Chapter 2
CHAPTER 2
Alice was first aware of darkness; it was wrapped around her like a funeral shroud, leaving her world empty and silent. But she wasn’t alone—someone was with her, someone was touching her. The back of a finger, which felt like it was covered by a thin layer of velvet, trailed from her chin up toward her cheekbone. The hand—she couldn’t see it, but she could sense it all the same—lifted away for a moment before gently smoothing back her hair.
She smiled. This mysterious touch was pleasant, and she leaned into it. Strange as it was, she preferred this dream to the last one; she was at peace now. There was an almost worshipful quality to the phantom touch. If she let it go just a little longer, it could erase the lingering memory of those other hands, those rough, cruel hands that had dragged her toward this darkness.
A gentle sound broke the silence—leaves rustling in a soft breeze.
“You’re going to be mine,” someone whispered, barely loud enough for her to hear.
Suddenly aware of her body and its weight, Alice had a brief but intense sensation of falling—her body jolted even though she was already lying on the ground. Her eyes snapped open. She swallowed and turned her head to look around; whoever had spoken was nowhere to be seen. She was alone.
Or was she?
Pressing her lips together, she willed herself to sit up—expecting her body to be as unresponsive as it had been before she fell unconscious. To her surprise, her muscles obeyed.
The breeze picked up, and the sound of rustling leaves grew in volume. Alice looked up to see towering trees all around her, the canopy swaying in the wind, which carried upon it the night songs of unseen insects. It was at once soothing and deeply disturbing.
Something seemed wrong here, even though this was a perfectly natural setting.
I was in an asylum , not the woods.
Clenching her fists at her sides, she forced herself to study her surroundings.
Patches of a violet night sky were visible through the dark shadows of the leaves, which seemed impossibly high—a sense only enhanced by the immensity of the tree trunks from which their branches sprouted. Was she in a redwood forest? As far as she knew, those trees only grew on Earth—her home planet didn’t have any—but she didn’t know any other trees that grew so large…
Though her surroundings had been swathed in deep shadow at first glance, Alice’s eyes quickly adjusted; she could see everything .
Clusters of foliage, much of which was twice as tall as Alice, took up most of the space between the huge trees. Giant, glowing green mushrooms grew in clusters along the bases of a few of the trees, and the massive leaves and flowers—the latter of which were so large they made sunflowers look miniscule—were scattered all over, many of them also glowing faintly. She couldn’t tell if they were reflecting light from overhead or emitting their own. Where it wasn’t cluttered with oversized plants, the ground was blanketed in thick, short grass. Most of the vegetation seemed familiar, but it was all too big, and it all looked a little… off .
A fearful chill crept through her body again. This didn’t make sense, this wasn’t right, but here it all was, right before her eyes.
This…this isn’t real.
I was just standing in my father’s office, thinking about…about starting to go through his personal belongings…about deciding what to…
She released a shaky breath.
It had taken her a few months after his passing to finally build enough courage to start the process of moving on, but she knew it was the right thing to do. Sorting his belongings didn’t mean she was forgetting him or disrespecting him, it only meant she was getting on with her life…
And then those men came. They came right into the office, in the middle of my house, and dragged me out.
Everything had been so chaotic in those moments, so difficult to follow. She could recall her stepbrother, Jonathon, arguing with the men, while her stepmother, Tabitha, glared from the top of the stairs, but the men had said something about having a court-sanctioned obligation to take her. It had all happened so quick, she’d thought it was a dream, but…
I’m in an asylum. A…psychiatric hospital.
But this is no asylum…
Her memories from after they’d hauled her into their waiting vehicle outside her home were fuzzy. The events were jumbled and blurry, fraught with shadowy figures and echoing, unnatural sounds—and pain . Her skin prickled at the mere thought of the agony she’d endured.
Her eyes widened as she recalled the coffin the men had laid her in.
No, it hadn’t been a coffin; the woman, the doctor, had called it an immersion chamber , had mentioned a simulation.
Was that what they’d done? Had they placed her in that pod and connected her to some sort of fully immersive simulation? She’d toyed with immersive virtual reality a few times with her friends; it was a popular form of entertainment, allowing people to go anywhere, to be anything. But commercial units usually had safety features—the sort that always kept you aware that you were in a simulation. Most sensations in those simulations were muted, more like distant echoes than the real thing.
