Madness {Ouat}

Awake

Cheshire exhaled lightly as she lay still on the ground. With her eyes closed she felt around with her hands, running her fingers over cold grass and dirt. She finally convinced her eyes to open. The sudden increase in light made her eyelids flutter before she adjusted. Cheshire looked up at the trees that reached out to the sky around her. Her eyes darted to everything she could see while lying down, wanting to take in as much information as she could. She repositioned her arms and used them to hoist her torso up. She sat there, curiosity and confusion forming on her face. Cheshire let a small, almost inaudible, gasp. She lifted her hand up in front of her face, then raised the other one and brushed her hands together to get rid of the dirt that stuck to them. She then rested them on her lap, the fabric of her blue dress crumpling under their weight. Cheshire stared at them, studying every surface as she flipped them from palm to back repeatedly. She finally put them down and looked around at were she was, her surroundings entirely different from what she was used to. She stood up and shook the rest of the dirt and debris from the bottom half of her dress. She listened carefully the the forest around her and a smile crept on to her face as the sound of birds and leaves in the wind enveloped her. Cheshire's look of confusion had changed to one of excitement as she took a step forward. Halfway through the step however, she lost her balance and waved her arms frantically to regain it. She froze, then slowly stood up straight, quietly grateful no one had been around to see it.
"Alright," Cheshire whispered to herself. A hint of her English accent shining through, "You've got this." Her right foot shuffled forward, then the left. A few more steps and the motion started to become fluid, until the exact memory of how to do it returned. Once walking was figured out Cheshire smiled gleefully with a quiet chuckle and broke into a slight run. She gallivanted through the woods, unnecessarily jumping over a small log and spinning around a tree trunk with one arm wrapped around it. Doing this caused her to slip on a few damp leaves and come crashing down in an instant. It didn't hurt much, but the fall seemed to knock a bit of reason back into Cheshire as she realized she had no idea where she was or how she got there. She stood up much faster than before and tried to think as back as far as she could. Out of everything she remembered non of it gave her a reason for being in what she figured was another realm. Cheshire was certain she wasn't in wonderland anymore, it felt too right, too normal. She walked on through the forest, making herself act more reasonably this time. She pushed low hanging leaves out of her way and found a large road that seemed to run on forever in both directions. She tapped it a few times with the bottom of her black flat shoe before stepping onto it cautiously. Cheshire walked steadily along its edge, the morning fog made it difficult to see far off in the distance.
As she continued on, she squinted to make out a sign that sat on the other side of the road. She slowed down as she got close and, after looking both ways, crossed over to it.
   "Storybrooke," Cheshire muttered to herself, reading off the welcome sign. "Well, this should be interesting"