Alice: Wonderland is My Home?

Part 2: The Great Escape

'November 10th, 2005

"Alice, Alice sweetie wake up." Mum softly said as she gently coaxed me to wake.

As I dragged my body to get up, I noticed my mother crying.

"What's going on Mom? Why are you crying?" I whispered.as I slowly began to pull the covers off my legs and get to my feet.

"It's... It's..." she began to struggle as her voice cracked, in frustration I became annoyed.

"It's...it's... it's what. Where's Daddy? DADDY!" I ran into the hallway screaming and searching until I ran back into my room. "Mum, where's Daddy?" my voice began to crack. Mum reached out for me but I pulled back into retreat.

"Your father's gone." She finally said.

"GONE! No, he can't!" I ran to the front door, opened it and screamed. "DAD! Daddy, where are you? DADDY!"...'

I woke suddenly gasping for breath. I rubbed my eyes and tried to stretch...but I was stopped. With a sharp seething pain in my arm, I tried to stretch but again I was blocked. I wasn't dreaming. It wasn't a nightmare. The patchwork man. The hooded minions. The proposal. Jonathan and I being attacked and kidnapped. It was all real and I was trapped with no escape.

I must have been knocked out for a while; I thought I could try to figure out where I was. I had to escape somehow. I kicked. Pushed and screamed. "Jonathan? Anybody! Let me out!" Nothing happened. I kicked and banged around again. From what I felt and could partially see I believed I was in a box shaped container that felt smaller than I thought. Then, I noticed a shed of light that was seeping through the bottom. More time had gone by and just before I had given up in defeat, In frustration I gave one last hard kick and finally the door gave way. I heard a splash and crawled to the edge of the container to find that I was suspended in mid-air above what looked like the sea. I leaned back in fear. I had a fear of heights and this was my only way of escaping, My only way of finding Jonathan and getting back home. Realising that I had no other options. I had to jump. I swung my legs over the edge of the box and stared down towards the sea. My body began to shake. I took one last long breath, closed my eyes and began my descent into the water.

I felt like I was flying. My body felt completely weightless. I understood how divers felt descending towards the water. In a strange scary way, it was breath-taking. I hit the water, and it seemed endless. I couldn't see the bottom. Coming to terms of my surroundings, I began to see a glossy mirage of my Dad. He was telling me a story. A bedtime story. Dad used to read Alice in Wonderland every night. I looked at his face as the current slowly took the mirage away; it was like a jigsaw being disassembled piece by piece. After he completely disappeared I swam to the surface and took a huge gasp of air and began to look around. The sky looked sick, blended with different shades of grey and black, there was no sun in the sky. The clouds were blood red. I felt as though I had stepped into one of my childhood nightmares.

In the distance, I could see a walkway ledge that led into the water. It was the only thing I could see for miles. I swam as fast and as hard as I could. Reaching the ledge I crawled along it. Suddenly the seething pain in my arm began to ache again, it was agonising. I clenched my arm tightly, and then slowly took my hand away from it. My arm had been infected from a deep cut where I had been thrown to the floor. My eyes began to close as I dropped to my knees, struggling for breath and began feeling dizzy. Disorientated. Out in the distance in the mist ahead of me, I could just make out a silhouette of a dark figure. "Please! Help me." I strained as I called out. The figure gave no reply. No response to indicate who or what it was. My vision began to blur again making me go in and out of consciousness. They grew close, until they stopped a few feet away from me. My body began to drop to the ground. A hand began to reach for me before my head viciously hit the wooden floor then my vision went black and I felt weightless.