This felt real. Too real.
She lifted a shaky hand to the back of her neck, slipping it under her hair, and found only unbroken skin—nothing clamped into the top of her spine.
Her trembling didn’t ease.
She looked down at herself, and her breath hitched. She was wearing a pale green hospital gown. Lowering her hand, she took hold of the gown’s hem and tugged it down, covering more of her bared thighs.
They undressed me. They touched me.
Alice grasped the gown in both hands and squeezed the fabric until her fingers ached. Gut-wrenching shame suffused her, but it was joined by a spark of fury in her belly.
They’ll pay. As soon as I get out of here, I’ll make them all pay for what they did. If my father knew ? —
Alice’s throat tightened with that thought. Her father wasn’t here. He wouldn’t be able to help her. He’d never be able to help her again.
Don’t think about that now, Alice. You need… You need to find a way out of this. Whatever this is.
She glanced around again. She was sitting in the middle of the woods, but these weren’t normal woods by any measure. Everything was of exaggerated proportion, everything had just a touch of alienness to it. The hairs on her arms and the back of her neck rose, and that prickling sensation returned to her skin. The longer she sat here, the more certain she was that someone was out there, watching her. She could feel their gaze upon her.
“Hello?” Alice called shakily. “Is anyone there?”
Her echoing voice was the only answer to her question.
She released her gown and raised her hands, pressing the heels of her palms against her eyes.
“Wake up,” she muttered, rocking back and forth. “Wake up, wake up, wake up ! This isn’t real. It’s all a dream. I’ve just been really tired.” She pressed harder on her eyes—hard enough for it to hurt. “ Just wake the hell up! ”
Tears stung her eyes.
You weren’t supposed to feel pain in dreams. You weren’t supposed to feel pain in simulations.
The foliage to her left rustled. Alice went silent, lowered her hands, and lifted her head, eyes darting toward the sound.
The vegetation shook again; the movement was closer than it had been the first time. Something was coming.
Alice scrambled to her feet and retreated several steps. The soft grass beneath her soles tickled as it brushed between her toes, but she was only passingly aware of the sensation. Her breath was ragged, and her heart pounded rapidly, but she couldn’t tear her gaze away from the moving foliage, couldn’t turn and flee.
A white figure leapt from the vegetation and halted a few feet away from Alice. Her eyes rounded.
The being standing before her was a praxian; she’d seen his kind often in her home city, Apex Reach. His skin was pale but had a faint, purplish undertone like an old bruise, and his hair was long and white, framing a sharp-featured face that was almost skeletal. Overly long, pointed ears stood out from his hair. His nose was a light shade of gray, wide and flat, and there was a patch of white hair on his chin that only enhanced the angularity of his face. The deep, dark hollows around his eyes contrasted his bright pink irises, making them nearly glow.
He was dressed in a white suit that was tailored to his lean frame, and the high-collared shirt beneath his jacket matched the color of his eyes. It was the sort of clothing she might have seen at one of her father’s formal parties—a sleek combination of modern and traditional.
The praxian straightened the collar of his shirt, settled his gaze on her, scowled, and said in a reedy voice, “You’re late—and in the wrong place, on top of that.”
Alice’s brows furrowed. “What?”
“You were supposed to get here an hour ago, and you should’ve arrived twenty yards that way.” He pointed in the direction from which he’d come. “Now scurry along, he’s waiting for you.”
“Who is waiting for me?” Alice shook her head and took another step back as the praxian advanced. “I-I’m not supposed to be here. This…this isn’t real. None of this is.”
The alien huffed and closed the distance between them. His movements were quick and twitchy. His hand darted out and closed around her wrist, and he tugged her arm. “Come along. We mustn’t delay any further; we have much to do to prepare you.”
Alice gasped. “Wait. Stop! Who’s waiting? Where are you taking me?”
She tried to yank her arm back, but his grip was too strong despite his thin frame. She had no choice save to stumble along behind him.
“No time to explain,” he said, quickening his pace. “When the Red King calls, we all must answer! Hurry! Hurry, now. We’re late, late, late.”
