"Wh- what?!" I sputtered, bringing my hands to my head as I frantically whipped around, taking in our surreal surroundings.
"Thomas," the kangaroo crooned, almost lovingly, "his name is Thomas."
Alice finally managed to pick herself up from the floor, hair visibly tousled, but still somehow working for her. As she jumped to her feet, another rumble sounded from beneath her feet, and the ground quaked, sending her back down.
"Why are we even here? I thought the... 'exit'... led back to our world, the real world," Aiden spoke bravely, desperately grasping at the leadership role. It's almost adorable how he thought he was the protagonist.
"Eventually," the kangaroo waved off his questions with a blue paw, "but first you must be decontaminated because, quite frankly, this," he gestures to our rather stained clothes, faces and hair, "will never do. Until the process is complete, how about a story?"
Before we could protest, the strange figure in front of us who, according to a hastily scrawled name-tag, is called Micheal, launches into a poorly-rehearsed yet unscrupulously lengthy monologue.
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"Once upon a time, in a far off kingdom, there lived a man. This man was, by profession, the conductor of a very well known orchestra. This orchestra may have been well know, but it was for all the wrong reasons. For you see, it was terrible. The string section was terrible, the brass was terrible, the triangle player was, well, mediocre at best. And above all else, the conductor was the worst that had ever lived. This orchestra was fully aware of their inadequacies, and it was a matter that haunted them always.
"One day, the stress was too much. During rehearsal, as the orchestra screeched their way through their final piece, the conductor snapped; it was too much for him. With all the brute force he could manage, he drove his baton through three of the woodwind players and halfway into the brass section. Naturally, he was apprehended and arrested on the spot, landing himself with the death sentence.
"Decades passed, and the man was still held in his cell, sitting and stewing on the infamous Death Row. As he sat alone, he called upon the many scriptures of the Bible, and found the joys of religion. It guided him through the many lonely nights. He sat awaiting the day of his execution with bated breath.
"Finally, the fateful day came. The creaky metal doors swung open, revealing two burly prison guards, nightsticks and traders strapped around their supple waists. As they swaggered into his cell, the man felt no intimidation; a sense of almost calm washed over him. He wasn't afraid to die.
"The two uniform-clad messengers of death smiled down into him, a cruel grin stretching across both of their faces identically. The first, and consequentially less burly, of the men snarled a sentence in the general direction of the man: 'What do you want for your last meal?' and the man responded simply, with an innocent lilt in his voice: 'if it's all right with you, I'd like three lobsters please.'
"So he was given his lobsters, and he finished them within seconds. Fully satisfied, he allowed himself to be led into the execution room, where the electric chair lay waiting for him...
"As the clock ticked slowly along, the man, now strapped into the chair, grimly accepted his fate. He replayed every event in his life leading up to this moment; his first rehearsal, the orchestra's first show, the first time he was booed off the stage, everything that led to the fateful moment. Searching his soul, he found that he had no regrets, and that he felt this is where he should be with this life. With a final sense of weightlessness, liberated from the prison of his mind, he watched tentatively as the lever connected to the power source was wrenched rather unceremoniously downwards, signaling his demise.
