entranceway | M e s s a g e 3 8

M e s s a g e 3 8

[The first thing anyone sees, even before the person posting...is a little pig, in one of the tea rooms. It snuffles and sniffles and sweeps the room for signs of danger, and once it is satisfied it trots away.

Then in a blink, Alice is standing in the middle of the room, pig cradled in her arms. And for the first time ever on the network, her face has wide blue eyes. She's a bit frantic, but otherwise unharmed.]

I think I'm starting to get used to doing that on purpose... Ah, hello everyone! It's...been some time, hasn't it?

[Even Alice can't seem to hide the fact that it's rather awkward to suddenly have eyes when she did not before. The pig squirms and she lets it down, as she's discovered it's wisest to listen to what the Duchess' pig wants.]

I'm so sorry to interrupt everything, but I need to warn you all! Something-- something terrible is going to happen soon! I don't want to cause anyone alarm, but it may very well be the worst thing that's ever happened to you.

[It's all distressing, and Alice crouches down to the pig's level so she can play with it's ears absently as she talks. It lets her.]

I'm afraid I still can't explain how I know, and the details are...rather distressing. But I promise, I'd never lie to all of you! I could never!

[She's adamant about that much at least. Even if her message isn't clear, there's more clarity in the way she speaks about it - she understands the importance of these messages now, in a way she'd forgotten for so long.]

Please, everyone. Take care of yourselves this weekend. I think it may be all you can do.

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She did! I believe she had one and Mabel had the other. I owe them quite a lot.

[She sighs a bit and rests her chin on top of the piglet's head. It puts up with so much.]

It must seem odd, but I hadn't even realized I was missing my eyes...

[The corners of his eyes crease with something - he doesn't know what. Sympathy, maybe.]

This place makes you forget what you think you never will. It's good at that, right? [In fact, he might be in an extremely unique position to understand a little of how it feels. Not just from the memories that went missing, carved out and blank in his skull like unmarked canvases, later replaced with static-laced videos. But the moment where the light had spiked into the center of his head and he'd fallen to his knees, the bright sunspots of that open door photobleached into the backs of his lids.]

[The moment where the memory had hummed back inside him like a ghosting flame - that hadn't been the terrifying part.]

[The terrifying part was the moment that he realized he'd never conceptualized it as gone in the first place. It was simply as if - the thought had never been there.]

...When you lose everything, you don't remember you ever had anything to lose.

[She's so quiet. She's been given a gift, but it brought back a restlessness that she had nearly forgotten.]

I've-- I've been here so long that nearly all of my memories were swallowed up by Wonderland. I had just one left, but when the Queen of Hearts took my eyes...she took that memory too.

[And left Alice with absolutely nothing, for years and years.]

You don't realize it's missing. You don't realize that anything's even gone. It's not a hole, or a - or something you feel. It's just gone and you'd never know, because you can't even understand that it's gone.

[His own eyes are dark, reflective in a way he's not sure he wants to actualize.]

[Reflective of a memory he was fortunate to have never truly lost.]

[Alice understands, perhaps better than anyone else in Wonderland could.]

It made me think I'd never-- that I was from here. I didn't have anything else from home, so...how could I have known?

[She couldn't have. She had nothing to compare it to.]

The last one, it was...of my cat Dinah. She's the absolute sweetest little thing. She's still at home waiting for me.

[The last one.]

[She was missing it for...years, maybe. Maybe longer. He's got no way of knowing. But the point is that it's back, and she's back. She's been given what he's guessing not many in Wonderland get, not without soem serious costs attached. And that's a second chance.]

You hold onto that one. You don't ever let that go.

I won't! Never! Her name is Dinah and she's a grey tabby cat with black stripes and she's lovely. I-I can't-- I don't remember who, but someone gave me her on my tenth birthday. She's about two years old now and at home she went everywhere with me. I don't know what those places are now but we were always together and when I arrived in Wonderland I cried for three weeks because she hadn't come with me!

[It's so long ago now, but she does exactly what Tim has asked of her. She does her best to hold on and on to every little thing she can, every tiny detail about Dinah that exists in her mind will be told to anyone who will listen to her for more than two seconds.]

I. I never want to forget her again. I still can't believe I did...

[She speaks with the kind of vicious intent that aches at his chest, a hard stab of recognition of the desperation there. She never wants to forget again. He can practically see her hurting with the urge to hold that memory fast and firm to herself.]

[He shouldn't make promises. Not ones he can't keep. Not when he's a liar, even on a good day.]

[But he won't let her forget either.]

