Behind Sanity

Chapter Fifty-Seven

Behind Sanity

Chapter Fifty-Seven

1

Who’s been painting my roses red?  That was Alice’s first thought – her memory – as she came into the courtyard.  She wanted to laugh as the idea came to her, for she saw very clearly who had been painting the roses.  The war had begun, and it was the splattering of blood was what colored the white roses red.

The mass of bodies and creatures clashing before her was nearly overwhelming.  Standing there at the gate, she could make out guards of all suits, chess pieces of white and red, and a swarm of dwarves and even a few automatons.  Wonderland had come alive – truly alive for the first time in ages.  The inhabitants had risen up and were making their stand, clearing their way through to lay siege to the castle so that she might have her confrontation and deliver them.  And to think: she’d almost bee late.

She watched the forms in front of her that had turned this once lovely garden into a battlefield, struggling and murdering each other before her eyes.  She did not know which side was winning, where she should go or even begin to lend her aid.  All was chaos and confusion. 

It was pure madness.

My mind will explode, she thought.  I need a moment to sort this out!

She needed a moment, and so she took one for herself – snatched it out of the air.  She felt in her pocket for the Deadtime Watch and just as a few guards nearby turned to notice her, she stopped them in their tracks.  Before her eyes the entire battle froze, but she knew that they would not remain that way.  To start, she moved out of reach of her enemies and took the Ice Wand into her hand.  The place she needed to be was at the head of this fight, and she aimed to take herself there, but not without thinning out this number along her way.  Alice ducked beneath and slipped around the contorted bodies, touching each Red or Card she saw with the wand, which enveloped them immediately in a block of ice.  That should keep them stopped even after the watch ran out and help her allies in their fight.

Alice darted to the front of the line, as she had not done since her school days, wondering what she would find there, and once she had seen it, she did not understand.  There were stairways leading off in so many directions, defying the laws of logic.  Some of them seemed to go nowhere, while other jutted out at impossible angles and turned back into themselves.  She did not know which was she should go.  She needed someone to lead her.

But I don’t have a guide this time, she thought.  I’ve lost them.

The ticking of the Deadtime Watch was at an end, the sounds of battle starting up once again behind her and she had to make a decision. 

Perhaps I really am useless by myself…

“Alice!”

Over the sounds of chaos, she heard her name.  Her flashing eyes were directed to the top of a stairway to her right.  There, she saw him.  He was easy to recognize, though she was sure she had never seen him this way.  She remembered meeting the White Knight so many years ago.  He’d been a very confused, troubled piece.  Past his prime.  Perhaps this wasn’t the one she had known. 

His armor was white, of course, but splattered with blood.  His helmet was forged in the shape of a horse’s head.  The armored torso was that of a muscular man.  One hand was simply a long spike, like a javelin fused with him.  The other hand held a mace that was covered in card guard.  He stood taller so that she could see him better, and she realized that, below his waist, he had the long body of a horse – full armor, as if that was all he was made of and he had no flesh beneath.