Down And In With No Way Out (Nerdygeekflower and SetMeFree)

[SetMeFree]

@Nerdygeekflower


It was the night of Nicole Alice Alexander's twenty first birthday and there had been a horrible car crash on the way home from the bar. The limo her friends had rented collided with a bus, due to faulty breaks on one of the vehicles. The young girl lay on the concrete, blood staining her golden hair. Her blue eyes fluttered before shutting for the final time. At least in that world.


When the opened again, she was no longer laying on the concrete, there was no blood in her hair and she was surrounded by dark pines that partially blocked out the light. "Where am I?"


"Where are you?" a voice from behind her asked, causing her to jump. "It's not a matter of where you are, but the fact that you're late!"


"Late? How can I be late? I'm pretty sure I just died, I can take my time if I please!" Nikki turned around to find a tall nervous looking man behind her.


"Late for your own death, tsk tsk." Jefferson reached out and snatched her hand. Without another word from him, he began to drag her off in some unknown direction.


"Will you at least answer my questions?" Silence. "No? Fine... I'll just follow you, Mr. Strange Man." Nikki stumbled after him, taking the time to look around since she had no need to figure out where she was going. The more she looked around, the more she found that every looked like it was straight from Alice in Wonderland. She then began examining the man in front of her, he was nervous and said she was late, she was also following him. You've got to be kidding me, she thought, I'm in Wonderland!

 

[ChampionOfTheMorningStar]

Cas had a cup of tea as he looked out of his window. The mansion around him was breaking into bits, falling down around his ears.


Tick

tock

Tick

tock

Tick




tock




Goes




the




clock




even




in


"Wonderland" He sighed deeply and closed his eyes letting his teacup fall to the floor and shatter in a flourish, suddenly the pieces were engulfed in a plume of thin blue gray smoke, that curled around them and pulled them to the door, that normally opened into the parlor but now was opening to the forest. "Leer" he said without opening his eyes, he could smell it the awful Tea Floris flowers the dreadful cat insisted on smoking. There was a wicked laugh.


"Why is a raven like a writing desk?" the cat asked where he was at the ceiling in a high pitched and mocking voice.


"nevar" Responded the hatter. "Get out, or I'll throw a shoe at you." The cat cackled,


"Watch, Watch! We have a new arrival." He pointed to the door where a young girl was approaching through the forest with Jefferson.

 

[SetMeFree]

Well, maybe she was jumping to conclusions. Maybe this was just a drug induced dream and she hadn't died but instead was in the hospital. That's probably what this was.


Nikki followed the man who was nearly now, as if he would be killed for being even a second late. She half jogged to keep up with him, her hair swishing back and forth behind her. Every so often she noticed that he'd look back at her, seeming to only want to make sure that she was close behind. Trees were the only thing that surrounded her until suddenly they were in a tattered marble mansion. This was for sure a bad dream.


She gasped at the sudden change of scenery and the new people who were there. Each seemed to have quite interesting features. One had heterochromia. The other had a bad boy look that Nikki was used to seeing in the city.


The nervous man continued up to them before stopping. "So sorry I'm late! This girl was late for her own death, or so she says! Nicole Alice Alexander, before you!"


"What? How did you know my name? Oh, why do I bother asking, you don't answer anyway." She looked at the two men before her. "And I'm not dead, I'm sure now this is a dream. It must be."

 

[ChampionOfTheMorningStar]

Cas shook his head and stood. "My question is why you two INFERNAL animals decided to bring here HERE!" He turned to the girl "Alice, my dear I am so sorry I am usually so proper, Would you like a cup of tea? Or coffee? no, no No, we have no coffee here, sh'ant be done. no no no. Proper though! Proper to ask! Dead men eat no cake you know!"


Leer cackled and slung an arm around Alice, "OH! don't mind him, he's so mad as to say he's a hatter! HA, but you my lovely you." Leer took one of his clawed rings and traced out the girl's cheekbone, taking the other under her chin he turned her face up and tilted it, he let out his signature girn, the one that had earned him the name of "Leer' and cackled, holding her face tightly inches from his own.

 

[SetMeFree]

"Please, I go by Nikki," she told the man who couldn't seem to get his thoughts together in the slightest. "And no, no tea for me." His words made her head spin as they all seemed to come out in a blur though she couldn't focus on him for too long as her attention was moved to the third man in the room. Nicole wiggled slightly under his arm but soon found it was useless. She stared up at the man, eyes never leaving his even as he leaned in toward her. "You seem to be the most direct of them all... Would you mind telling me where I am? Even places in dreams have names, right?"