They plunged through the foliage. Leaves and petals battered Alice’s face and body; she raised an arm to shield herself, but it made little difference. She didn’t know who this praxian was, where he was taking her, or who was waiting—didn’t know whether she was safe.
Safe? None of this is real! This is a simulation, and the only chance I have of getting answers right now is by following this stranger.
The underbrush—not that the term seemed appropriate when most of the plants were taller than Alice—ended abruptly. She staggered when her feet slapped down on solid ground.
She was now standing on a meandering path, constructed of purple paving stones, that twisted its way through the woods all around. It seemed to start here, in the middle of the woods—though it was possible that this was also its end—and followed no logical trail, doubling back on itself in several places.
“Come on, come on!” the praxian urged, tugging on her arm again.
“I’m moving as fast as I can!” Alice said, breath ragged.
“Faster, faster.” The praxian led her along the path, following it exactly around every unnecessary turn and nonsensical loop, even when two steps across the forest floor could’ve brought them to the next section and avoided dozens of yards of extra walking in the process.
Even if Alice had had any idea of where they were when they began their journey, she would’ve been lost after only a few minutes; the purple footpath obliterated her sense of direction and made it impossible to gauge travel distance, and every tree they passed looked both wholly unique and exactly like every other tree in the forest.
After what might’ve been a few hours or only a few minutes, Alice stopped paying attention to those details—she sensed that thinking too hard on such things was to court madness.
This isn’t reality. There’s no logic behind any of this, so there’s no point in trying to apply any.
She found herself paying attention again, however, when they passed a house. It was a small building, oddly quaint despite its surreal surroundings—it was reminiscent of an old-fashioned country cottage, though there was something alien in the angles of its windows and the oval shape of its door. The windows were dark, and the building was quiet. The praxian didn’t give the structure so much as a glance.
He seemed not to notice any of the houses that popped up with increasing frequency as they pressed onward. Each was different from the last, and each had a touch of familiarity in its design but possessed some strange feature that made it seem wrong . They were of wildly different shapes, sizes, and colors; the only commonality between all of them was that none were set more than six or seven feet off the path.
As the houses grew in number, the trees thinned, and all the plants gradually dwindled to a far more reasonable size.
“There it is,” the praxian said, a mixture of relief and exasperation making his voice even higher than before. “Hurry, girl, hurry!”
Alice looked up to see what he was referring to, and her brows fell low.
The path they were following continued its winding trail despite there being no obstacles for it to avoid. About a hundred feet ahead, it met another path, and another a little farther on, and even more after that, creating a tangled web of walkways that came from every direction and led to every direction. A few even led up and down, though her mind could not perceive how they did so.
But it was the building amidst those confused pathways that commanded Alice’s full attention. It stood on dozens of support stilts, none of which were quite straight and many of which looked far too thin and frail to support any weight. The purple-stone paths wound between those supports and through the shadows beneath the structure.
The massive wooden platform at the building’s base created a deck around it, and people milled about on that deck—humans and aliens together, dressed in clothing that must’ve represented a thousand years of history for at least ten different species, often with little rhyme or reason as to the combinations.
And the building itself…
It had at least six or seven floors, though it was difficult to tell because no single aspect of the structure lined up with anything else. The angles were all strange—some of them should’ve been impossible —and sections of it hung over the open air without any visible support. In the real world, such a building would’ve collapsed before even a fraction of it had been completed.
But none of that mattered here.
A wide, uneven set of steps led up to the deck, and a hand-painted sign stood on a tall, bent post beside them.
Hatter’s Tea Party, it declared.
“Come, come!” the praxian said impatiently, tugging Alice’s arm.
They raced up the steps and through the double doors leading into the building. The praxian stopped abruptly. Alice plowed into his back, causing them both to stumble forward. He waved his arms to the sides to keep himself balanced, and Alice grabbed his jacket to steady herself.
He turned his head and glared at her over his shoulder.
“Sorry,” Alice muttered, releasing his jacket and taking a step back.
That was his own damn fault.
The praxian’s glare only intensified as he meticulously straightened his jacket, moving his arms and tugging the cloth until not even the tiniest wrinkle remained. He turned away from her only when he was done.
