Wonderland

"Dawn is almost upon us."

The sounds of our brethren dying on the earth below us drew our attention away from the sunrise. Soon, there would be no one left. Father must do something – or our kind would perish.

"Hide, my son."

I met his eyes in surprise. Hide?

"Our people must live. Take your friends, if you can find them...then run. Hide, quickly!"

The sunrise was approaching faster than I knew I could outrun it.

"Let me help you, father," I argued, running after him. He turned in mid step and scaled knuckles collided with my face. I fell to my knees in pain, caught off guard by his blow.

"Hide. That is an order," he growled. I stood and met his eyes.

He gripped my shoulder, his talons digging into my skin painfully, but I said nothing.

"Now go."

He gave me a shove backwards and I turned, fleeing from the battlefield...feeling like a coward.

I heard the howls of our enemy fill the air.

I ran faster. Flying now would only make me vulnerable and I would be followed.

Another howl, much closer this time.

The ground below me gave way as the Raspan army broke through the earth, sticking muddy muzzles up into the air, sniffing for the enemy.

One Raspan escaped the confines of the earth and stood on its back legs, its dagger-sharp tail lashing about as it searched for the source of the enemy scent: me. Its beady black eyes locked with mine and it screeched into the air, calling for the hunt.

I could not hide in the earth, I realized, as the Raspan army began to emerge, shaking dirt from their fur.

I turned to the forest, away from the land and towards the sea. More screeches from the Raspans filled the air and I cringed at the sound. I vowed to myself then to destroy the Raspans, hating them with every breath I took.

The forest seemed more formidable than usual and much harder to navigate.

I took a hold of my fear and swallowed it, struggling to keep a cool head.

'Where is a place to hide? Where is a place to escape in this forest?'

I stumbled out of the forest onto white sand, my heart pounding in my chest.

An ivory palace greeted me in the distance, perching on a small rocky island not but twelve wing-lengths from shore, promising seclusion and safety.

The Raspans would never enter this place, I told myself in relief, as I glanced at the tall spiraling towers and the roaring ice blue water that surrounded the tiny island of promise. A screech of a Raspan and the howl of the Lunar broke me out of my thoughts.

The palace was my sanctuary.

I unfolded my wings and flew, tasting sea salt as the spray from the waves brushed against me from the crashing water. A bitter cold wind blew over my skin but the cold didn't slow me down. I landed at the top of the tallest tower and looked back at the mainland, surprised to see blue fire coming from the forest.

The Druls. Only their magic wielded such flames. I hesitated for a moment, contemplating going back to the war. The Druls were our allies, and by the obvious amount of fire, they seemed to be winning.

An earsplitting howl from the entire Lunar army erupted into the air, sending chills down my spine. The sound was...haunting, to say the least.

The blue fire dissipated and was filled with the mourning wails of the Druls.

The Raspans and Lunar had regrouped. The last of my people...were dead.

I crawled into the tower through one of the four open lookout points and found a staircase leading down into awaiting darkness.

I followed it for a long ways until I came to the base. I pressed against the wooden door, listening attentively for noises on the other side.

Nothing.

I slowly opened the door and ducked through. The palace obviously had not been designed for my kind.

A chill ran through my spine. I was intruding upon another clan and I needed to leave. Immediately.

But as I crept along the darkness in the rooms, I found no one and heard nothing but the faint roar of the sea and the gale. This palace, beautiful and eerily empty, hadn't been occupied in years. There wasn't a single scent that I could detect.

I was...alone.

Quickly I began to look for the entrances of the palace, searching for weaknesses and strengths incase the Lunar and the Raspans discovered my whereabouts. I had to find a place to hide, or a secretive way to escape from an attack.

I reached for the large doors of the palace and pain erupted along my entire body. With a powerful blast of energy, I was knocked back from the doors onto my back. I skidded along the intricate tile of the throne room to the feet of the thrones themselves before grinding to a halt.

I tried again with the same result.

