Wonderland: Escape From The Mad House [Book One]

Chapter Six: The Armory

It took me a minute to notice the others behind him. Hatter coldly grinned in the torches glow, and Cheshi slunk below him like a black shadow at his feet. The only way I knew he was there was by his eyes, which seemed to have their own glow, themselves. Jack walked ahead a bit and knelt to the ground, with a small object in hand. He stuck it in the earth and, with a click, twisted it. He dug his fingers in the dirt, and somehow lifted the patch, revealing a set of stone stairs that led deep down. The torches along the walls seemed to light to a blinding glow as soon as he lifted the entryway. "Shall we," he joked, as we started down the steps, and closed the hatch behind us.

When he said that it was the biggest armory in the world, he wasn't lying. It had rows upon rows of weapons, including rifles, bows, crossbows, long swords, daggers, whips, and many, many different weapons that I didn't even know existed. "This is more like it," Hatter smirked.

"Pick your weapons," Jack instructed, "and don't lose track of or break them. This armory is big, but I don't intend to come back." Everyone dispersed, looking for weapons,  as I contemplated on what I'd need. Jack told me that I'd need a long ranged,  a short ranged, and a melee at the very least. For a melee, I found a blade of a metal I didn't recognize. It was like steel, but stronger. Not to mention that it attached itself to my skin, forming a gauntlet. "Biomass," Jack replied, "A majority of our weapons are made of it."

I took two of these, and a set of daggers. I was looking at a bow for my long ranged weapon, but something caught my attention.

"You have guns?!" I interjected.

"Of course we do," he replied, matter-of-factly. "If we didn't,  what kind of armory would this be."

He was fiddling with a large set of silver rectangles, made from the same "biomass" as the swords. He turned one over, revealing a Jack Of Diamonds. He grinned to himself.

Cheshi wasted no time turning into his human form and skimming the weapons that lay before him. He chose a set of daggers and a sword. Seeing no other weapons that interested him, he turned to his normal form and waited.

Crow found a black bow, and a quiver with arrows of the same slick, black material. He was about to leave, but his attention was drawn to a black gauntlet, much like the one I had. He put it in, and it formed a glove with its fingers arches and pointed at the tips like a claw. A sinister grin spread across his face.

Hatter was reluctant to choose his weapons. The only thing that seemed to peak his interest was a black sword, with a gleaming silver edge. He picked it up, and swung at the air to get a feel for it. Pleased, he sheathed his new weapon,  along with a crossbow that matched.

"Now" Jack said,  breaking the silence, "since you have been traveling with us thus far, I believe that you deserve to know a bit about us." He sighed, looking at the others, as if for approval. "I'll start. Long before the Red Queen's reign, my father was the king, and I was next in line for the royal throne. He was a good man, intelligent, righteous, just."

He paused. "The Red Queen took his life,  and her tyranny began. She was not aware that he bore a son, or that I was alive. I was around eight years old,  when he found me. He took me in for five years. He trained me, raised me to become the man I am now. Of course,  raising a prince isn't an act that stays private for long. People found out, she found out. She ordered to have both me and him killed. I ran and hid, but I couldn't save him. So I have spent the last eight years of my life running, and I shall run no longer."

"I'm sorry," I said for his loss.

"I'm not," He sharply replied.

"I was only five when she found me," Crow began.

"She was curious about me, so she abducted me for examining and experimentation. A child with wings,  who wouldn't want to experiment with that. I can still remember that cell; I was being held captive and chained up like a prisoner. They'd come hourly to inject me with a different mixture. One of them unlocked my ability to turn into the crow, but I didn't get this injection until recently. I overthrew the guards, and fled from the only home I had ever known. I fled to the woods to take refuge among my brethren and, a month or two later, you came along."

There was a pause. "I guess it's my turn now," Hatter began, "isn't it." He grinned,  but it was a cold grin. A forced smile of long forgotten pain. "Well, when I was ten, I met a girl. She was a beautiful, loving girl. Her heart was big and her worries were few. We grew up together and, as one would expect, we fell in love. When I was sixteen, the Red Queen took her from me. The pain, the depression that came over me drove to madness. Now, keep in mind that as a demon, I have lived longer than you could imagine,  but throughout the decades, centuries even, nothing I had witnessed could match the pain that I felt. It pains me still, and every night, you can call me mad, but I see her. I can feel her with me. As if she never left."

"Well" Cheshi said, unmoved, as his tail swayed metronomically, "My story isn't as impressive as it proceeds, but it is my story, none the less. As a kitten, I was a normal cat. I had a good life, with my brothers, sisters, and mother. The Red Queen, however, changed this. Much like Crow, she took me for experiments. She gave me the same serum as she gave him, and it had the opposite effect,  as expected. The difference is that she took an interest to me, and kept me as her pet. Well, less of a pet, and more like a slave. I was forced to do her bidding and to keep a smile whenever she called for me. After a while, I grew older, and she only had interest in me as a kitten. She tried to put me down, and let's just say that dogs aren't the only animals who could play dead. I escaped, and ran back to my family. However, things went wrong. I couldn't return to my normal form, and my siblings cowered and ran in my wake. Even my mother backed away from me. My own family was afraid of me. I had nowhere to call home, nowhere to run to, and nothing to even live for."

"Woah," I said, under my breath. "You all have all of these horrible stories, and I'm just a girl who got lost."

"I resent that," Hatter replied. "You have a story, like us, but yours is one unwritten. You, and only you, hold the pen."

I nodded. Out of everything he's said, I understood this the most.

"Well," Jack said, "I believe we have staid here long enough, let us head back to the kingdom."

"Yeah," Cheshi chimed in, "I could do with some rest." We walked up the stairs,  but my heart jumped when I reached the top. Guards, nearly a dozen of them, guarded the enterance, with their swords pointed straight at us. I took a step back as Jack extended his arm out in front of us.

"What is the meaning of this," he nearly growled.

"Jack of Diamonds, Carrier Crow, Mad Hatter, Cheshire Cat and Alice. You are under arrest for harboring weapons and plotting treason."

"By who," he asked.

"By her majesty, the Queen."