Frowning, Alice looked up, and promptly forgot her collision with the praxian. They were standing in a large, circular room with a black and white checkered floor. The wide staircase ahead split in half partway up, the two pieces curving to lead to an open level that ran around the inside of the chamber. More stairs wound up the cylinder farther up. A massive crystal chandelier hung overhead—though she couldn’t see any chains holding it in place. There were at least two dozen doors all around the chamber, each of which was a different size, color, and shape, and the walls were lined with paintings that varied wildly in their subjects—tea pots, dolls, nude males and females of several species engaged in lewd acts. Alice’s cheeks heated.
Countless people—human and alien alike—milled about the space, many of them wearing masks or elaborate face paint. They wore dresses and gowns, suits and costumes, all somehow uniform despite being so wildly different.
But one figure stood out from the rest—a tall, lean man, his features shrouded in shadow save for his wide grin and vibrant, glowing teal eyes. Despite the people moving about all around, despite the myriad of distractions, those strange eyes met Alice’s and held them for an instant. Then someone walked past Alice and the praxian, obscuring her view. The shadowy figure was gone when her line of sight cleared. Her brows furrowed. She scanned the room, searching for signs of the shadowy stranger, but he was nowhere to be seen.
She stepped forward, meaning to delve into the crowd to find the man—she wasn’t sure why, but something about him called to her—when a sharp voice brought her to a halt.
“You’re late, Miraxis!” A squat woman in a lacy red gown hurried toward Alice and the praxian. Her waist was cinched, exaggerating her wide hips and her large bosom, which was barely contained by her dress. She wore a mask with deep, dark eyeholes and a long, pointed beak, and her black hair surrounded her head in a mass of bouncing ringlets.
The woman shoved the praxian, Miraxis, aside and stopped in front of Alice, tilting her chin down. “And what is she wearing ?”
Miraxis wrung his hands and bowed his head. “Hurried as fast as I could, Madame Cecilia. She arrived late, no time to change anything.”
“Then we’ll need to prepare her ourselves—quickly—before we get her to the Hatter. The king means to collect her tomorrow, and he doesn’t like to be kept waiting. That doesn’t leave Hatter much time to work. I’ve kept my heart out of the king’s collection so far, and I’d like to keep it that way.”
A tall, barrel-chested man dressed in a black and white checkered suit with a matching domino mask approached, carrying a silver platter with several small, pretty bottles arranged atop it. Each bottle had a little tag on it that said Drink Me . He paused beside the red woman. “Madame.”
“Yes, yes.” Cecilia plucked a bottle from the tray, uncorked it, and offered it to Alice. “Drink this, girl.”
Alice frowned as she took the bottle. She brought it to her nose and sniffed. The faint fruity smell wafting from the bottle couldn’t disguise its sharp tang of alcohol.
Cecilia snapped, “We do not have time! Drink!”
Alice held the bottle out to the woman. “Thank you, but I don’t want it.”
Cecilia sighed heavily, took the bottle in one hand, and reached up to pinch the bridge of her beak with the other. “ Why must you be so troublesome? Hold her.”
Miraxis’s hands were on Alice before she could react. He pulled her back against his chest, wrapped one arm around her middle, locking her arms down at her sides, and grabbed her jaw.
Alice’s eyes widened as she struggled against him. “What— No !”
“No time for such nonsense,” Miraxis said, squeezing her cheeks to force her mouth open. “When the king calls, we all must answer.”
Alice jerked and wiggled, growled and stomped on his feet; Miraxis grunted but did not release her. Alice’s struggles only seemed to make him more determined to restrain her, and he was far stronger than he looked.
Cecilia pinched Alice’s nostrils shut and raised the bottle, tipping it to pour its contents into Alice’s open mouth. The liquid was sweet—impossibly sweet. It sent Alice’s taste buds into overdrive; electric tingles arced across her tongue.
Alice sputtered, but she couldn’t spit; she choked the liquid down against her will. The cool liquid seemed to heat up as it flowed down her throat. By the time it reached her stomach, it was delightfully warm. She gasped for air, but Cecilia dumped the remainder of the drink into her mouth. Only when Alice had swallowed that last mouthful did Miraxis let go.
Lifting a hand to her burning throat, Alice stumbled forward. She needed to get away from these people, needed to get out of this place. Her entire body felt heavy again, and that set her heart to racing; this was too much like what the orderlies and that doctor had done to her. The entire room swirled and spun, the colors and people blending together. Voices and laughter echoed all around.
