Picture your own personal Wonderland. Go on. It's a nice little place, isn't it? Green trees provide shady recesses from a cloudless blue sky and a brook bubbles its way to a river and the river flows its way into the sea. Happy flowers drift back and forth in the easy breeze and there are always plenty of dandelions to wish upon, and the night is just as beautiful as the day. It's wonderful. It's the place Alice always dreamed of.
It's not the place she got.
Wonderland swirls around in her head as the card soldiers drag her back into the hedge labyrinth, back to the Queen, back into the epicenter of madness. The roses have grown out of control here, black thorns ripping at her clothes and hair, and she feels a trickle of blood running down her shin and staining her white leggings. The stain grows as the card soldiers drag her past the Queen's last victim, still fresh from the chopping block, a pool of blood draining from the stump of neck. Alice blanches, tries not to scream, not to think about it, but it's there in her mind's eye, waiting for her to close them again. And she's not sure which is worse, her imaginings or the grisly scene before her here at the center of the garden. The Queen didn't even offer the "guilty" the privilege of a decent burial. The bodies of card soldiers and lizards and rabbits and humans were everywhere in various stages of decay, beheaded and then tossed aside to make room for the next victim. And there were victims aplenty, but not enough to satiate the Queen's bloodlust.
Alice notices the roses here are red, dark, dark red, blood red. And she sees the little trenches flowing around the bushes, all connected at the chopping block, and she's horrified to realize why the Queen's garden is in constant need of fresh prey. The roses are watered with blood, and it is this that creates their color.
And it's her turn to water the roses.
There was a smile in the rosebushes.
The Cheshire Cat could always find a reason to smile, even in the blackest of circumstances. In this case, he was glad it wasn't his head about to feed the roses. Still, he had led the little girl here, and his smile faltered briefly at the slightest twinge of guilt. But it passes quickly, and his trademark grin was back before you had time to blink. And he didn't want to miss the show.
Alice was shoved roughly on to the block of wood. She could feel the ridges on her neck where previous axe blows had made a clean sweep through the neck and dove deep into the wood. The Jack of Clubs was her executioner tonight. He raised the axe high. . .
There was a metallic slice, and a heavy thump followed quickly by a softer thump as Alice's head dropped to the ground.
Long after the executions were over for the day, a strange scene began to unfold in the Garden.
The Cheshire Cat faded into the visible spectrum next to the body of Alice. He giggled are grinned, sat her headless body up against the block. He dislocated his own head and placed it on her body.
"Oh yes, I do give myself such good advice. It's too bad I didn't listen."
He faded away into a purple smoky substance and reached himself into Alice's lifeless form and all went still.
Then her hands began to twitch.
Her fingers wiggled and her arm lifted its way off the ground. She got to her feet unsteadily, and groped about for her head. Inwardly, the Cheshire Cat was smiling an even bigger smile than usual. He had found himself a most interesting new toy to play with.
It was later, after he grew bored of terrifying Wonderland residents that he realized to potential of his little marionette. It was so easy to control Alice. It would be just as easy to control Wonderland itself. The Queen of Hearts was no match for the Joker card in the deck. Oh yes, he was a twisted cat indeed. His tail twitched about and he began to purr.
But for now, domination could wait. The roses were due for watering
