There is a room no one remembers, in a house that remembers too much.
Once, it may have been a nursery. Now, the wallpaper peels like old skin, revealing bones of wood and wire beneath. A cracked mirror hangs opposite the boarded window. The curtains hang like forgotten ghosts, and dust lies thick on the floorboards, disturbed only by the footprints of a girl who should not be here.
But she is.
She is older now. Not old, but aged, like a book left open too long. Her coat is stitched patchwork of asylum linen and black leather. Her hands are dirt-caked, her nails cracked from clawing at memory. She is weeding.
The earth is ash.
And somewhere far away, a voice calls her name.
"Alice?"
She doesn't answer.
"Alice, please…"
It's Lory's voice. But thin. Like it's being pulled through gauze. Like it doesn't belong in this room anymore.
"You said there was no one there," Alice murmurs, without turning.
The mirror creaks in its frame.
Then the voice changes.
"Alice," it says again, but now it's not Lory.
It is slower.
Colder.
Deeper.
Hungrier.
She does not look up.
"I hear you," she says.
No answer.
She plucks a bent fork from a knot of roots and ash and flings it without looking.
A whisper of breath. The faintest rustle.
The mirror gives no answer except two glowing red eyes.
She remembers those eyes.
Light flashes. A white room. Fluorescent buzz. Cold tile beneath bare feet.
Her sister, terrified, stood just out of reach, clutching a clipboard like a crucifix.
"There's no one there, Alice."
But she still sees him.
His teeth gleam like polished bone.
"Please." She flinches. "Don't let him near me."
A hand touches her shoulder. Not Lory's.
A man in a white coat.
He leans in.
"I know," he says gently. "Just lie down. This will help you rest."
But his cuffs are stained.
And his eyes, they glow.
* * *
Back in the gloom, the mirror shudders.
Glass groans like old bones.
A figure steps through.
Tall, thin as wire. Not a doctor now, but still wrapped in white. Still carrying the stain.
His coat is older here. Yellowed at the edges. His eyes still glow.
His eyes are red—not with rage, but with weariness. Around his neck hangs a golden timepiece, ticking faintly, though the hands do not move.
His ears twitch.
But her mind remembers them differently.
"Alice," he says.
She lifts her head slowly. Her face does not change.
"You're late," she says.
He chuckles, low and bitter. "Always."
"What do you want?"
"You called me."
"No. I buried you."
"You buried the child, but the one who followed me down the hole is still digging."
She stands. Not quickly. Not startled. Like someone rising from a grave with deliberate slowness. Her hand moves inside her coat by habit. Nothing. Only fabric.
"You are not the Rabbit."
"No, but I wore his face. I wore so many faces, I lost track."
Her eyes narrow. "What are you now?"
"Closer to you than anyone has ever been."
She laughs. "You don't know me."
"But I do. I felt you. Your rage. Your hunger. Your refusal to be caged. I followed the scent of it like a bloodhound."
"You followed the scent of a girl who escaped," she says.
He shakes his head. "You're still in the mirror, Alice."
Her jaw clenches. "You don't know what I've done to survive."
"I do. That's why I'm here."
She does not lower her guard. "What do you want with me?"
He steps closer, eyes never leaving hers.
"To see who you really are."
"Then open your eyes."
"I mean the self beneath this one." He gestures at her. "The self you buried. The one who set fire to the garden. The one who remembers what they did. The one who stopped running."
She stares at him. Something dark flickers behind her eyes.
"You want the monster."
He doesn't deny it. "I want the truth."
She sneers.
"Then show me yours first. You're wearing skin like a stolen coat."
He bows. "As you wish."
He lifts his hands. The air around him ripples. His body sags, folds inward—and then the face sloughs away. What's left is a boy's body—bruised, thin, broken at the throat—and then another, and another. Each flash a different host. Until he stands as something featureless, neither flesh nor shadow, but a hollow echo in the shape of a man.
"Who are you really?"
"I was hunger," he says. "And then I learned names. Then stories. Now I wear meaning like clothes."
She breathes deep—and takes off her gloves.
As she unlaces the leather, she hears it again—Lory's tired voice:
"You used to be brilliant."
As if that brilliance was something delicate. Something broken.
Alice smiles faintly.
No, she thinks. I used to be silent.
The skin of her hands melts like wax. Bones stretch. Muscles twist. Her face elongates, warps, curls into something feline—Cheshire, yes, but without the grin. Then she shifts again: her frame shrinks, becomes childlike. Golden hair tumbles down her back. Her eyes grow wide and horrified.
Then, finally, she becomes herself.
Her true self.
Young. Terrible. Beautiful.
The woman who had survived Wonderland not by escaping, but by becoming something it could never consume.
"Now," she says. "Do you still want me?"
He kneels, unblinking.
"Yes."
She reaches into the folds of her coat.
But her fingers close around nothing.
He opens his hand. Between his fingers, a jagged shard of glass glimmers faintly, edges slick with blood.
Her smile doesn't fade. If anything, it sharpens.
"Then you should have stayed dead."
He tilts his head.
"We're running out of time." He taps his watch. "I was hoping you'd come willingly, but if you won't…"
A pause. His eyes glow faintly red.
"…I could always find another."
She stiffens.
"You don't mean—"
He grins.
"Lory."
Something cold and ancient coils behind her ribs.
"I'll kill you."
He frowns, brushing the thin scar at his throat. "Then follow," he says as he transforms.
His limbs shorten. His mouth splits wider, then vanishes. Ears grow long, warped like a funhouse sketch of innocence. A twitch. A gleam of fur. And then he vanishes into the mirror.
She doesn't hesitate.
The room is empty once more.
Only the timepiece ticks.
And this time, it is counting down.
* * *
There is no falling.
Not in the way the body understands.
She is unmade, stretched and folded, pulled apart not by gravity, but by meaning. A fall through metaphor and mind.
Clock faces spiral past her. Some show numbers, others runes. One screams when she looks at it.
Teacups, broken and whole, spin like planets. She sees eyes in the dark—smiling without faces. A rabbit with a crown of thorns. A woman weeping blood from black-painted lips.
Then—a corridor.
Made of root and sky, lined with dull mirrors.
She sees herself over and over in different shapes.
A queen crowned in red. A warrior drowning in blood. A child curled beneath a book.
She leans into the fall, arms tight, spine braced.
This is not her first descent.
* * *
When her boots touch ground, it is like waking from a dream.
The impact is real. Her knees buckle. She rolls to a crouch, fingers reaching instinctively for a weapon—
But still, her coat is empty.
A glade surrounds her.
The trees are impossibly tall, their trunks like dancers locked in motion. The leaves are black, veined with gold, rustling without wind. The air smells of ink and iron.
She knows this place.
Not Wonderland. Not the garden from her childhood tales, but what remains.
The trees whisper one word.
Alice.
The forest peels away.
And fire takes its place.