“What…did you…do to me?” she rasped, moving her hand to her head and squeezing her eyes shut. Though she could no longer see the room spinning, Alice now felt like she was twirling in place.
“Get her up to a dressing room,” Cecilia said. “The Hatter will be livid if she’s not looking her finest when we send her up.”
Miraxis caught Alice’s wrist and dragged her toward the stairs. Her stomach sank at the sudden motion, and she nearly fell; her limbs were delayed in obeying her mental commands to move, though they felt oddly light now despite the heaviness that had gathered in them a moment ago. The room continued to sway, but it wasn’t quite so unpleasant anymore.
As she followed Miraxis up the stairs, Alice turned her head, searching the crowd for the grinning shadow man. All the colors around her seemed more vibrant; what would his eyes look like now? But she couldn’t spot him; there were too many people, too many faces, too many masks, all of them drastically different and exactly the same.
Alice had no idea how far up they’d traveled when Miraxis turned into a long hallway. His pace increased as he led her along the hall, finally stopping near its end in front of a blue door. He opened the door without hesitation, stepped aside, and shoved Alice into the room ahead of him.
She stumbled forward and, as soon as she caught her balance, paused to study her new surroundings. There was a mirrored vanity against the wall, all its little shelves and compartments overflowing with a dizzying array of makeup and brushes. A tall standing mirror was in one corner with an open wardrobe nearby, the latter filled with bright swaths of fabric in all colors and more dresses than Alice could count.
Alice furrowed her brow. She knew what all these things were for individually, but her mind was too fuzzy to put it all together. Why was she here? And why did her hospital gown feel suddenly so…restrictive?
“Finally!”
Alice stepped back with a start, turning her attention to the person who’d spoken.
The woman standing beside the vanity was rail thin, wearing a plain brown dress and a white mask that was featureless save for its black eyeholes.
The faceless woman stepped forward, grabbed Alice’s arm, and pulled her farther into the room, guiding Alice to sit on the cushioned bench in front of the vanity.
Alice swayed on her seat, feeling light, airy, and warm, and looked into the mirror. Her eyes were so vibrantly blue, her lips such a lovely pink, and her hair looked like strands of spun gold.
What…what’s wrong with me?
Before she could answer her own thought, something in the mirror caught her attention—a thick shadow just behind Miraxis, with two teal eyes glowing in the darkness. It was gone faster than she could blink. Alice turned her head toward the doorway, leaning far to one side to see around the praxian, but there was nothing there.
Miraxis cleared his throat. “She is to be collected by the king tomorrow, but the Hatter will be conditioning her until then. She must?—”
“Shoo!” The thin woman waved Miraxis away. “I don’t need you telling me how to do my work, especially when you’re the one who brought her here late.” Taking Alice’s chin between long, cold fingers, the woman turned Alice’s face toward her and sighed. “And there’s much to be done.”
Alice was only vaguely aware of Miraxis exiting the room and closing the door. She was sealed in here now, trapped in this building, and she needed to get out. She needed to go…where did she need to go? Why couldn’t she think? Why couldn’t she remember ? Fear clawed up from her gut, but it was quickly swept aside by a wave of euphoria.
Gentle pulses of heat spread through her body, easing the tension that had begun to seize her muscles. This place, this room, was as good as any, wasn’t it? Everything here was so wondrous—even the walls. They were blue. So blue. A pretty, robin’s egg blue.
“Blue is my favorite color,” Alice murmured.
“Is it now?” the woman said. “Well then, we’ll have to find you something pretty and blue to wear for the Hatter tonight. It’ll bring out those eyes of yours.”
The woman set to work, selecting a brush from the vanity and sweeping it lightly over Alice’s skin.
“What are you doing?” Alice asked.
“Making you the prettiest at the party, dear. You’ll be my masterpiece. It’s not going to stop him from doing what he means to do, but it might make him a little gentler. Now close your eyes.”
Alice’s eyelids fluttered closed, and she smiled; the soft motion of brushes over her skin was soothing, lulling her deeper into relaxation. It didn’t matter where she was—she felt good .
Soon, the woman’s fingers were no longer on Alice’s face, but in her hair, brushing the strands, easing the tangles. Alice hummed appreciatively.
