give up right here and now. No way were we going to make it out of this labyrinth if morale already plummeted from the get-go. I didn’t just need to save Tweedledum; saving him meant saving everyone.
“Need a hand?” Billy asked. He stood behind me, his hands crossed above his knee. “I can give you a lift.”
I glanced from his hands to the monster, realizing what he meant. “Let’s go.” I put my foot down on Billy’s locked hands, and he pushed me upward, in the air, toward the monster.
As I was propelled closer toward the chest, the lid of the chest opened up and that sickening tongue appeared again.
I yelled in anger and slashed my danger through the air. It hit bullseye, but unfortunately the tongue was made of such sticky meat that I couldn’t pull the dagger free anymore.
An unearthly sound originated from the chest, almost as if the monster was crying in agony.
Good riddance.
I reached for the dagger again, locking my arm around it and pulling as hard as I could. This time around, the dagger did let loose. With another agonizing sound, the monster tumbled forward, dropping flat-out on the floor, taking me with it.
At the very last moment, I jumped away from the monster, hitting the floor hard and rolling to safety.
As the monster collapsed, Tweedledum came rolling out of the chest, landing straight on top of the monster’s gooey tongue.
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nbsp; “Tweedledum!” Tweedledee yelled, waggling toward his brother.
“I’m all right,” the twin said while he made one more roll, onto his stomach now. “I’m all right.”
“Help him up!” Tweedledee ordered no one in particular, but it was Billy who grabbed Tweedledum by the armpits and lifted him up.
“From now on,” I said, panting, “no one touches anything anymore, okay? Everything in this bloody place is a trap.” My heart beat at a million miles per hour, almost jumping out of my chest.
“What is this thing?” Billy asked, while he kicked against the monster’s lifeless body.
“I’ve got no clue.” I held out a hand, and Billy helped pull me up. “Whatever it is, it looked deadly enough.”
“It’s a mimic.” The Hatter had one of his eyes open, the other, blackened eye, was still firmly shut. “I’ve seen them once or twice, nasty critters.”
“Nasty indeed,” Billy said, “but this thing doesn’t look like a critter to me.”
“A mimic…” I gasped, taking in the other chests placed across the room. Four more. “Does that mean…”
“Not necessarily,” the Hatter replied. “Hare, help me up, will you.” He held out an arm, and the Hare dutifully helped him up, supporting the Hatter by putting his arm over the Hare’s own shoulder.
“You met these things before?” The Snark pointed its thumb at the dead mimic. “How, and where?”
“In Otherland,” the Hatter replied. “They’re always hungry, and they eat whatever they can. They like to mimic common objects, but you can recognize them by holding a mirror in front of them. The mirror forces them to show their true selves. Because they don’t necessarily have to be chest: they can be whatever they like.”
“Great. A creature capable of eating us alive, and it can turn into any mundane object it wants. Wonderful.” Billy didn’t even bother to hide his sarcasm.
“Does anyone have a mirror?” the Hatter asked. He might survive this place after all: the sickly grey color was slowly draining from his skin, being replaced by a more normal pink.
All of them turned toward me. I rolled my eyes. “Really? Just because I’m a girl? No, I don’t have a mirror.”
“I might have something,” the Hare said, as he fumbled in his pocket. “It’s not exactly a mirror, but the surface of my pocket watch is reflective.” He conjured up his watch, and showed it to us.
Hatter leaned forward to get a better look at the surface, flinching as he did so. “Good,” he said. “This should work.”
I leaned closer too, and saw my own reflection staring back at me. God, I looked horrible. Bags under my eyes, pale, my cheeks sunken, as if I hadn’t slept in weeks. If we got out of here alive, I swore to myself I would take a thirteen-hour nap, for starts.
“Now, the thing about mimics is that they only activate when you get close,” Hatter explained. “Whoever goes near them, you’ll need to be prepared.”
Which explained why none of the other chests had moved yet. They were biding their time, waiting until we came close enough to attack and rip us to shreds. Great.
“So, we can safely conclude Snark’s chest was okay,” Billy said, pointing his thumb at the chest the Snark had been sitting on before Tweedledum got attacked; “That means three more.”
“Give me the watch.” I took the watch from the Hare and held it in front of me, moving the top part so that I could easily see the reflection of whatever object came into view. I held my dagger in my other hand, ready to plunge it into the first gooey, enormous tongue that threatened to wrap itself around me.
“Be careful,” the Hatter said as I started moving toward the first chest to the right. “Don’t lose your head.”
The group of heroes let me face the mimics on my own, while the rest of them huddled around the fallen mimic’s body. I didn’t mind, these things looked so horrible that even I was shaking in my boots as I had to face them.
I tiptoed toward the first chest, moving the pocket watch in different directions until it caught the chest’s reflection. The moment the reflection hit the pocket watch, the monster transformed into its true form.
My reaction time was agonizingly slow. I stumbled backward, nearly dropping the watch as the monster slammed its tentacle-like arm into me. As the tentacle coiled around me and lifted me up, I kicked my legs back and forth, trying to break free.