I hurriedly ran back to the towers to find the doors sealed off, and the same energy greeted me as I tried to pull the doors open.

I was trapped.

I dug my talons into my scalp in panic. What if this was a set up? What if I could never leave this place? How would I hunt? How would I survive?

Questions...questions that I didn't have answers to.

I raced through the endless rooms and down endless corridors, searching.

I collapsed after I found myself in the throne room again, feeling tears of shame and fear roll down my cheeks.

My father wanted me to save my kind and my people by hiding.

In my need for escape, I had just doomed them all.

I woke up at nightfall, surprised by my surroundings.

I am in the throne room of my prison, I remembered. My stomach growled in hunger. I stood up wearily and began to walk the rooms again, searching for something-anything-to eat.

For the longest, I smelt nothing but the sea. As I rounded a corner marked only by a tasteless tapestry, I then smelled...something different, something delicious.

I raced towards the smell without thought, knowing little else besides that I was hungry and food was nearby.

I pushed open a pair of doors to find myself staring at a banquet.

Meats of all kinds were lined up in rows along the long table, adorned with fruits and other food important to my diet. Hunger clenched me, but I stopped.

I was trapped in this castle by magic. What if this food wasn't real, like an illusion? Or worse, what if it was poisoned?

I paced along the table, glaring at the food in anger.

I had two choices: not eat and die of starvation or eat and die of poisoning.

Greed has always been the downfall of all kinds, I thought bitterly, turning my back on the food.

I clutched my stomach as it growled in response, but didn't turn back to the food. Instead I fled away from the room, seeking a place where I could escape my hunger for a little while longer.

I found myself in a library.

Thousands upon thousands of books littered the ceiling-high bookshelves and a massive fire roared in the fireplace, like someone had just tended to it.

I pensively wandered the library; only out of curiosity did I grab a book.

I sat in the only chair available, a large armchair in front of the fire. I tried to push the chair farther away to prevent from falling asleep in this strange place, but it didn't budge, like the chair was bound to its spot. I gave up and sat down, opening the book.

Once I focused on the words, it was easy to forget my hunger.

But it wasn't easy to feign off sleep.

The last I remember...I was curled up on the armchair.

The next...I awoke.

Nobody went to Lake Wonder, mainly because the name was misleading. The lake wasn't a lake. It also wasn't in any way a 'wonder'. It was a muddy, dirty, polluted wasteland that the city government had yet to clean up. Who knows how many dead bodies had been dumped in there. Joke.

But I went there a lot. I don't really know why. Mainly 'cause nobody else was there, I guess. Mainly 'cause I could spend all my time here before going home and having to start the torturous day all over again.

Wonderland wasn't by any means an awesome place to live. It was retirement-home-central for anyone wanting to live in an overpriced town with a seventy-two percentage of the population the age of 40 and older. That number kept growing every year.

Surprisingly Wonderland had a high school. Just one, though. And the middle and elementary school were strategically hidden so those who were traveling through would have to hunt it down to find it.

That's where I went to school, Wonderland High, the home to the Wonderland Knights. It fit because every family treated their homes like estates or castles, and the neighboring residential community was usually a rival "fiefdom" trying to impose lawn keeping rules upon the other. The city council meetings were usually filled with these kinds of debates, ranging from the banning of live music bars to imposing what non-ecofriendly vehicles Wonderland residents could own. Total Dullsville.

So to escape the white collar residents from my residential neighborhood of Bella Lane, I ride my bike to Lake Wonder and sit on the south section of the Wonderland Board Walk because it's the only part that hasn't rotted through. The last thing I want is to take a plop into the murky, mold-covered muck. That isn't the most regal way to die, you know.

I sat on my familiar perch, the place I deemed "the Overlook" merely because it was the only point of the remaining boardwalk that followed the land and stretched out into Lake Wonder. It was only a few feet from the center of the muddy bog and isolated to the extreme.

