Darkness was the only thing she knew. For sixteen years, darkness became a familiar friend. It blanketed her as she slept. The fear of its unyielding totality had all but disappeared. Now a welcomed norm. It meant the presence of slumber. The inability to dream was stripped from her consciousness a long time ago. Once fraught with fear, eventually, it evolved into a welcomed relief. One that meant slumber, one that meant peace. That darkness began to burn away, the light of consciousness stirred her awake. The rays of sunshine bore down on her skin like a magnifying glass, directly on her face. Its burning sensation was both pleasant and painful, causing her to stir. The warmth illuminated the flesh behind her closed eyes and colored them a muddy red, disrupting the deep blackness of her sleep. She groggily woke up, the aches and pains in her muscles screamed curses at her—the remnants of the previous night’s stupor neglected to find a place in her memory.

Her body slowly lifted, her back arched, her knees stung—reminding her once again with violent curses, irresponsible, reckless, drunk bitch; a night that wouldn’t immediately come to mind. Part of her pants were torn, and to her surprise, she was missing a shoe. Alice turned around, twisting and turning, taking in the environment. Her mind was slow, and her eyes looked back finding an embankment. Did she stumble down? No partnered shoe was anywhere to be seen. When had she lost it? She tossed back her golden hair, slightly damp from the forest haze.

Realization suddenly hit her brain, slamming into her consciousness akin to a pounding hangover. The trees, the atmosphere, the grass, it was similar enough yet distinct in a way that had been long lost in her memories; this wasn’t the forest she was familiar with on her daily trips into town. The trees gnarled and wrapped into the air whimsically, twisted like nymphs caught in a dance. The forest haze, a mist that clouded everything in a cool tint, minty with a refreshing wash of reverie. She flung herself around in disbelief. Eyes fell in every direction, frantically looking at it all. A churn splayed open her stomach as each piece fell into place; it all had an eerie, familiar look. Whimsical yet dark.

“Oh, fuck,” she muttered to herself. Her blue eyes fell back onto what she had been looking for. A peculiar tree. One grown and molded around an engraved door. Ancient and digested by the licks of nature, a heavy door with intricate filigree and engravings carved into its wood. A silver doorknob and iron bars that resembled two rabbits wrapped around its frame and face. She threw herself at it, her legs shaking and weak. She wasn’t sure if it was from the shock or if the alcohol hadn’t fully left her system.

“I need to leave! Open up!” she screamed at the door, pulling on the handle with ferocity as panic washed over her body. It was real, all this time. Her thoughts filled with panic, as she pulled again and again on the doorknob; nothing budged.

“Open the damn door!” she screamed, banging her fist on the wooden frame.

BA-BOOM!

A loud explosion perforated the silence at the same moment her fist hit the wood. For a split second she thought she had made it scream.

Her body instinctively jumped; the sound bit her ears with tenacity. The waves of shock stabbed her with a blunt force, pounding within her head; the excess stimulus worked in unison with the hangover making her body scream in pain.

“Don’t turn around,” she whispered out loud to herself. She lowered her head between her arms so that her forehead rested against the door, in a position similar to praying as she recited a mantra of her own fruition.

“Don’t turn around, just open this door and go home. Go back to pretending none of this was real,” she whispered to herself over and over. A lie her brain told her, but her heart knew the truth of her wish.

The fear was real. What could that explosion possibly be? In this familiar realm of phantasmagoria and nostalgia, hope bloomed, overpowering that fear. A secret desire interlaced with hope, wishing and praying that it was HIM. That she could see HIM again.

Her head slowly turned to look behind her. A column of smoke formed on the horizon. It wasn’t close, but the smell of smoke began to trace her senses. Reflected in that cloud of dark smoke, angry, fiery red danced within the grey. The flames that had been birthed from that explosion illuminated and clashed against the blue haze of the forest. A contrast, that was strangely beautiful. A feeling pulled at her chest. A level of chaos that was familiar and exciting to her. She hoped subconsciously that with every breath it was him, that she wasn’t crazy, that it wasn’t all just the made-up story of a troubled child. Between the aura of flames and haze, a streak of crimson red flashed against the shadows of the trees. His long hair trailed behind him, bobbing up and down as he ran.

