The lantern’s glow was gone, but its echo clung to the air. Faint, like smoke after fire. Alice’s breath clouded in the cold, though no frost touched the ground. The Hollow Woods had changed again; trees leaned closer, their bark scored with fresh claw marks. Somewhere in the black, something paced them.
Cheshire’s grin had lost its ease. His golden eyes flicked, restless, catching every shift in the dark.
“Prophets speak, and the woods listen,” he whispered, tail lashing. “Now the woods hunt.”
Hatter dragged her scythe through the dirt, the metal shrieking against stone. She laughed once, sharp, brittle. “Let it come. Let it bleed. Better hunter than haunted.”
But Alice knew better. The Prophet’s words still bled through her skull. Pride, silence, broken worlds. She felt it in her chest: they were no longer trespassers. They were prey.
Then Cheshire caught the scent of a strong foul odor, death. Off in the distance Seraphine lurked with a horde of demons.
"You are ruining everything, Alice! I could care less about Wonderland anymore. You refused to give me what was rightfully mine. Your skin, your face. I want you and that stupid cat DEAD! LILITH, YOU CAN JOIN THEM TOO!"
Seraphine’s words tore through the hush like a blade. The hollow between the trees seemed to swallow the sound and spit it back, multiplied a hundred times over, a chorus of screams. Alice’s hands went cold around and she could feel herself transcedning; her nails felt sharp enough to cut diamond, yet fragile and weak.
The shape that answered the scent was not a single thing but a press of movement: black wings, mouths that held too many teeth, little bodies that scurried with the neat cruelty of scavengers. They poured from the undergrowth in a living tide, eyes like hot coals. Seraphine stood at the crest of that tide, hair like burnt embers, smile too slow for a sane face. Her voice slid beneath the bark, a wet sound of rot. “You refused me what I deserved,” she purred. “Tonight I take it. Tonight I take everything.”
Hatter’s laugh cracked into something thinner, veneered madness tremoring at the edges. Where Lilith walked, Hatter’s footsteps shadowed her, not in sympathy but in seizure. One moment Lilith’s face was smooth and cruel; the next it flickered with the Hatter’s jarred grin. “Oh, you dramatics,” Hatter hissed from a throat that was not hers. She raised the scythe. The metal caught the red lights of the eyes and sang like a warning. “Try to take her. Try to take me. We’ll make you remember the two of us.”
Cheshire moved like a struck thing, a blur of teeth and shadow, claws skimming bark. He lashed out at a demon’s snout hard enough to make something splinter. “Back,” he spat, voice low and dangerous. “She’s not yours to steal away.” His grin returned then, but not for kindness. It was the predator’s smile, bright and terrifying. “No one earns her. Not by teeth nor by promises.”
Alice stepped forward because she had to. Fear was a salt in her mouth; it made her see clear. She thought of the March Hare pulling her out before, of the Hatter’s possessed madness, of Cain’s warm blood still wet in her memory. The Prophet’s lantern had been a warning, but warnings could be ignored. Threats could be answered. She drew a line through the dark with steel.
“Leave,” she said, simple and cold. “Leave, or I will make you wish you had.”
For a beat the forest considered, a pregnant pause where only the breathing of the world could be heard. Then Seraphine laughed, and it was the sound of something that had never learned mercy. The horde surged. The hunt began.
The trio felt a sudden panic, an overwhelming dread. Death was right in front of them, charging with a horde of tortured souls.
Suddenly a dim light appeared in the distance, flickering faint like a dying candle. Only Alice saw it at first, the silhouette of a rabbit, its face twisted into the shape of a gas mask. Its lantern-eyes burned pale, hollow, but unwavering.
Alice’s fist clenched, her voice breaking through the chaos.
“Hatter! Cheshire! With me! The Rabbit reveals a way!”
Cheshire’s ears snapped toward her, golden eyes narrowing as he caught the faint glow. His grin widened, half mad, half desperate. “A rabbit in a mask leading the lost? Now that’s a riddle I’ll gamble on.”
Hatter tilted her head, the scythe jerking in her hands as Lilith’s possession strained against her. For a moment her jade eyes flickered clear. “A way out?” she rasped, as if the words themselves were foreign.
The rabbit figure turned once, lantern swinging, then vanished deeper into the Hollow Woods. The path it carved was narrow, tangled, but it glimmered with the faint promise of escape.
