Alix in Wonderland

Part 2. A Duck in a Crowd

Alix awoke as a heavy pull of water dragged her out into what appeared to be a very large river. At first, she could make out the shore, but as the riptide dragged her further and further along the coasts grew further and further out of reach. She tried to fight it, but the current was far too strong. Eventually she saw that the water was no longer moving in a stream, but opening into a giant lake; maybe even an ocean?

She looked around, but there was no one else in the ocean as far as she could tell. However, when she looked up, she could just make out a flock of ducks overhead. She shouted to them.

"Help! Help! Can anyone hear me? Please help me! I need to get back ashore!"

She wasn't sure if it was because they heard her, or they were just taking a break, but suddenly the ducks began to break formation and all came landing in the water. Alix turned to the nearest duck urgently.

"Please Mr. Duck, can you help me get ashore?"

The duck looked taken aback. "Take you ashore? And how do you propose I do that? Carry you on my back?"

Alix paused, she hadn't given much thought to how she would be saved, or by whom. She only had known that she needed to be. "Maybe you and another duck friend of yours can drag me along?"

"Drag you along? With those gigantic feet weighing us all down? I think not!"

"My feet?" Alix asked, suddenly very self-conscious.

"Why yes those HUMONGOUS feet of yours."

Alix suddenly felt awful. Even if she could be saved by this creature, now she doubted whether she would even want to be saved by him anyway. "My feet are not humungous. I mean maybe they are a little large... I know sometimes I have trouble buying shoes..."

The duck continued, "and by God! Are they not even webbed? Ugh how hideous!"

This was too much for Alix to bear. "They are not hideous! Just sometimes I... I mean shopping..." Tears began to fill her eyes again. She tried to turn away from the duck and hide them. Then she went to check on her feet to see if they were as hideous as the duck claimed. As she looked down, through the water, she could see her feet were not only humungous, but she could see them getting bigger and bigger. And as her feet got bigger, her head seemed to get smaller- losing mass with every tear that dripped!

Her feet continued swelling and swelling in size. She could feel the weight of them increasing every second, threatening to pull her underwater any moment now. And as her head got smaller, she could feel it shrinking like a de-inflating balloon, it seemed to be less and less capable of keeper her afloat. She tried to keep her mouth above water where she could breathe, but soon the balance was upset, and her feet became too heavy and her shrinking head became too small and light. Her head became fully submerged below the water. She could feel herself sinking deeper and deeper down into the water.

Alix knew she couldn't do anything with her ginormous feet weighing her down, so she started flailing trying to get the attention of any sea creature passing by. Most of the fish gave her dirty looks and kept moving. Even sharks pretended not to see her so that they could carry on with their own day.

Alix was sinking deeper and deeper now. She refused to breath out and let go of any last air she had, but soon felt her head getting lighter and lighter. Oh no! my head is shrinking, she thought, at this rate my face will be gone in no time! Second to the issue of her face disappearing was the fact that she couldn't hold her breath much longer anyway.

She looked all around her. There was nothing, but water, and water, and water. But just as she was feeling totally hopeless, she felt a tickle coming up her leg. It was a stream of bubbles. Bubbles, bubbles from where? She thought. She might finally be saved!

Most of the bubbles were really tiny. They felt funny fizzling up over her leg. However, although they were fun, they gave her inspiration for a plan. She kept looking at the bubble trail until she saw a medium-sized bubble weaving its way up through the water, dancing with the other bubbles as it went, and Alix delicately put her hands around it, to hold it near her. Then, with a gentle but forceful push she popped it over her head like a scuba helmet, and took a relieving gasp of air! The bubble wasn't that huge, but luckily her head had shrunk so much at this point that it fit in the bubble just right.

Suddenly she felt a loud echoey THUD as her feet hit the ocean floor. At least she thought it was the ocean floor. It looked odd though because where she was standing was fairly elevated compared to the rest of the ocean floor. It was as if she was standing on a hill of some sort.

She was also curious as to where the bubbles had been coming from. She found her answer quite quickly, as right next to her she found the source of the bubbles; a little tube protruding from atop the hill she found herself upon. It looked as though a mix between a chimney and an ocean vent. She began to waddle over (her feet were still of a very strange size) when she heard a shout.

"Who's clunking around on my roof! I come home from work for five minutes, and already there's all this tomfoolery and shenanigans going on-" The crab stopped the tirade the second it saw Alix, suddenly less angry and a bit more bewildered than anything.

"Dear girl- well first off, why are you down here on the ocean floor...? And also WHY ARE YOU STOMPING ON MY ROOF?!"

Alix couldn't take all this again and suddenly broke down crying. Well crying as much as she could considering she was underwater. In fact, as she cried her bubble began to fill with tear water. "I don't mean to stomp. Sincerely! It's just I have these giant feet! And they are hideous! And the duck said I can't even swim. And then they got even bigger than they were. And now I look- and now I-" And suddenly, in panic and self-pity, Alix took a huge gulp of air. Such a large gulp that she sucked in all the air in her bubble, and- it popped! And when Alix tried for a second gasp, all she got was water. And in a matter of seconds she passed out.