Collab Stories

Dead in Wonderland

By Alice Foxglove and Scarlett Cyinide 

"Mommy!" I felt that slip out of my mouth. I watched as the bomb fell. Watching her get blown up and all the feelings in the world couldn't describe how lonely I felt. Devastation creeped over me as I realized the only person I ever loved was dead. My world was starting to crumple at my feet and I couldn't lift a finger to help. I remembered all the times she was there to comfort me, like when my Dad died, Mommy was there and the fateful day my older brother "Mad" disappeared she was there for me. Even when my face was stitched into a wicked grin, she still cared for me.

I snapped back into reality. Peoples shrieks were heard and the fact it was now completely hung over my head. It's was as if the devil himself was toying with my life. I watched the people around me running toward the base, that screamed of destruction and death.

I woke up. I could feel the sweat on my palms and the hyperventilating on what once was a "calm and collected" child.

"Chesie, are you alright?" I expected to hear, but only heard the silence of the lab. There was a lady sitting over me though. Her name was Kimberliegh Hotchner, I thought. The silence began to eat away at my soul. She just turn her face and stared. I jumped out of my skin at the sight of her face. Her face which was normally covered by a golden mask but was now fully exposed in the dim light. Her hair was so blond it was blinding to look at, with sun deprived skin the color of fresh snow, and bright blue eyes.

Her partners took their places behind her. The tall one was a tan boy with a the wild crazy strawberry colored hair. His eyes were colorless like stainless glass. On his vest I read Lewin Riddle. He gave a quick glance at me and then at my "grin". Feeling uncomfortable I turned to the other man that was behind a Umpluie (a "computer of the future" generation). The man behind the Umpluie was a tall sunburned man. He looked as if he was Indian but with a more reddish tint. His wild black hair trailed down his back in two braids. This time the man turned toward me.

"Albous Lewins the name." He looked towards Ms. Hotchner and gave her the que.

"This won't hurt a bit," she crowed. The vaccine shot in my arm. I felt the adrenaline rush throughout my body.

"We will be able to see the carbon atom from inside your body. We attached a camera to an atom. Through this we may be able to see the cellular respiration cycle from which we may be able to find a way to create energy so that we don't have to go to the outside world."

I winced when the light hit my eyes, after months under ground I could barely see a thing. I stumbled through the blinding light, trying to find balance. Steadily color was returning to the world and my eyes were adjusting.

I was instructed to wait in the sunlight until the chloroplasts that were injected into me collected enough energy. Then I was told to drink exactly one glass of water and breath through the carbonator. I went over this instruction until it was without a doubt memorized. The water, energy and carbon would go through photosynthesis and produce glucose and oxygen.

Apparently I would know if I had made glucose, the scientific word for sugar, when I heard a beating from the MECD (microscopic energy collecting divide). I drank the cold water, it felt refreshing on my parched throat, and then I just breathed through the carbonator (a machine that gives carbon dioxide).

I felt suddenly like a light bulb, from standing in the sun. I took out the notes I wrote. This phase is when sunlight is absorbed and used to make glucose, a chemical compound that stores energy.

Then I entered the Dark Phase, the phase that didn't require light. Everything quickly went dark. I thought back to the notes, this is when the chloroplast uses carbon dioxide and the glucose that was made during the light reaction to produce water, carbon dioxide, and ATP.

"Well," Ms. Hotchner explained, "Chesie, you have been very helpful but we should of recorded cellular respiration before we put Chloroplasts in you. Lewin, Dear, please bring out the boy."

Lewin retreated to the dark room. It was the only room I had never entered consciously. I heard a footsteps and then a wicked chuckle that sounded vaguely familiar. I saw stitches trailing for the boys right eye to the nip of his eye. The thread was stained by scarlet and a salty scent. Their was a stuffed white rabbit on his shoulder with a pocket watch in his paw and poison tracing where his grin should have been.

"Hello Ches, fancy a cup of tea," he cackled out.

"Mad?" I asked, unsure how to respond.

He assumed I wanted tea and handed me a cup then started drinking from his own. I set down my cup and stared at my lost brother, what did they do to him. He was once tall with blood red hair, green eyes, and pale skin, now he looked like a nightmare.

"Chesie your brother is going through cellular respiration, your job is to monitor the symptoms and tells us whether or not this works, you will find notes on what happens in cellular respiration at the back of your clipboard, feel free to take notes."

Cellular respiration takes place inside the mitochondria, and turns glucose and oxygen to carbon dioxide and water and ATP. Energy is released from food. Food is broken down and combines with oxygen.

There are two steps in cellular respiration step one, glycolysis, which I can tell Mad has started, the glucose is broken down into two molecules. In this process, a bit of ATP is formed. If no oxygen or not enough oxygen is present the process will stop here, this is called anaerobic respiration, which makes human muscles sore and in yeast cells makes alcohol. But if enough oxygen is present the molecules will be completely broken down into carbon dioxide and water.

Then I heard a sudden heaping from the MECD signifying that the first step was completed and the second step had begun.

The second step, aerobic respiration produces about 18 times more ATP than the first step. It also uses oxygen to convert into Carbon Dioxide and ATP molecules.

"Would you like some creamer with your tea Chess, I've noticed that you haven't touched it," He said in a sing-song voice. I didn't respond, I was to ashamed of what he became, and his psycho nature. He poured a vial of oil black liquid into my cup, and then laughed.

Finally, after accepting what my brother had become, I took a sip of the cup of tea. It tasted of bitter almond with a hint of milk with iodine in it. I set the cup down and tried to see the face of my loved one. He snicked and let out a matic laugh. He started dancing around me until I couldn't see him anymore. My vision started to get cloudy and I felt my body go up in the flames from the pits of hell. I screamed, begging for someone to quench my thirst but to my surprise I was left to die.

My life flashed before my eyes. I saw my father, sitting on a checkered tablecloth on eccentric green grass. My mother was holding a white rabbit kite with Mad. I was playing a round of chess with my father.

"Someday you will be free like this rabbit," my mother explained to Mad. She handed him a gold pocket watch with the words, 'To my little Mad Hatter'. He squeezed her hand and ran over to us.

"Look what mommy got me, Chesie," he opened up his balled fist to reveal a pocket watch. My father then handed Mad a white rabbit with emerald eyes. After he put his hands over my eyes and set purple cat ears with pink stripes on my head and the attach a tail of purple and pink stripes on my belt loop.

"Happy Birthday son." Our father gave us the last grin we would ever see from him.

I snapped back into my suffering. Except for now I was lying in a field of green, flowers rested on top of my head, as I made snow angels in the grass. I couldn't stop smiling, and I couldn't shake the feeling of joy I got from being here, on my uncle's farm, stair ing at the blue sky.

"Everything I love has left me. Even my brother Mad. I lost the things I loved the most. If there's a reason to keep on living I don't see it. Why should I keep one living?"

I closed my eyes and listened to the wind hit the grass in the meadow. I took a breathe, for the last time.