After what felt like hours of pain not harsh enough to cause damage, my fatigued body slumped against the wall – slipping against the soft curtains and ripping it from its unseen rod. My face distorted in discomfort and I checked my limbs to make sure they were the right proportion to the rest of my now seemingly large body – who knew how tall I had gotten; 15 feet? 30 feet? I no longer understood the concept. Tears rolled down my cheeks without me even realising I was crying, a different kind of numbness taking over as my mind decided to escape the situation. A small buzz reached my ears, but as I slid closer to the floor I realised that it was the voice.

“Are you crying? I hear tears. Big kids cry big tears! They’ll flow through the lock and drown me!” I pressed my face against the tiny door, and the tears continuing to fall.

“Why am I so big? I’m scared!”

“Eating sweets that aren’t yours is silly! Drink up to wash it down” I scrunched up my face. What did that even mean? There was no water in the room aside from the slowly growing layer of liquid anxiety now covering the tiles. Glancing around was hard for that my tears seemed so much larger than usual; gathering in my eyes in large droplets before gravity pushed them down – however, after blinking a few times cleaned my vision, allowing me to focus on the glass table that was now dwarfed by my new size. I remembered the bag, now looking as if it was made for an ant, and I reached down. The craft vials were much smaller than my thumb, but it was the only liquid I had seen that I could drink – not to mention that much like the heart candies they had labels encouraging consumption.

The cork was incredibly hard to remove with my chewed down nails, but the only source of positive assistance had told me to drink so even though I was terrified of the outcome, I had to at least do something. The tiny cork eventually popped out and the weak aroma of bubble-gum and fairy floss leaked from the small glass tube – it was sickly-sweet, and all the movement had made a holographic foam at the top. It really did look like bubble mixture, or a watered down lip-gloss, but nothing has stopped me from drinking those things in the past so I guessed now wasn’t the time to decide I was above that.

The taste was… warm. Not as if it was warm liquid, but the actual taste made my mouth feel spiced. It was comparable to liquor, except with booze there’s the taste and then the temperature while with this there was everything but a describable taste. The smell was intense, the feel was oily and hot, the audible carbonated popping of bubbles was feint, but there was no taste. It surpassed flavourless in a way I couldn’t fully understand.

The drop of warmth flowed down my throat before slowly spreading further and further from my center. Unlike the growing that was painful, this felt calming – almost too calming. My vision blurred and everything seemed to slow down as I started to reach the ground at a much faster pace than the growing. My balance escaped me and I stumbled, knocking the glass table halfway across the room, but I didn’t even seem to care – for just a few minutes, I felt like I couldn’t care. For just a few minutes, it felt like I was floating.

I went blank for the rest of the process, suddenly finding myself in a pile of ripped clothes and crushed velvet. I could identify my stretched and ripped socks, and my buckled sneakers, and my shredded-to-all-hell overalls. My shirt and singlet were stretched to all hell, making me feel like a Barbie wearing Cabbage Patch Kids clothing – however, I could wrap my singlet around my body enough times to make it suit an oversized bed-wear aesthetic. Unfortunately, my boxers had been stretched to nothing before I came to this place, so going commando seemed to be the only option. There was a moment of brain static as I looked down, seeing myself standing barefoot in a surprisingly thick layer of my own tears and wearing nothing but a dress made of my own singlet. This was definitely an issue.

Standing pantsless, I looked up at the golden door before my second issue dawned on me – I was much smaller than I used to be. I had no idea what size I was, but after walking around and finding the bag from the table I had attacked, the fact that it fit me made me assume I was around the size of one of those weirdly large Barbies. I put the bag on and filled it with the key, the cakes and the vials that had been tossed across the floor – feeling as if maybe this belonged to the girl on the other side of the door. There was also the shitty key next to a large shard of glass, which made me think; I can use the key to leave, but I can’t walk around without pants- let alone in a sweaty dress- so once I had collected the key, I used a ripped sock to wrap around the glass. It was now safe to pick up, and I used my fashioned weapon to slice a donut into the curtain on the floor. Now, I’ve never made clothes before in my life, but I had seen my mum enough to know that if I get inside this donut and roll the top down, it’ll stay like the curtain skirts she used to wear. I couldn’t see what I looked like, but just imagining it made me feel an overwhelming sense of discomfort. I didn’t like it on my body, but the tighter waist kept the fabric of the singlet around my waist down and covered a little more, so I had to painfully put my discomfort aside to prevent any accidental flashing. Still, these kinds of clothes weren’t for me, and while it caused a ping in my chest, I put the glass in the bag and tried my best to ignore it just like I used to.

“Hey-” I looked through the how much larger keyhole “The weird drink made me too small! What do I do?”

The little girl sounded confused “Too small? But aren’t you small enough to fit through the door?” I stood there for a few seconds before I stared at the door. Thinking about it, she was right – there was no way I could have fit with my regular size, key or no key. There was no way I could have proceeded without becoming smaller than usual, and while I didn’t like it I assumed that the girl could be more help once we were on the same side of the door. Taking the key, I put it in the slot and turned. It broke instantly, but the door still unlocked. I knew it was shitty.

The door slowly opened to reveal a bright light that for a moment caused me to see stars. Only after blinking a few times did I finally see the saturated landscape. Everything was too bright and shimmery; looking like a Lisa Frank sticker pack dominated by hues of purple. The trees were purple and the grass was pastel, and a dust-like glitter slowly floated in the air, just small enough to make it impossible for the eye to focus on it. Turning back to the door, I looked for the girl.

“Uh- hello? What the-” Touching the wall, there was no sign of the door – there instead being a wall of vines with a large rose tangled in the mess. The roses’ flower tilted upwards.

“Hello! You made it out that’s really good!” That this point I had met a rabbit man, fallen for hours into a void, been stretched, and been shrunk, but despite all of that a talking flower still scared the hell out of me. Jumping with a shriek, I clung the bag to my chest.

“Why are you scared?” She sounded so legitimately confused as if this was nothing but normal. “Uh-” I stared at her for a few seconds, thinking about how to word what was on my mind “Well…um… Flowers don’t talk where’s I’m from… so this is just a little weird for me”

“If the flowers don’t speak then what do they do?” She sounded just like an inquisitive young girl, so I just didn’t have the heart to tell her that they sit in the dirt waiting to be cut and displayed. “Oh uh, maybe they do speak but they’re too shy…?” The rose wriggled in her vine home “That’s very sad! Try talking to them first! They must be so lonely!”

“Yeah I- I’ll do that when I get home. Have you seen a white rabbit?” I needed to get back to White before I got lost in this strange place. The rose only shook her petals… his petals? Their petals. “Flowers don’t have eyes silly! But I’m always hearing music straight ahead. There must be people with eyes there! You can ask them if they’ve seen your lost bunny!”

I nodded, but remembering that they couldn’t see me nod caused me to say a quick “Yes thank you” before I turned back to the landscape and located a glistening, pale path leading straight ahead. Guess that was the safest way to go despite the trees blocking the view, but as long as I stick to the path I couldn’t possibly get lost, right? I’m sure it’ll be a simple enough journey and once I reach the music that the rose told me about, I’ll be able to ask the people there for help finding White or at least the Red Queen that I’m supposed to be being taken to. Stepping forward towards the laid out bricks, I desperately hoped that these people were going to be as nice and as easy to force information out of as my lost bunny was.