Alice In Dreamland: Part 2 of 3

The second part of the 'Alice In Dreamland' 3-parter. If you missed the first, first read it here.

The revelation shocked Alice. She had just been informed that she was in a dream with a friendly vampire and that she had only five hours to survive (whatever that meant). The explanation was forthcoming.

"This dream of yours is unlike any other — your mind, this time, is totally immersed in it." Aldrin, the old man, started to explain. "As a result, it will have to physically travel from a portal to emerge at the other side — the 'real world'."

"But why five hours?" Alice asked.

"This is because the dreamworld goes through a recycling sequence each time the real you wakes up. Let's say... the entire dreamworld is destroyed... and when you sleep, a new one is recreated. I may or may not exist in the new world. Now comes the important part. Usually, your mind only oversees this process and regulates it. However, this time, your mind is totally inside the dream, and so, it may be recycled itself, along with the rest of the dream world. Resulting... in death."

The idea of death shot fear like physical pain in Alice's young mind. She also seemed to remember a sound, but she wasn't able to place it.

"The portal, Aldrin," the vampire, Batoid, said. "Tell her where it is!"

"Yes, the portal. It's at the other side of the plains here. If you set out immediately, you should be able to reach it comfortably." Aldrin paused. "Just remember one thing. This is not — I repeat — not mine, or Batoid's, or anybody else's dream. This is your own dream. Remember. And take this."

Aldrin handed over a piece of parchment upon which the written numbers were magically changing each second to reflect, presumably, the amount of time remaining for Alice. A great help when your sense of time is dimmed. They then read:

04: 49: 42

"It's the Dynamic Protean Charm." Aldrin winked.
"Thanks, Grandpa!" Alice called out.

As she stood outside the shack along with Batoid, she wondered, 'Why did I call him 'Grandpa'? Is it because he is —'
However, a screech cut through her train of thought. Both Alice and Batoid ran back to the shack as if their lives depended on it.

Aldrin was on the floor, in a pool of blood. Over half of the shack was liberally sprinkled with droplets of blood. Upon closer investigation by Batoid (Alice had nearly fainted all over again seeing the gory scene), the cause of the incident became clear — a glass held by Aldrin that contained a red liquid that wasn't blood.

"Poison... worst of all, it wasn't for him at all. He'd be recycled anyway..."
"Then for whom?" Alice asked. She was terrified, as if she knew the answer already.
"For you. Come, let's be quick."

04: 16: 33

An hour later, Batoid and a stricken Alice were well on their way to the portal.

"Why would anybody want to kill me? Everybody here lives in MY world!" Alice asked indignantly.
"I think that's the very reason... It's YOUR world. It'll be the world of the one who kills you... He'll get to oversee the recycling... it'll make him GOD!" Batoid exclaimed. "Who wouldn't want that?"
"Save me, please..." Alice didn't know Batoid would have to do it almost immediately.


The two heard a galloping sound, and within a moment, the source presented itself — a majestic white unicorn.

Initially, Alice was excited on seeing a unicorn, but it quickly changed to dread when the unicorn's horn glowed white-hot and shot a beam of pure energy towards Alice. Batoid could only watch in despair as the beam shot towards Alice, all ready to consume her within itself. However, the despair soon turned to amazement as Batoid watched, as if in slow-motion, Alice executing a perfect cartwheel to get out of the beam's way — leaving it to flatten a patch of grass a couple of meters wide.

Then Batoid took over. A fierce battle ensued. All Alice could see was a couple of blurs representing the unicorn and Batoid, a lot of fire and some strange darkish matter. This continued for a fair while, after which both battlers took a very short pause, wishing to finish this once and for all.

The Unicorn's horn glowed. Batoid knew what this meant — another one of those beams was forthcoming. He wouldn't have time to get out of the way... But then a blade of grass flew in from nowhere and cut the horn cleanly into two. Batoid turned and saw that Alice was the one who had thrown the blade. Then, he executed his finishing move.

02: 50: 54

"Remember Aldrin? Telling me this is 'my dream'?" Alice asked Batoid. "He meant that I can do pretty much anything I want here... I even distinctly remember not being able to do the cartwheel I did to avoid that nasty beam..." She paused.
"Tell me one thing, though," she said. "A good vampire, an evil unicorn... this is surely not what anybody would expect..."

"Well," Batoid replied, "What, according to you is good, is actually only the way you perceive it. Somebody who you feel is good may not be good at all, while somebody, who, according to you, is evil, may actually be quite good. Give everybody a chance."

Presently, they arrived at a road which they had to cross. All of a sudden, Alice was stricken by a phobia. "I don't want to go there," she sputtered. In spite of many persuasions by Batoid, she flatly refused to even set foot on the road. Eventually, Batoid had to lift her in his arms and cross the road himself.

"It wasn't bad now, was it?" Batoid asked, trying to soothe Alice, who had just burst into tears. "Okay, I have good news for you. See that tunnel over there?" Batoid pointed.
"Yes..."
"That is where you'll find the portal. It's called the 'Tunnel of Darkness'."
"Erm... sounds very scary..."
"Well... you'll have to go now, won't you?"

A few minutes later, Alice set foot into the Tunnel of Darkness.