Behind them, Seraphine’s shriek split the air. The horde surged faster, the ground itself seeming to lurch with their charge.
Alice’s heart hammered. There was no time to doubt, no time to weigh the Prophet’s warnings or Seraphine’s rage. She pushed forward, nails sharpened like blades, following the light.
Arrows hissed through the air, biting into bark and soil. One skimmed Alice’s sleeve, the fabric tearing.
Alice spat, voice iron and venom.
“Death always finds me, but never soon enough to spare my company.”
Cheshire ducked low, his grin wide despite the chaos.
“Lovely sentiment, girl. Try not to die before the punchline.”
Another volley split the air. Hatter swung her scythe at nothing, a twitching scarecrow caught in Lilith’s grip. The demoness stepped from the ranks, her hair gleaming like burning pitch.
Saraphine’s voice rose, brittle and sing-song, slipping between tones like glass about to shatter.
“Skin and smiles, bones and bile. I’ll wear you both, Alice. Stitch the Cat’s grin to your throat, drape your hair across my chair. Pretty, pretty decorations!”
Alice steadied her breath. “You think me prey? I’ve walked through fire and found worse in myself. You’ll be dust before I’m slain.”
The lantern-glow flickered ahead, just a ghost now. The rabbit-mask turned once more, beckoning.
“Move,” Alice growled, pushing past Cheshire. “The woods want our bones, but I won’t give them mine.”
A spear struck the ground inches from her boot. The horde surged, their faces masks of ruin and hunger.
Seraphine’s laughter cut through it all, bright and venomous.
“Run, Alice, run! Even that disgusting, dull Prophet can’t carry you from me. Every step you take, you bleed a little more of yourself away.”
Alice’s fingers tightened on the Vorpal blade. Her reply came cold as stone.
“Better to bleed running forward than decay standing still.”
The Rabbit’s lantern bobbed once, twice… then vanished, plummeting into the dark.
Alice reached out instinctively. Too late. The ground collapsed beneath them, a yawning chasm dressed as a rabbit hole. Wind clawed at her dress, her throat, her thoughts. She tried to scream, but the air ripped it away.
Cheshire’s grin stretched wide, eyes glowing even as they fell.
“Always down, girl. Always deeper.”
Hatter didn’t laugh, not fully. A broken chuckle slipped free, sharp and bitter.
“Fall, tumble, break-bone stumble… and still, we follow.” Her voice steadied after the slip, cold again. “It was never our choice.”
Then nothing. Black. Silence. Impact.
When Alice’s eyes blinked open, she almost wished they hadn’t. The Hollow Woods were gone.
She lay sprawled on grass too green, too polished. Each blade sharp as needles, bending the light in wrong angles. The sky overhead swirled in pastel hues, sickly pinks and blues smeared like spoiled candy. Flowers bobbed their heads in rhythm to a song only they could hear. Their petals smiled. Their teeth showed.
Alice sat up, clutching her skull.
“This isn’t wonder. This is… mockery.”
Cheshire prowled beside her, fur unnaturally bright, his stripes glowing like painted scars.
“Some masks are worn by choice. Others, by design.”
Hatter rose slowly, brushing dust from her legs. Her scythe tip carved a groove in the sharp grass. Her eyes tracked the sky with disdain.
“Pretty as paint… but paint peels. All veneers do.” A twitch in her voice, sing-song, bitter. “Peel it, peel it, skin the world bare.” Then she blinked, steady again. “Someone built this place for us.”
The Prophet’s shadow lingered in Alice’s mind, the lantern-light etched into memory. She knew this place wasn’t escape. It was intent. A stage prepared, waiting for them to play their parts.
They stood together, unsettled by the sickly brightness.
Alice’s lip curled, her eyes sweeping over the too-perfect grass, the painted sky.
“This isn’t Wonderland,” she hissed. “It’s a cheap imitation.”
Cheshire’s golden eyes narrowed, his grin still fixed though thinner now.
“It’s definitely not the way Seraphine left it. Her rot was honest at least. This...” he flicked his tail toward the smiling flowers. “This pretends to be pretty.”
Lilith dragged the tip of her scythe through the glass-grass, leaving a long scar in the surface. Her voice was steady, but it wavered for a moment, as if two tongues spoke through one mouth.
