Into the Looking Glass: A Modern Alice in Wonderland

here's the new story :) enjoy

Prologue:

She stood in the clump of scraggly trees, too scrawny to even hide the whole of her body. Luckily, the darkness of night shielded her from sight where the trees could not, and she watched safely from her hidden viewpoint.

            Every so often, a hesitant car would roam above her on the deserted stretch of road, headlights bright enough to reveal her location. It was at these times that she was forced to retreat into the deeper shadows, where she had no vantage in sight of the road.

            But a lumbering vehicle hadn’t appeared for a few hours, and she had grown used to the sharp scent of the weak tree beside her. The wind blew past her every once in a while, digging its cool claws into her flesh as it passed. Even though it was late June, and she was approximately in the middle of the United States of America, the teenage girl never once removed her old, worn leather jacket. As with her black ski cap, both heavy articles of clothing remained attached to her feverish body, too preciously familiar in this alien environment to chance being lost.

            She shivered constantly, even in the heat of early summer. Sweat coated her entire body, magnified on her forehead where the ski cap resided, but this was not the sweat of heat. Her body was chilled, and the sweat was a cold bodily liquid result of her arrival in the foreign country. She could not remember the last time she had been among humans, and her departure from her homeland was causing her actual physical pain.

            She blinked as the harsh light from a passing car blared into her pale face, but she was in too much physical discomfort to move. The blinding glare had only intensified her dizziness, and she could not move for fear of throwing up. Fortunate for her, the driver of the lone vehicle was too immersed in caffeine and country music to notice the sickly girl standing in the copse of pathetic trees, and he passed her without a single glance to her location.

            She sighed deeply, and started trembling more violently as the mere action wiped out the last of her energy. Leaning heavily against the rough, dirty bark of the sharp-scented tree, she slid down its surface slowly. The white and brown layers came off in her jerking hand, but her watering eyes could not focus on the streaks of mud it left on her pale white skin. Dragging herself into the appropriate four-legged position, she retched suddenly, heaving forth nothing but saliva and empty stomach fluids. After the haunting sounds of her gagging faded, she struggled to push herself into a sitting position, panting heavily. The sweat poured off her slowly in liquefied drops, and she watched the headlights of yet another car reflect in the small pool of extract from her empty stomach. She shivered more violently, and rested her cold face against the scraping bark of the tree. The sound and smell of the cars passing only heightened her sickness, and she struggled for control over her rebelling body. There was a dull, and then high-pitched ringing in her ears that made her head ache with every pulse, and her lungs couldn’t seem to draw in enough air.

            She forced her wet and sore eyes to stare up at the lone stretch of grey asphalt, the abandoned wooden sign easily gaining her attention. The black, cursive letters read out Welcome to Penviel, except the ‘l’ in welcome had long since been faded away from erosion. She stared at the sign with the intent of forgetting about her physical pain, noting the missing l and smiling to herself dimly.

            We come to Penviel indeed, she thought distractedly to herself, reminded again of the mission that had brought her to this wretched stretch of poisonous road in the first place. But the mere thought of her instructor was enough to cause her to shake roughly again, and she was forced to shut her eyes in the turmoil of nausea the severe motion plagued her with.