Because Lake Wonder was a boggy, murky, horrendously uncool swamp surrounded by fog, taking out electronics or books was at your own risk: the moisture one day had destroyed my brand new iPod. After that very hard-learned lesson, I never brought much of anything with me. If my school day was bad enough, I came here with my school bag and that was about it. Take now, for instance. I just had my book bag and my bike. They should be relatively safe from the mist.

I pulled up my hood as said mist began to fall and brooded at the lake.

Memories of school came flashing back, each memory causing me to flinch and my stomach to ache.

Someone had put crushed up Miralax into my soda today at lunch. I had fled within the hour to the restroom with a haggle of giddy seniors at my back, filling up the long hallway with their snide laughter. Only with the permission of the nurse had I been able to skip class and go home early, putting me a full hour and a half ahead of schedule.

I always tried to hold out from going home until around five, usually because my parents were already home and had snipped at each other long enough to get over the terrible workday, leaving me free of their criticism or badgering questions.

I checked my watch on cue. It was two o' clock exactly.

I pulled my knees up to my chin, clutching my legs tightly together.

After the Miralax/Microlax/Exlax incident, I had missed two important tests today: Advanced Chemistry and Anatomy and Physiology. How do I explain to my teachers what happened? That because I had a bowel movement brought on by unknowingly ingesting laxatives I missed the tests? How embarrassing!

Hot pinpoints pricked the back of my eyes and I ducked my head down, inhaling deeply.

I don't know why the other kids pick on me like this. I'm not a weirdo or anything. I don't have lice or make art out of my food. I don't eat glue or study the boogers I picked in the middle of class. I mean, I'm just a normal junior in high school...so why do people have to pick on me?!

I lifted up my head and stood up quickly, my heart pounding in anguish in my chest. I had to get out of here.

I scooped up my bag and picked up my bike by the handlebars, thinking it would be nice to ride the trails through the Wonderland Hike and Bike before I went home, but the sound of a creaky door opening stopped me from jumping onto the bike.

I swallowed hard and slowly turned around, hoping that I wouldn't find some radioactive monster emerging from the murky depths.

Instead I found a transparent...castle.

As the fog boiled and steamed around it, the castle became less substantial in a way, but still there, erm, sort of. I turned myself around again to face the castle. Does Microlax cause hallucinations?

I rolled the bike closer to the edge of the boardwalk and hesitantly reached out to touch the open door of the castle, to prove this was nothing but a laxative-induced hallucination. Bitter cold air slashed across my extended arm and I recoiled in surprise. The castle seemed to sigh in relief as I opened the other door, releasing more cold air out of its depths.

Then I took a step back.

A barely substantial castle just appeared in the center of disgusting Lake Wonder.

Those seniors are so going to pay for this.

I started to turn around again but the boardwalk suddenly cracked and my heart leapt in my throat. The boardwalk was eroding.

Like something out of the movie 2012, the cement foundation of the boardwalk gave away and in quick succession the soft wooden boards meant to be decoration fell into the lake along with the slabs of stone.

I found myself backing into the castle to escape the nightmare until finally...I was in it.

The door shut on the front wheel of my bike, severely crushing it.

I was trapped.

I glanced over my shoulder once I stopped hyperventilating, expecting darkness.

I found a throne room well lit.

Goose bumps dotted my skin and my spine tingled. Adrenaline made my heart pound as I slowly moved into the castle, knowing that I didn't have any other choice but to roam.

There has to be safe room to hide in, I told myself, as my footsteps echoed on the tile floor and my breathing was suddenly too loud. Clutching my book bag tightly to me, I began to walk away from the two menacing unoccupied thrones at the north end of the room and instead directed myself to the huge archway to my right. It led into what appeared to be a dining hall and housed only grimy windows...but no doors.

I turned back into the throne room, swallowing dry spit. What do I do now?

I bit my lip nervously and ignored the fact that I had made footprints in the dust or that the soft pattering of rain as it hit the stone was the only sound I could hear.

What if I was alone here?

Then a more dreadful thought occurred to me. What if I wasn't?