Jefferson moved over to Casmir's side and in a hushed tone began to scold him. "You used to make her laugh when she was little. What has gotten into you?" He swatted at him with a gloved hand and a huff. "Get yourself together, you've frightened her! You know we need her and you've frightened her! You're going to throw it all off! Make her laugh! Make her laugh!"

 

[ChampionOfTheMorningStar]

"Wonderland. What is wrong with you? You were here before. It was along time ago but don't you know where you've been? Those who can't remember the past are doomed to repeat it. But it's too late for you! look at where you are! Backwards and out where you were as a child you came in death. How silly. And they call me Mad." Casmir shook his head as if a grave mistake had been made. Then he turned to the cat who was currently putting as many sugars in an empty cup as he could possibly manage. "OUT WITH YOU WHY ARE YOU HERE??"


"Here?" leer cackled allowing the mist from the blue Tea Floris to engulf him as he appeared behind Cas, "or There? Where is it where tooo? neither? here nor there? Have you lost your head?" Leer took his claw finger and dragged it hard down Cas's cheek drawing blood, "Here?" He reached for his neck digging a claw in slowly, his eyes brightened, a tiger before the pounce. "Or there?"

 

[SetMeFree]

Nikki frowned and shook her head at him. She had never been to Wonderland before, it was a made up place, you can't go somewhere that isn't real. "You are mad," she spat. "You're trying to tell me that I'm in a place that isn't real!" Her head shook again as she turned to leave the way she came, tears of fear, anger and confusion starting to roll down her cheeks. None of this was making any sense and those men weren't helping. In fact they were making everything worse as barely a word out of them made half a cent of sense.


As he watched her leave, Jefferson let out an uncharacteristic growl. He separated the two men, grabbing them each by the chin and forcing their heads in Nicole's direction. "Look at what you two have done! We need her and you've scared her off! If one of you doesn't settle this, we'll end up late and miss our chance!"

 

[ChampionOfTheMorningStar]

"I did not bring the cat here. I do not even wish to leave my house." Cas turned away and pushed the cat back and away into the forest. "He did this and he will fix it." Cas turned away looking over his shoulder at Jefferson. "Why did you bring her here?"


Leer began to jump from tree to tree with all the grace and silence of the a panther coming up in a tree in front of Nikki.


"Nikkkiiiii


N IIII CCC kkk EEEE"


Leer let out a howling laugh. "NICK-IEY!" He howled. "Forgive me I am not a howling dog, just a cat. An may I say as a cat... Me-OW," Leer cackled looking Nikki up and down. "You were cute when you were younger but..... I'll tell ya this is something." He lounged out in the tree he was in, "I'll tell ya Nikki Where would you like to go? I'll take you anywhere in Wonderland."

 

[SetMeFree]

"Where else was I to bring her?! You know as well as I did that Cat did not do this! Well... not all of it. Okay, he helped... It was both of you! Cas, you need to pull it together cause we need her help. She loved you when she was little. She was happy here and you would answer all of her silly questions." Jefferson sighed and shook his head. The young girl they'd once known had loved the Hatter as much as he was Mad. The whole of Wonderland had gotten darker in recent years and now she was once again the frightened girl on her first visit.


Nikki was running blindly. Lost, confused, angry and scared. There was no way for her to win. The sound of the howling cat caused her to jump to a halt, shaking for a moment until her tear blurred vision rested on him. She couldn't have cared less for his compliment, not in the mood to hear it. "I want to go home! Or to wake up from this horrible dream! I didn't die, I know it! This is just a horrible, terrible drug induced dream... I want to get back to the real world." She sunk into the mossy ground, head coming to rest in her hands.

 

[ChampionOfTheMorningStar]

Leer Jumped lightly to the ground. "Well you know most people don't want to think they are dead, some don't want to think they are alive. But girl... You Dead. D-E-A-D DEAD. I don't mean to sound insensitive but I was never alive like you were." Leer sat on all fours in the dirt.


Cas shook his head, "I know but is it my fault if I am not the man I was? She is not the girl she was when she was little either."


( I have some serrious blockage in my brain 0.0 I wanted to give you something but almost feel bad... and like I should have waited.)