01: 50: 36

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Alice In Dreamland: Part 1 of 3

She opened her eyes. Large hazel eyes that appeared perpetually unfocused, as if the girl who used them was in a perpetual dream. She would, in time, realize that it wasn't too far from the truth. Her face was very fair, and from her overall appearance, her age could be placed at about thirteen, although at the moment she looked very much like half of it.

And then, she looked around herself. She was sleeping in a very peaceful green meadow, with grass all around her as far as the eye could see. The sunlight was pleasant — present but not too harsh, and there were a few trees scattered around, as if as an afterthought. The vista was so beautiful that the senses of the girl dimmed just by taking it in, and only after a few minutes — or was it moments? Or even hours? She had lost all sense of time, too, evidently — she tried to remember. Remember what this place was. Blank. Remember what she had been doing just before she fell asleep. Blank again. She finally tried to remember who she was. And horrifyingly, drew upon a blank once again.

Caught in an insane frenzy, she tried to remember anything she could and spent some time — or, probably, a lot of time — in the futile process. But then, she thought, When you don't remember something, let your mind relax and it will come back automatically to you. In accordance, she began relaxing her mind. But before she could even get started properly, her mind jumped. How did she know that quote? And, in fact, how could she even know that it was a quote? And then, the quote repeated itself in her mind, but this time in a woman's voice. Something in that voice gave her a lot of joy, but it lasted for only what seemed like a split-second before it was overpowered by a sense of intense sorrow. Both emotions were largely unaccounted for — the girl hardly even knew at that point that such things existed, or maybe, like everything else, she had forgotten.

Before she could deliberate more on her new findings, she had a glimpse of a black silhouette a bit away from her. How far away she could not exactly tell, the single-dimension green and blue had ruined her sense of perspective. It seemed to be a man with a cloak that billowed about as if caught in a strong wind. However, the girl noted, the wind around herself was just a small breeze. She returned to examining the silhouette that had its back turned towards her. Gingerly, she got up and started walking towards the silhouette. She noticed she was barefoot and that walking on the grass gave her a pleasant, tingly feeling.

She continued walking for a considerable amount of time — she could tell it was considerable; meaning that the person wasn't as close as she thought him to be. Of course, the 'him' bit of it was an assumption, it may not turn out to be a 'him' at all. As she approached, the movements of the cloak became lesser and lesser pronounced. It was as if she was carrying the breeze along with her, dispelling the strong gust to take its place.

Finally, she reached the silhouette, and noticed an unearthly odour coming from its direction. Disregarding it, she made as if to tap him, but before she did it, the 'man' turned around to face her. It seemed like a man, but with major differences. The person was entirely black — it was as if she were looking into a shadow, but the lips were stark red. They opened up — presumably to say something, but before a word could be uttered, the girl screamed. She had seen canine teeth — two pointed canine teeth. What was in front of her wasn't a person at all — it was a vampire!

"Hey, hey, don't, stop... STOP!" It was a perfect human voice coming out of the vampire's mouth, but the ones that starred in Mommy's stories were mostly able to speak humanly anyway. And that thought cut her scream short. I had a Mom, and she used to tell me stories! This triggered remembrance of a vast chunk of information, mostly regarding stories the girl's mom used to tell her. However, she still didn't know who her Mom was... What she did know, was that Vampires Are Evil.
"No, I'm not, Trust Me!"

The girl made as if to run away, but then she turned and spoke, her voice shaking, "How do you know what I was thinking? Vampires can't read minds!"
"I know who you are, too — you're Alice"
The vampire was saying something more, but the girl's — Alice's mind, couldn't grasp the words. The sound of the name had triggered something.

All of a sudden, the green-blue world around her disappeared. She was now sitting in a bus, laughing with a girl sitting next to her. She bid the other girl goodbye and got up, and when the bus came to a stop, she got down, in her school uniform, with a bag on her shoulders. She saw across the road to the other side — and then, nothing.

When that nothing changed back to something, she was, this time, lying on a cot, inside what seemed to be a hut. For one heart-stopping moment, she could not remember anything. Then it all came back to her. The meadow, the recollections, the... 'vision', for want of a better word, everything. But before the frightened child could open her mouth to scream — a pretty natural reaction considering the overload on her senses, she caught a glimpse of a man — this time a real man alright. He was old, and looked just like... Albus Dumbledore from the Harry Potter movies. His presence calmed her down a bit.

"I'm Aldrin," he said. "And you're Alice."
"Yes, I — how do you know? And how did I come here?"

As if in answer to both her questions, the vampire slowly showed himself from behind a wall.

"No child," Aldrin said, "There's no need to be afraid of this creature here. He is the one who saved your life — you can call him 'Batoid'."
"He... saved me?" Alice's features appeared visibly exaggerated in her surprise.
"Yes," Aldrin said, holding up a glass of clear liquid. "This is medicine for your recovery." He paused. Then continued, "I need to tell you something. About where you are. You are in a dream."
"A dream? Is that what you just said?" Curious.
"Yes, but you'll have to get out of it if you intend to survive — you have only five hours."

Meanwhile, somewhere else:

"How is she now?" A deep male voice, concerned, asked.
"No luck, she is still in coma. However, we found something... interesting..."
"Interesting?" The man seemed to marvel at the choice of the word. "Continue, I'm listening."
"The patient's mental activity has intensified in the last ten minutes, all of a sudden. Moreover, she is also showing Rapid Eye Movement — REM. All characteristic of... a dream."

To Be Continued...

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