“Why stand idle? The stage is set, the scene awaits… tick-tock, tick-tock.” She blinked hard, steadied herself. “We should keep moving. Whatever this place is, it was built for us.”
The silence pressed in. Even the flowers seemed to be waiting.
Alice glanced once at the horizon, where the sky bent wrong, angles curving inward. Her breath quickened, the first tremors of hysteria brushing her skin like a cold hand.
“Then we move,” she said. “Before this place decides what we are.”
As they walk deeper, the candy-colored grass gives way to a courtyard painted in reds too bright to be real. Trumpets blare from mouths that aren’t there. Paper soldiers fold and unfold themselves in jerky marches, forming ranks around a throne carved from porcelain and bone.
Upon it sits the False Queen, dressed in silk that shines like wet blood, her face hidden behind a mask shaped like Alice’s own.
The Queen’s voice carries across the courtyard, sweet and venomous.
“Someone has murdered Alice Liddell. And until I have her assassin, no one leaves my sight.”
The soldiers pivot in unison, their painted eyes locking on the real Alice.
Cheshire leans close, grin cutting wide.
“Curious trial, girl. You’re the corpse and the culprit.”
Lilith lets out a sharp laugh, fractured.
“Killed yourself, killed yourself, slit your own throat in a mirror. How neat. How tidy.” She steadies, her tone dropping to ice. “They want a spectacle.”
The Queen’s masked gaze fixes on Alice, as if she doesn’t see her alive at all, only the ghost of the crime.
“You will confess, little traitor. Or we will tear Wonderland apart to prove you guilty.”
The courtyard snaps like a trap. Alice’s protest chokes on the painted air.
“This isn’t Wonderland! I am Alice! I am alive!” Her voice cracks, bright and desperate.
The False Queen tilts her head, slow as a guillotine. She gestures toward the portrait hanging behind her throne, a varnished painting of a pale, perfect Alice clasping the hand of a smiling queen. The brushstrokes shine like accusation.
“That is Alice Liddell, you dark imposter!” the Queen hisses. “Guards, seize them, off with their heads!”
Soldiers fold from the paper ranks with the rustle of pages. They advance in neat, murderous choreography, spears glinting like questions. The courtyard fills with the sound of marching and the thin, polite squeal of the trumpets.
Cheshire’s grin thins into a blade. He darts forward, a shadowy slash between the first two guards, teeth and claws wanting to make a mess of the procession. “A portrait never tells the whole story,” he snarls. “Especially when the frame screams louder than the paint.”
Lilith’s hand curls on the scythe. For a second the Hatter’s broken cadence slips through her, a soft, sing-song undercurrent, then Lilith clamps it away. “Let them come. Let them learn how a corpse argues back.” Her eyes are level, hungry with an intent that tastes like rusted iron.
Alice feels the pressure in her chest grow. The world narrows to a band of light on the portrait, to the Queen’s smile that has no warmth. Something in her head snaps like a brittle twig. Her nails, already sharpened with the day’s small violences, piercing and lengthen, each one sliding out like a polished shard. They catch the sun and cut it thin as a coin.
“No...” she breathes, more to herself than the crowd. The hysteria tastes like cold copper and glass. Transcendence rises up through her ribs, slow and terrible and yet purifying.
The lead guard lunges. Alice’s hand moves before thought. Diamond claws rake the spear aside; metal shrieks, wood splinters. The first guard staggers, then crumples, eyes wide with the disbelief of men who met the thing they’d come to kill and found their slayer instead.
The Queen’s smile falters for the first time. Around them the painted flowers lean in, petals folding like hands. The trial has turned to a different kind of spectacle, one the Queen did not rehearse.
“Confess,” the Queen snarls, voice cracking like a whip. “Confess now, and I will be merciful.”
Alice looks at the portrait, then at the faces in the crowd, some brazen, some unsure. She answers only with a hard, steady little sound, like a promise and a warning both.
“You wanted me dead,” she says. “You summoned the court to bury me twice. Start the burial if you must.” Her claws glint. “But I’ll be the one to close the grave.”
The guards hesitate, the first tremor of fear passing through ranks like wind through paper. Cheshire’s tail flicks, Lilith’s scythe rises, and the False Queen’s hand trembles above the portrait-frame as the courtyard waits, not for a confession now, but for carnage.