Her heartbeat quicker, louder in her head, pounding. Sickness overwhelmed her from the nervousness built from excitement. A tall, athletically slender man came more into view, running alongside the horizon. Thin with long legs, running with an ethereal grace over the foliage and between trees, he wore a dark sea-green suit, with a top hat that matched. A silly contrast of sophistication against the fantasy forest.

It was HIM. He was just as she remembered. A love long lost between dimensions and time. She hadn’t made it up. She wasn’t crazy. She wasn’t crazy, she repeated to herself. Her heart in a flight of freedom, wriggled in her throat, thick with a sickness that she held down.

You can’t stay! The voice of reason–logic–screamed at her, overruled the cry of emotional languishing. She turned back facing the door; she didn’t belong here anymore. She felt a tug in her heart; just knowing she wasn’t crazy, that should be enough.

She reached back for the door handle, but she gave one last look at HIM. He leaped over a fallen log with such grace, as if he defied gravity and floated over the lumber. He was good at that. Never following the rules; even the ones nature had intended.

As she admired his form, she saw a glint of something reflective, artificial, mechanical, and manmade amongst the trees. She knew another explosion would immediately follow. Against all better judgment, she screamed, “Mad! Behind you!” with a shrill voice bursting with panic. All reservations were released at that moment.

Her voice cut through that dense foliage. Despite the distance, it reached Mad, and, at that moment, all he could hear was the sound of symphonies. He snapped his neck towards that melodious call, a familiar sound he never thought he would hear again; yet one he always hoped he would.

Her voice stopped him dead in his tracks. Their eyes locked onto each other, pausing long enough to be sure of one another existing within the same space once more. He stalled right in the path of the cannonball rocketing towards him, snapping trees as it flew with such devastating destruction and speed. The break of their trunks hesitated to collapse, unable to catch up with the world in which they were now shattered and separated from the roots.

But he had to be sure.

It was her.

It was Alice, his long-lost Alice.

The cannonball zoomed through each tree it demolished, ripping through them like paper. With a crack and snap of each tree, thundering sounds shook the ground as they fell. It reached its destined target and with a final snap, it was right behind the red-headed man. The world moved in slow motion.  There was no fear; there was no worry. His shining green eyes were only focused on the golden-haired woman who existed a few paces down from where he stood, afraid to look away, afraid she would disappear again.

The cannonball was just about to make contact!

With extreme agility and grace, mimicking the same lithe movements as before, Mad took hesitant steps towards her. Their world stood still. The two were the only people who existed at that moment. His eyes strained on her; never leaving, never moving.

She was here.

She was real.

The world pulled them back into reality. Mad pivoted with a smooth step and jumped into the air with agility and ease. Pulling the top hat from his head, he caught the cannonball with one quick SWOOP.  Swallowing it up, that destructive ball disappeared, and in the same moment it would take to blink, he landed. Balanced on one leg like the dance of shot-putter. He spun and returned the cannonball from his hat back to the mechanical attacker.

The cannonball flew out of sight and returned to where it originated. Soldiers dressed in red clamored out of the mechanical beast. Scurrying, they barely made it out as the destructive ball plummeted straight into the mechanism, exploding the device and sending a shock wave of destructive power into the forest.

Though further away, the sheer force from the explosion caused a shockwave that fell over a dozen trees and pushed Alice down onto the ground. She covered her ears, but it wasn’t enough. The force of the blast caused a ringing to erupt in her ears, sending waves of pain through her skull.

The air suddenly grew hot. A few short burning breaths assaulted her chest before the snap of the shockwave pulled the air from her lungs, wrapping up and dissipating back into the cool forest haze. The backdrop became illuminated in reds and yellows, as the flames danced within the forest, burning up remnants of destroyed trees and foliage from the one-sided fight. She looked up to see smoke billowing from the canopy; birds flew away trying to escape the smoke.

In an instant, Mad was there. Running towards her, practically prancing, each step a graceful bound of enthusiasm like he was floating on air.

His mouth was moving but all she could hear was ringing. He was right there. So close. He was real but she couldn’t understand him. All she could hear was a piercing ringing. Illuminated by the flames behind him, a glowing red light traced his face like a halo. She tried to read the lips off his crooked smile, beautiful and charming; it was accentuated by the destructive glow of light.

