Epilogue #3
He did just that, exploding like a cat bomb. A gruesome shower of fur, teeth, and viscera painted the walls and slicked her skin. Yet even in death, that fucking smile lingered, a ghastly, floating crescent suspended in the air, a promise that he was coming back. He always came back.
She’d really done it this time. Dr. Lattimer would come.
He always knew when she wanted to kill the creature.
He’d told her it was fine as long as she didn't make a mess.
She figured this constituted a mess. Alice closed her eyes, desperate to escape to her pretty dreams of painting roses red and drinking tea with the Mad Hatter, but the coppery, sickly-sweet stench kept dragging her back to the madness.
"Alice."
The tone was firm, clipped, and sharp with anger.
She opened her eyes. The doctor framed the doorway, his thin silhouette a stark, dark slash against the corridor's harsh light.
For a flickering heartbeat, she saw dark robes and a crown, something ancient and terrible.
The man was so thin his skin stretched taut over bone, sending a shiver straight down her spine.
"I'm not sorry," she warned him, her voice cracking but steady.
"At the first opportunity I get, I will kill him again.
That's more messes for you. One day, I'll make a mess so big, you won't have enough orderlies or buckets or rags to clean it all up.
It'll be dragon-sized with flame-mad eyes, jaws that bite, sharp claws that catch.
I'll hang its damn head in my room and use it as a hook for your lab coat. "
Dr. Lattimer's eyes glittered with a macabre reflection.
"Be careful, my dear," he murmured, his voice smooth and cold. "You're quite alone, and you've lost your Vorpal, haven't you? No sharp instruments for my Alice. Remember what Tweedledum and Tweedledee warned. Don't wake up the Red King."
In the distance, sirens began to howl, a lonely, rising wail.
Were they coming to arrest her? To drag her before the Queen of Hearts?
Was she finally going to lose her head? Would that be blessed relief, or would she find herself trapped in another place like this, with the same Cheshire Catastrophe grinning down at her?
No, silly, the cat whispered from the upper corner of the ceiling. He was already back, a smoky outline reforming in the shadows, his tail beginning to twitch. They're going to make you tell the truth. That will be far, far worse.
"Shut up!" she screamed at the dark, but the doctor was already preoccupied, his glare fixed on the orderly who had first found her.
"Who called the police?" Dr. Lattimer glared at Marcus, a nice man, but not too bright.
"I think someone at the front desk, sir."
Lattimer clicked his tongue in sharp disapproval.
"Get something to clean up this disaster.
I'll handle the police." He crossed the floor and crouched beside her, his bony knees making a soft, cracking sound against the linoleum.
"You've been a bad little girl, Alice. You'll have to be punished.
" He tilted his head back, looking up at the now fully formed cat.
"You'll take care of that for me, won't you?
" he purred. The sound was worse than the feline's.
Alice gritted her teeth. When the doctor looked back at her, the clinical facade was gone. All she could see was the Jabberwocky in his eyes, a swirling chaos of fangs, claws, and raw insanity.
A woman stepped into the room. She was beautiful, with a face like a princess straight out of a fairy tale, her platinum blonde hair framing eyes of cold, wintry blue.
"Detective Mara Elliston," she said, flipping open a badge. With a fluid, feline grace, she moved into the space, her gaze sweeping over the carnage without a single flicker of emotion. "What happened here?"
Dr. Lattimer gave her a dead, assessing look. Alice could feel the cat moving behind the detective, a silent, shadowy flow of malice. He settled onto Mara's shoulder, a weight of pure evil, and leered down at Alice. His terrifying yellow eyes blinked once. Then he looked at the detective.
There's a nice kitty, the cat purred in Alice's mind. He stroked a shadowy paw down the length of Mara's white hair, then jumped off her shoulder to curl up on the bed as if he owned it.
Mara frowned, looking at the floor. “There’s no body?”
“No, and there’s no explanation,” Lattimer replied. “You can run your tests, but you won’t find anything human in it. Ask your colleagues.”
The detective pulled out her phone, holding a quick, clipped conversation in the corner. When she hung up, she stared at the doctor. “I see.”
Then she did the unthinkable. She cut off Dr. Lattimer with a raised hand and crossed straight to Alice.
"Are you all right?" Contrary to her icy eyes, the detective's voice was melodic and sweet, stripped of her cop persona. Those blue eyes melted into pure sympathy.
Alice wanted to scream that she was a captive here, that the walls themselves were alive, but she couldn’t form the words. She was a prisoner locked inside her own skull. Instead, she choked out, “We’re all mad here.”
As she stared into the detective's face, the asylum walls seemed to blur. Alice saw her in a different world, a different life entirely.
“You’re going to be late for a very important date,” Alice whispered, her gaze tracking something unseen. Then she blinked, the vision fracturing. “Oh, no...that was wrong. You’ve already been in the ground. Not a hole, but a tomb.”
Mara’s eyes widened in sheer terror. She gasped, recoiling from Alice as if she'd been struck, and stumbled backward. She blinked rapidly, her composure completely shattered, before turning and rushing headlong from the room.
Marcus came back with a bucket and cloth, giving Alice a cautious smile. "Be a good girl, and let's get you cleaned up."
* * *
For the first time since the Weavers bound him in the dawn of creation, Chaos understood exactly what was happening. The Shadowguard had not only returned but they had ascended.
His fight for freedom hadn’t ended. It had only begun, now pitted against a formidable force. For that, assassins wouldn’t do. No, he needed adversaries capable of challenging them. Destroying them. Fated pairs or not. Love or not. None of it mattered.
He would be free.
He underestimated those mortals. He wouldn't a second time. The owl said he lacked understanding. Understanding was his new goal. All he had to do was pull the right thread.
They might have their laws. But there was one thing that wouldn't change.
He had been from the beginning of time, and he still was, the Unraveler.
Yet when he reached for certainty, he found himself thinking of a woman woven from threads and impossible faith.
She had sounded enamored. Creation undone, she'd said. Irritating.
* * *
Thank you for reading Flash!