I pulled a can of pepper spray out of my bag and prepped it, unsure of what exactly a can of irritating and inflammatory chemicals could possibly protect me from. But knowing it was there, armed and ready, made me feel a bit more protected.

I took the path towards the thrones again and went to the far right archway that led past a raised dais and into-hopefully-another room.

I found myself staring into a small powder room. The archway that had led to the left of the dais seemed to end up right back here too. I quickly darted out of the darkness and found a stairwell to my right, curled up against the stone wall. How had I missed that? I power-walked towards the stairs and sent up a prayer that it wouldn't crumble like the boardwalk.

The stairs were slick with dust and I almost fell twice. When I reached the top I glared down at the path I had made. The dust seemed thicker up here and it molded to everything like a second skin. The banisters and rugs were coated almost black like someone had poured ash down from the ceiling.

I moved down the closest hallway to find a small series of rooms but many of the doors I tried were locked. I continued to amble, finding myself wandering down a large stone corridor filled with tapestries and battle ornaments. Shields with very realistic looking swords mounted the walls but other than that, the palace seemed remarkably...empty.

I pushed open another pair of doors, a little more at ease, and froze.

I was in the biggest library I had ever seen in my entire life.

The ceiling was vaulted and showed off its expansive volumes, flooding dim light into the large room. There wasn't a place to sit, so obviously this wasn't a public library.

A fire roared to life on my far left and I jumped in surprise.

Then my throat clenched.

A large armchair stood in front of the fire, looking as dusty and neglected as the rest of the sparse furniture I had seen.

But it was occupied.

Two legs slung over the left arm of the chair, and a huge pair of wings rested over the right. At the fire's abrupt roar to life, I had expected the thing to move, but...it didn't.

I saw a steel prong next to the fireplace and I nibbled my lip nervously.

The creature still hadn't moved a muscle.

Slowly and quietly I removed my bag, setting it down on the floor. Then like a spider I moved across the dusty stone towards the prong.

The way the armchair was situated prevented me from seeing the creature in full view, but I did get a better idea on how large and entirely scary the creature was.

I picked up the fire prong and stood up slowly, testing the weight of my new weapon in my palms. Heavy, sharp, and dangerous.

Hopefully I don't trip or this would end badly.

I advanced on the creature slowly, my heart pounding in my throat.

That's when I saw the tail.

I stopped short and inhaled sharply, trying to calm my heartbeat.

Wings...a tail...

I just barely edged to my left and I almost dropped my prong in surprise.

The creature...was dead.

No sound or movement came from it, and as I walked closer I realized that the creature was actually carved out of stone.

I barely touched the tip of the prong against the creature's leg and jumped into a defensive position to protect myself.

The creature didn't move.

"A statue," I muttered, relaxing now. "Great."

I picked up the book that was on the floor in front of the chair and snorted.

It was in a language that looked remarkably like the alien symbols I've seen in movies. Just random shapes with different colorings and sizes and the occasional squiggle. Lots of circles.

I tossed the book onto the statue's designated chair and let out a huff.

I was alone in this castle with just a statue for company.

Even though there probably wasn't anyone in the castle with me, I kept the fire prong at my side at all times as I scanned through the books.

Coincidentally, all the books were in that same alien language, nothing that I could read. This is my worst nightmare...go into the largest library on the face of the planet...and can't read a single book.

I settled with picking out picture books that were shelved far away from the fireplace. They obviously were supposed to be for kids: there were fewer symbols and more pictures. I tried to not think about how unintelligent I felt as I studied the curious drawings.

For a while I was content on looking at weird pictures, ignoring how demonic most of the people (I guess that's what they are) were depicted. The more books that I went through, the more I realized at how the demonic children and monsters in the books seemed to be the norm. Little children with horns and tiny wings rode on the backs of really big rats and it seemed natural for these grownups to wear little clothing.

Then the connection hit me.

I glanced back at the armchair and at the statue.

He was a grownup version of these horned kids, minus the horns.