He was calling her name! Alice realized as the last syllable of her name finally came into clarity as the ringing dissipated from her ears.

“Alice, come on,” he said with a whimsical smile as he held out his hand to help her from the ground. The familiarity of a language long lost to consciousness sprang back into her mind. The words made sense suddenly and she understood what he meant.

This was it. No turning back now. She was about to open up again to a world she was told wasn’t real; convinced it was made up. But he stood there, welcoming her back to Wonderland like there was no distance between them. No lost experience. No pain of longing. Just a welcoming smile and unexpectedly expected chaos.

Alice reached out slowly and shyly. She was making a mistake, and she knew it. Mad grabbed her and pulled her into a longing embrace. He lifted her, spinning her into the air, rebelling against the rules of gravity. A sudden flush assaulted Alice’s cheeks as their eyes met each other again. His unnaturally green eyes, bright and shining with vibrant luminosity, were locked against her blue ones--a much more natural tint. A wave of self-consciousness suddenly overwhelmed her body as she realized all the years that had passed and all the weight she had gained. How did she look again? Did she have makeup on? Was her hair a mess? Would he still think of her as beautiful?

But above all that, she was enamored seeing him again.

“Alice! It’s really you! My Little Strawberry! When did you get here?! How long have you been back?!” he asked enthusiastically, one question steamrolling the other. His smile, large and crooked, grinning from ear to ear, caused her to stutter in her response to the rapid-fire questions. Her brain slowed, too caught up in emotions to properly respond.

“Mad? What the heck is going on? Are you hurt?” she asked. How have you been? she thought but didn’t ask out loud.

“It’s been so long!” he exclaimed, ignoring her questions. “I can’t believe you’re back! We have so much to catch up on and­­­—"

“What the fuck is that!?” Alice’s scream interrupted Mad’s tangent as she jabbed a shaking hand behind Mad as something on the nearby horizon caught her attention. It was moving incredibly fast! Beasts of some sort. Fleshy and dark red, like rotting meat. The creatures were far away yet they emanated a disgusting smell. Fishy and sour. Metallic and sharp, it stung the back of her throat. Two beasts weaved in and out of the trees, zooming towards them with shrieks and howls.

“There he is!” a voice called out amongst the fiery forest. Sharp and shrill, the voice whistled, garnering the attention of others.

“Get him!” it reverberated through the environment, making it impossible to tell how far away they were. Alice felt a lurch in her stomach. Those horrifying, fleshy, four-legged beasts were growing nearer.

With a nonchalant demeanor, a man without the worry of danger, Mad leaned back enough to catch a glimpse of the impending monsters. “Oh those,” he said casually. “Yeah, we should probably run from those.” A smile wiped across his face and in one swift movement, he put Alice down while simultaneously pulling his hands up. His hands traced an invisible pattern that formed a circle in the air right before him. Silky movements were natural for Mad, but Alice was anything but and she lost her balance and crashed to the ground as he let go of her. His other hand mirrored the movement, completing the circle; his hands whipped around with a flourishing wave.

Pain from the fall caused her to wince, and the sudden gust of air assaulted her senses, sucking the moisture from her nose. The air grew cold, causing her face to go numb, snapping her attention back to what Mad was doing. A large, glowing portal formed right in front of her eyes. The materialization of the energy, the low buzzing frequency, and the vibrations in the air took her breath away.

She recognized it; these portals had been their primary mode of transportation around Wonderland before she had left. A squeeze of emotions swelled in the back of her mind. A small thought of victory swarmed with it as she stared at the portal. Confirming, knowing it was all real and that she could see it. Feel it. Hear it. Smell it right in front of her again.

The two-dimensional portal whipped and swirled around in the three-dimensional space. Alice investigated the glowing swirl and watched as Mad pounced into the space without hesitation. In a blink, he popped his head out, torso floating in the air. Held up and framed by that portal, he looked like a prized game hung up on a hunter’s wall. He reached out his hand towards her.

Her gaze fell on his outstretched hand, and unlike him, she was hesitant about moving forward through the portal.