mad hatter

chapter one

Alice expected to fall into dirt at the bottom of the rabbit hole; what she didn't expect was that she would keep on falling, and falling, and falling, until she had lost count of time and wondered if the falling and the soft roar of the wind in her ears would ever stop.

At first, she couldn't register whether her eyes were closed or it was just really dark - either way, once she knew they were open, the darkness got too creepy to handle and she had to tightly screw her eyes shut.

Alice kept falling ..

 .. and falling ..

.. and falling ..

.. until she could make out a soft, golden glow from beneath her eyelids, and she knew then that she could open her eyes. When she opened them, she was momentarily half-blinded by the sudden light that it took a while to let her eyesight adjust; when it did, she realized that the golden glow was coming from the walls - no, wait, the bookshelves ...

What she thought was dirt walls from the start were actually bookshelves, stacked with hundreds of thick, leather-bound books; different types of furniture were also whizzing past her, flying and falling with her - there was a ticking grandfather clock, a huge pile of dirty dishes, an ancient grand piano with a few of its keys missing, and a white rabbit in a suit ...

The rabbit!

"Who the ruddy hell are you?" it asked her as they fell side by side.

Alice surveyed the rabbit. She was sure it was the very same - of course it was. By now, she didn't know if she was just seeing things as usual or if this was actually happening. If it was, then Alice was seriously fucked. Not in the mind, but also in general - was she turning bat-shit crazy?

"Why are you here?" the rabbit demanded, still clutching its golden chain watch. 

"I - " Alice paused before admitting, "I followed you here."

The rabbit raised an eyebrow (Alice didn't know rabbits had eyebrows). "Followed me, you say?" the rabbit frowned. "Well, you should turn back, sweetie. Kids like you ain't allowed here."

Kids? Did this rabbit seriously just call her a kid? "First of all, I'm not a kid. Second, how the hell can I turn back if I'm falling?" she asked rhetorically.

The rabbit shrugged. "You're right," it said. "Well, I guess you'll just have to come with me."

"Where does this place lead to, anyway?" asked Alice.

The rabbit smirked, although it was hard to tell if it was smirking or not, because it was, well, a rabbit. "Ruddy Wonderland is where this leads," it snorted. "I'd turn back if I were you."

Alice ignored his last comment. "Wonderland?" she asked incredulously. "What, is that like a shithole for kids or something?"

The rabbit just stared at her. "You'll see," was all it said.

So they kept falling ..

.. and falling ..

.. and falling in silence ..

.. until the silence was broken by the rabbit. "We're almost there, kid," it grunted. "When I give the signal, hold your breath and don't breathe until I tell you to."

Alice merely nodded, and all was silent yet again except for the rushing of the wind in their ears when the white rabbit spoke up, "Name's Nivens McTwisp, by the way. And who're you?"

"Alice," she replied. Nivens McTwisp was an odd name, but yet again, everything that was happening was also odd. Alice still didn't know if everything was real or merely in her head.

"Hold your breath, now, kid," Nivens said, and he took a deep breath before holding it. Alice did the same, even though she wanted to ask why. She found out the reason when they passed through a cloud of what looked like dark green gas - it seemed dangerous and Alice knew that it was because when they passed through, it practically burned her skin. She was going red in the face and if she didn't breathe soon she would pass out.

She heard Nivens let out a gasp of air once they passed the dark green gas so she took one, too. Once she did, she almost regretted it because the stench was just too much to bear - it smelled like rotten eggs and dung and rotten corpse mixed together, but a thousand times worse. It literally burned Alice's lungs.

"What was that?" Alice asked, coughing to try and clear her respiratory system. She looked up and saw the cloud of floating green gas above them.

"Noxice," replied Nivens. "Just the deadliest gas on Wonderland," he added once seeing Alice's questioning look. Nivens took a glance at his chain watch before exclaiming, "Fucking hell, would you look at the time - I'm very late - "

"What are you late for?" asked Alice. Here we go again with the questions, she thought and mentally kicked herself. She hated asking way too many questions - she was usually the one who observed, not asked, so due to her curiosity she knew she was annoying Nivens to death.

"'S none of your business," Nivens grunted. "'S personal, you see - really confidential."

Alice didn't choose to reply; she simply kept her mouth shut. "When's this hole ever going to end, anyway?" she asked; she was growing tired of falling, and she wanted it to end. 

"Once you say the magic word," said Nivens, shrugging. "It's easy, really. We have to wait for the next signal once we get past the cloud of Noxice and then we can say the magic word. Fucking lit, huh?"

Alice almost laughed at Nivens' choice of words because Nivens didn't sound like a rabbit at all - he actually sounded like a real human being. "What are the magic words?"

Nivens cleared his throat for dramatic effect. "Wantus et orbis Wanderlandus," he said, and Alice tried to memorize this in her head.

"Wantus et orbis Wanderlandus," she repeated. "What does that mean - and what language is that?"

Nivens shrugged. "Dunno what language it is, but that's what the Mad Hatter told everybody - said that was the magic word to enter Wonderland. What I do know is that it means something along the lines of, 'I want to go to Wonderland.'"

Nivens' voice was drowned by a sudden loud clap of thunder that shook and rattled their bones. "That's the signal," Nivens exclaimed, and together, they recited the magic words, though Alice said it with a hint of nervousness in her voice,

"Wantus et orbis Wanderlandus."

There was a bright flash of golden light, and that was what Alice saw last before everything went black.

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{to be clear, wantus et orbis wanderlandus is just something that i made up, same with noxice (/ˈnäxəs/) although the incantation for the entrance to wonderland has a little bit of latin mixed with it}

{also, i got the name nivens mctwisp from the movie alice in wonderland; i don't take any credit for that name so all credits go to tim burton}