The Clockwork Heart

Chapter Forty: Assassination/Alice Goes Home

"Alice! Pay attention to your lessons! Did you read the English textbook? How do you spell wakamolidoshish-runnerup?"

"Uh, I read the textbook, miss. But I only read the first part of it, I haven't gotten to that part yet."

***

But before the story ended, one more thing...

The morning after the King of Roses read the second section of the journals, the kings and advisors and princesses were all sitting at the table eating breakfast.

Suddenly, Alice burst through the door.

"Float," she pointed at the King of Roses and said.

The King floated into the air. "W-what is happening?"

The Rabbit gasped. "She's discovered the key to the kingdom!"

Nobody knew what it was, just that when Chosen Ones used it, they could do whatever they want with anything and anyone.

"Stop breathing," she said to the king.

The King began choking on air.

"Stop it!" The Rabbit cried and tried to grab her, but she dodged.

As the King struggled in the air, she giggled and explained the whole thing. "All of you are characters in a storybook, don't you see? I'm the only real one here. It's almost like I'm dreaming. So once I kill him, and the story ends, I'll be able to go back to the real world."

Suddenly the King spoke. His voice was jagged from lack of air, and it was very quiet and broken. "I... knew that..." he said.

"What?" said Alice. "That's impossible."

"I... realized that... because... there's a copy of... Alice in the Wonderland... in the library..." the King ran out of breath.

Alice was curious. "Start breathing again."

The King drew in a sharp breath, and breathed heavily for about thirty seconds. Then he said, "I know I'm a fictional character, and this is a fictional world... but that doesn't mean any of this is fake."

"What do you mean?"

"What you experienced here, the memories you have of this place, all of that is real to you. Even if all of us here are fragments of your imagination, the feelings and things that you felt still really existed. We are a part of you, in a sense."

"What do you mean?"

"I don't want to die, Alice. I know you think I'm bad, you think everything I've done and am has been determined by fate. But you don't have to hurt me. If you want to wake up from this dream, that's all you have to do. You have that choice, and you don't have to hurt anyone.

"Wake up, Alice."

Suddenly, Alice screamed and clutched her head, shrinking into a ball on the ground. "Wake up," she muttered. "I want to wake up." Thunder and lightning suddenly roared, and the sky became filled with dark grey clouds. A hole appeared in the sky.

Alice flew out of the window and got sucked into the hole in the sky.

Nobody had any idea of what just happened. Everybody just stared at each other in shock. Except for the King, who stared after Alice as well. "She was never a hero, and I was never the villain," he said quietly. "She was a little girl trapped in a nightmare."

***

Indeed, this world was entirely constructed within Alice's own head, based on a storybook that she inherited from her grandma.

That storybook was called 'Alice in Wonderland'.

The characters were all reflections of Alice's own self, fragments of a mirror, so it was good that she didn't kill the king, because she would also be destroying parts of herself.

The way for her to go home was never to hurt anyone; rather, the way was for her to be able to wake up in whatever way possible. That could mean a magical portal, it could mean a shocking event that shocked her out of the nightmare, or a sense of closure achieved after a long quest.

The prophecy was wrong; nobody had to get hurt.