Chapter Text
Alice’s eyes fluttered open. When they did, she didn’t look around.
They were glued to the white ceiling, her mind lost in an attempt to think.
As she tried to gather words in her head, she heard screams around her. Screams about how she woke up; to get more doctors; to contact the rest of her family. There was a distinct scream on her right side, something about wanting to talk to her first. She was too busy with herself to respond to that quickly, though.
For the first time, she heard people.
For the first time, she’s somewhere else.
Yes.
It took her a moment to realize and think, This isn’t Arcaea.
Right. There was no…
No glass.
No chilliness.
No stiffness.
The only stiffness was from her back – she was laying down, perhaps for a while now. What she laid on was a little hard, but had a cushion-y feel to it.
A hospital bed, she realized.
The same one she saw in that memory long ago.
This wasn’t a memory, right? She checked again –
The smell of flowers beside her.
The faint beeping of medical equipment elsewhere.
Sounds of rushing doctors and even things falling on the ground.
The sound of her own breathing.
With that realization, more thoughts came:
I went home.
I’m alive.
I’m not sick anymore.
I’m not in Ar –
“Alice,” the same distinct voice choked out. She tried to turn her head but the resulting force was too much – she ended up turning her entire body. It must have scared the person, because they – he – said, “Woah, you’re energetic. That’s – that’s great.”
Sitting next to her was a man, probably of graduate college age. He had brown hair and pale eyes that seemed to have lost their spark long ago. His face curled into an attempt to beam at her, making up for his weary look.
He looked like Tenniel. Just no red eyes or a glossy, clean look to him.
He seemed like an actual person. Flawed but kind.
“Tenniel?” she asked anyway.
“Tenniel? That’s my middle name, silly. Close enough – I’m Cedric,” he made a poor attempt at chuckling. “It’s okay. It’s been awhile.”
Cedric. That was a name she, indeed, hadn't heard in a while. She first heard it from a memory in the world of glass, something she realized she still remembered. A thousand years of wandering paid off after all. That was a thousand years of new, empty memories.
This was the real world, though. How many years has she missed? How many new events, people, and facts have she never learned?
Actually, she realized it was more of something… incomplete. Some things don’t seem to add up or answer everything correctly.
Something was wrong despite her escape being done so right.
She spun her head behind her. She somehow knew there was a clipboard with her name and following files on it.
Her name: Alice Liddell.
Her condition: A terminal illness she couldn’t even pronounce. It even seemed rather blurry when she tried to view it. Odd.
“I was asleep?” she asked Cedric, hoping to find any sort of explanation.
He uncomfortably folded a little in his seat. Now she noticed he had something in his lap, covered by his oversized white sleeves.
“A coma, yes. Hit your head somewhere and it happened... You were here for three years,” his voice became quiet.
But if I was in a coma, then why does the clipboard say otherwise? Didn't I see a memory of myself awake?
And terminal illnesses meant she was supposed to have died, right?
That was why she landed in Arcaea.
But she wasn’t a doctor, so who knows?
Additionally, maybe she escaped to a world that wasn’t quite where she started off at. Similar, but not the same world. But that was okay, she was alive again.
… Right?
“You’re alive,” Cedric reassured her. Though it sounded a little bit insistent, she nevertheless tried to smile at the fact.
With that said, he relaxed his shoulders and sat back with a relieved expression. Now Alice noticed a piece of paper in his lap.
“You still draw, right?” She managed to smile a little.
She remembered he was an artist. She wondered what he might think of her adventures in a wonderland, and if he might want to doodle them – she wondered what his artistic take would look like if she simply described it to him.
Cedric’s eyes turned a little bright. This time he gave a loud laugh as he bashfully scratched his head.
“You remember! That’s amazing, I can’t believe it,” he beamed.
He continued to laugh. Man, he really was a simple person – just someone who wanted to be remembered for his art. And he was.
Alice peeped down to see what drawing was in his lap.
Her heart fell.
It seemed to be a pencil drawing of herself in a nice dress and hat. In that gray artwork, she was skewered through with rough, sharp points that jutted out of the ground. What were those points? Ice? Metals? Primitive spears, even?
… Glass?
Even as Cedric’s laugh came to a halt, the noise remained deafening. It was like mad laughter ringing in her ears, jeering at her. Taunting her.
Maybe even reminding her.
Had she missed something in those last thousand years in Arcaea? Maybe a memory of how Cedric grew to hate her?
Was that correct?
To comfort herself anyway, Alice chuckled along.
She didn’t know her brother really wanted her dead.