The tentacle was pinning my arms to my body, making it impossible for me to move my dagger and slice through the octopus-arms of this behemoth. I groaned as the monster crushed me. How the heck could I get out of here?
“Hey, bozo!” Billy yelled. As the monster turned to him, he threw a rock at the mimic’s eye. Contrary to the previous mimic, this one only had one eye, square in the middle of its nose, like a cyclops.
The Lizard had an impressive aim, because the rock hit the cyclops straight on. The monster wailed and lessened its grip on me, enough for me to wiggle my dagger free and slice through the tentacle holding me.
The tentacle dropped to the floor, right next to me. I landed on my feet and jumped up again immediately, but a horrible pain shot through my ankle.
Now is not the time for breaking any bones, Alice, I told myself while I balled my hand around the dagger. Now, it was stabbity-stab-stab time.
I plunged the dagger into the left leg of the cyclops, while Billy kept on throwing rocks at the giant. Then, from one leg, I moved on to the next. Slicing through the cyclops’ flesh was impossible, it was way too thick, but if I put all my strength behind it, I could stab him deep enough to make him bleed a dark purple goo.
The mimic was more annoyed with Billy aiming at his eye than with my attempts to kill him, though. After a few minutes of me stabbing every limb I found and Billy throwing every rock he could get his hands on, the mimic roared in fury and bent forward, leaning toward Billy.
Inches away from Billy’s face, hovered the chest, with on top of it that horrible, single eye. The chest opened, and the thick, disgusting tongue of the mimic rolled out, wrapping around Billy.
Tongues and tentacles, I didn’t know which was a worse way to die. Growling angrily, I grabbed on to the mimic’s back and started climbing it. It went surprisingly well as I could hold on to the suckers hidden in the tentacles.
Billy was starting to look grey. Behind him, the Hare was putting the Hatter down on the floor, looking up at Billy with a determined gleam in his eye. The twins were huddled together, holding on to each other while they cried. The Snark was hiding behind the twins’ legs, no doubt the biggest coward of them all.
I hoisted myself up on the monster’s shoulders, held the dagger out as far away as I could, and then plunged it down into the cyclops’ one eye with all my strength.
The mimic let out a piercing scream. The same dark purple goo that had bled from its stab wounds earlier, now gushed out of its eye. The monster fell to its knees, and the entire labyrinth seemed to shake on its foundations. Then, with another load groan, the monster slumped forward, dead.
Billy didn’t move, not even as the monster’s tongue coiled back into its mouth, which I guessed happened on reflex when mimics died. He just kept on lying there, his arms wrapped around himself.
I rolled off the monster’s back and knelt down next to Billy. “Are you okay?”
At first, the lizard didn’t move. The Hare appeared next to us, looking concerned. “Is he… is he dead?”
I felt Billy’s skin, but lizards were always cold, so I had no idea if he was colder than normal or not. “I don’t know.”
The Snark jumped on top of Billy’s body, and walked toward his head. Leaning close to the lizard’s mouth, the Snark listened for breathing. The bird turned toward us solemnly, bowed, and said, “He’s still breathing.”
“Oh God.” Tweedledee let out a wheezing breath. “I thought you were going to say he was dead.”
“Billy!” the Hare yelled. “Billy! Wake up.”
The lizard slowly opened his eyes. “Is it morning yet?�
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“No,” the March Hate said. “It’s not even tea time yet.”
The Hare’s obsession with tea time nearly made me smile, but then the burning pain in my ribs reminded me that not only had I been nearly killed twice, had Tweedledum and Billy nearly perished at the hands of the mimics, we had two chests left to check, each of which could be another mimic.
On top of that, this was just the first monster the labyrinth had to offer, and God and the Queen were the only ones who knew what was coming next.
Chapter 10
Falling into Wonderland
I fell through the darkness for what seemed like forever. Not a glimpse of light entered this dark tunnel, only pitch-black nothingness.
For the first few minutes that I fell, I was terrified I was going to die. Then, after a few minutes, terror was replaced by curiosity.
No tunnel could be this long. Even if I was falling all the way to the middle of the earth, I would have to hit rock bottom soon. A tunnel this long was nearly as impossible as a talking rabbit.
Then, the light appeared at the end. Maybe this was what dying felt like, I thought. Maybe I had left my earthly body behind, and moved on to the next life, the great beyond. Maybe the talking rabbit was Saint Peter, come to me in a rather unorthodox surprise, to welcome me to the afterlife.
Or maybe, I figured as I headed straight toward the light, my speed only accelerating as my body refused to slow down, this was all just a bad dream and I would wake up in my own bed, hungover from the most amazing prom night ever.
I screamed as the light came closer and closer, holding my hands in front of my face protectively.
My body collided with the ground, and I rolled forward, out of something that looked like the bottom of a tree trunk, and landed in the middle of a grass field.
Where in God’s name was I? Was this heaven?
It looked peaceful, but not exactly like I had expected heaven to look like. As far as I could see, I was surrounded by green grass, here and there adorned by flowers. Behind me was a tree, with a large hole in its trunk where I had tumbled out of.
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