When those hands finally moved away, Alice felt bereft. Lonely. She wanted the hands back on her, massaging her scalp, brushing her hair, her face. Her skin tingled, and she longed for more attention.
“Lift your right foot,” the woman said.
Alice obeyed, keeping her eyes closed; she’d not been told to open them.
A moment later, the backs of the thin woman’s fingers brushed over Alice’s skin from foot to thigh as the woman pulled something onto Alice’s leg—it felt like a stocking. Alice caught her lower lip between her teeth; the feel of that stocking sliding on had been exquisite against her sensitive skin.
“Now the other,” said the woman.
They repeated the process, and within a few seconds, Alice had a stocking on her left leg, as well. Her smile widened. She brushed her palm over her knee, thrilling in the smooth feel of the stocking against her skin.
“Stand,” the woman instructed.
After reluctantly forcing her hand away from her leg, Alice stood up. She swayed like a blade of grass in the breeze, but didn’t feel off-balance, didn’t feel dizzy. There was nothing to worry over; she was free.
The woman deftly untied the fasteners on the back of the hospital gown. Alice spread her arms as the woman slid the garment off. Cool air caressed Alice’s suddenly bare skin, hardening her nipples and sending a thrill directly to her core.
The sound of metal hangers clacking together told Alice that the thin woman had moved to the wardrobe. Alice hummed to herself as she waited, keeping her hands still at her sides even though they itched to run over her own skin.
When the woman spoke again, she was in front of Alice. “This should do nicely, I think. I’ll help you get into it.”
The woman guided Alice’s feet up one at a time, slipping heeled shoes onto them, before pulling something up around Alice’s legs—it felt like a dress. The fabric brushed along Alice’s legs as the woman drew it higher. After helping Alice get her arms through the straps, the woman’s hands settled on Alice’s shoulders and turned her around. Within a few seconds, the woman had the dress’s bodice pulled tight and tied securely.
Alice parted her lips; the heat in her body was only increasing now that she was dressed, as though it were rebelling against being contained, against being restricted. She wobbled unsteadily on the heeled shoes.
The woman clasped something around Alice’s neck—it was snug, like a choker—and something looser around her wrist.
“Good! Good!” The woman took hold of Alice’s hands and tugged her along a few steps before moving to stand behind Alice. “Now…open your eyes!”
Alice opened her eyes. She was in front of the tall standing mirror, staring at an unfamiliar woman.
No, that’s not another woman. That’s my reflection .
She wore a sleeveless sky-blue dress with a black and white corset, its skirt hanging midway down her thighs, and black and white striped stockings. Her hair hung in gentle waves around her shoulders, framing a face both familiar and foreign. Her skin was as pale as porcelain, combining with her dark eyeliner and lengthened eyelashes to make her blue eyes stand out like cornflowers in a green meadow. The natural pink of her lips was enhanced by subtle lipstick, and soft blue and violet eyeshadow completed the look.
“Oh, he will adore you tomorrow!” the woman said. “Not that his attention is something any woman should want.”
“Who?” Alice asked; her voice sounded far-off even to her own ears, as though it had come from another person entirely. Her brows lowered.
This…doesn’t feel right. I don’t feel right.
“Why, the Red King, of course!” The thin woman giggled, settled her hands on Alice’s shoulders, and leaned forward until her masked face was beside Alice’s ear. “You’re perfect. You would’ve been the prettiest of the Hatter’s dollies if the king hadn’t set his eye on you. I suppose you can still be the prettiest, at least until the morning.”
The growing sense of dread in Alice’s gut battled the unnatural euphoria coursing through her veins as the thin woman stepped away.
“She’s ready!” the woman called.
Ready? Ready for what? I’m… No…this… What’s wrong with me?
Alice stared at her reflection with her brow creased. She lifted a hand to the choker, only then noticing the bracelet on her wrist. It had a little tag, just like the bottle they’d forced her to drink; this one said Eat Me .
Movement in the mirror caught Alice’s attention; the door swung open. Two men wearing black and white checkered suits and domino masks entered the room. They moved to either side of Alice and looped their arms through hers.
“Oh, do enjoy what time you’ll have with the Hatter at his party,” the woman said, waving.
The men turned and escorted Alice out of the room.