It's okay. [The words are soft - almost gentle.] We're not gonna let you forget again.

Okay?

[Her eyes are watering something terrible, and she stops to rub the tears away.

She knows it isn't a promise he can keep. She knows people tried so hard the first time...they had no way of knowing what would happen to her, but they tried their best to save her. They all wanted to keep their promises.

Still, even after more than one hundred and fifty years in Wonderland, she's still twelve and she's still hopeful deep down.]

O-Okay. [She nods, and tries to sound more firm.] Okay.

[If there’s any way to not let her down, to keep this from happening again - he’ll take it. It’s worth preserving one of the only residents who seems to still remember that she isn’t really from here at all, assuming the rest suffered the same fate.]

[At least they can say they’re prepared this time.]

And...hey. Thanks for the warning.

You're welcome. It's the least I could do to help, and to make up for not having been helpful before.

[Not that she could really help or control that, but she can certainly do something about it now.]

That wasn't your fault.

[That much, at least, he can say. It wasn't her fault, because this is just what Wonderland does to people. It strips them all away, tears apart their memories, feeds on them until they're just as illogical and babbling and disconnected as anyone else who's lived here for long enough.]

Maybe, but...

[She can't help feeling like it was, even so.]

...it doesn't change that I didn't do much good before. Now that I can really be useful, I want to do my best.

You're not important just - based on how useful you are. Okay?

[Maybe that's the sort of assessment someone more pragmatic would make - George, possibly, at least externally - but not him. If that were his style, he'd sure as hell have made sure he wasn't a part of the whole investigation in the first damn place.]

[She hesitates again, but...eventually, she nods. It's a small gesture, but an important one.]

...Okay. Thank you. That's kind of you.

[She's sure not everyone feels that way. Not when people have come to depend on these messages.]

[Now would probably be the best time for a small, encouraging smile. A pity for both of them that he's not really the best person for that, now, is he?]

Is it...weird to ask why? I mean, some people here aren't really - they're kinda yelling at you. I mean, I dunno, I guess - why're you still trying to help us? [He wouldn't blame her for not wanting to, is his point.]

Because now that my memories are back, I remember what it's like to be on the other side of these messages. I've puzzled over thousands of nonsensical posts, trying to help figure out what they could possibly mean before events happened. I was never very good at it though...

[She was a normal captive, once. She was someone who had just been plucked from her world and went through events like everyone else.]

People are right to be cautious, but...if I can make things at all easier, I want to do my best. Even if I can't please everyone.

[One corner of his mouth twitches slightly. His gaze drops for an instant, fighting back the shiver of something he can't put a name to. Familiarity, maybe. He pushes the thought roughly aside the moment it occurs to him.]

[The desperate, fierce desire to make sure that other people don't endure what you've gone through. Doing whatever you can to prevent it.]

[Maybe he understands that a little too well.]

That...makes you a - it makes you a really good person, Alice.

[That makes her smile, just a little. It means a lot to hear someone say it.]

Thank you. I really hope so...I want to be, at the very least!

I think you're trying harder than anyone else in your position would.

[If it were him...]

I know that - I would've given up by now.

I don't know about that, but...I do know it's hard. It can be sort of lonely here. I've seen so many people come and go, and forgotten everyone at home but Dinah. I think...if I didn't try, I wouldn't have anyone. It's still better to be connected to people.

[Even if she gets her heart broken, and even if people don't always trust her now because she's been tainted by Wonderland.]

There was a long time where I was alone here was well - literally, on Mirror Side. I don't know. Perhaps that's a bit too dark, but I think not trying would just be a lonelier situation for me...

How long were you alone?

[She really is just a kid. He knows that she's just...just a kid. No matter how long she's been here, Wonderland is a strange place. It warps you. It weighs on you. And maybe it keeps you from growing the way you should, in more ways than one.]

[A kid shouldn't be left on the Mirror Side alone. Ever.]

[She actually has to think about it.]

I was there...for five years, I think. I hid in the vents and stole food, so no one would find me and report me to the Queen of Hearts. By the time I was found, everyone I still knew in Wonderland was gone. No one knew who I was.

[Stories eventually stopped being passed down to new arrivals, and poor missing Alice was forgotten about.]

So is that when...the people started showing up? People like us?

[People she's tried to help for - maybe years now?]

[She shakes her head.]

No, people like you have shown up for...hundreds of years. I came here more than one hundred and fifty years ago. The people I knew then just...they couldn't bring me back. Eventually they must have stopped trying, and...well, you know people go back to their homes all the time. After five years, there was no one who remembered I was over there.

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