Well, this is another Alice story. Actually, I'm debating on which one I should write. It all depends on which one gets the most reviews. I'll be adding one more American McGee story, so tell me which one you like best, and I'll go from there!
I don't own American McGee's Alice, nor Wonderland. I do, however, own Victor, though not the name Liddell!
" But mum, father! You know how much hospitals give me the chills! Can't you imagine what bedlam would do to me?"
This was the argument that Victor Liddell had presented his parents when they said he would be going to see his cousin, Alice, in the Whittington Psychological Ward. Victor was, as any cousin would have been, to learn that Alice had lost her family in a fire, but when his parents told him that she had become mentally unsound, he started to feel disturbed. He and Alice had been good friends when they were younger, playing games and reading stories; all the typical things a child would do. Perhaps it was the thought of seeing her in a coma was what frightened him about going to see her. Not only that, but he would be going by himself, because his parent would be busy with work, and just couldn't get away. It had been a while since her parents had passed, and the doctors had told Victor's parents that her condition had never grown any better, but slowly worse. They though that perhaps a visit from a friend would help her, so that was how Victor was chosen.
As he rode in the carriage to the Ward, Victor's mind wandered through the many things he knew about Alice before the fire that claimed her life and sanity. She never had very many friends, mostly because people thought she had gone mad when she was a child, and wanted nothing to do with her. She had suffered from what the adults called "hallucinations" when she was only seven; though Victor personally believed they were simply dreams. Still, it was whispered that Alice's mind was deteriorating, and that her parents simply were in denial for not putting her in a ward. Now that her parents were gone, Victor's own parents placed Alice in Whittington, in the hopes that she would be safe. This ended up not being the case.
The carriage stopped in front of the stark, stone building that was Whittington Psycological Ward, and Victor stepped out, being sure to brush off his pants so there weren't any wrinkles, and took his luggage down from the box behind the driver. After paying the man, he walked towards the doors, his stomach churning over what sights he may see through the metal, windowless doors.
The building itself had very few windows at all, but through even the closed ones, Victor could hear the cries of patients, the insane shrieks, mad sobs, and insane laughter of the residents. They all chilled Victor's bones, but he walked as resolutely as he could through the doors. Inside, he was greeted by Doctor Burton, the man in charge of Alice's case. He explained that Alice was stable, but required some kind of contact with another human.
"But, if she is in a coma, how can human contact help her?" Victor asked as he watched a nurse help a raving man down the hall.
"It's the only solution we have left for her," the doctor replied. At that moment, the raving man the nurse had been assisting came running back down the dim hall, grabbed another patient, and began to shake him with great force. Victor stepped back, horrified, but the doctor merely rushed to the two men, and with the help of other doctors, pried the lunatic away and stuck a syringe into the man that a nurse had brought. The man calmed almost immediately, and slumped onto the floor, a disturbing smile on his face.
"Well now," Doctor Burton said, coming back as another doctor helped a nurse with the man, "Shall we go see your cousin?"
"May I ask, doctor," Victor said, looking nervously around the hall they walked down, "Is Alice….is she violent, like that man?"
Doctor Burton took a deep sigh, then replied, "Only every now and then. Most of the time, she is quite silent, and never spends time out of her room. Every now and then, though, she goes into a fit of rage, and must be sedated before she'll calm down again."
Victor remained silent after that. It upset him to hear his dear cousin was mad, like that patient in the hall. Still, it didn't seem to be too much of a surprise. He had always guessed that rage was a part of being insane. After aall, why would they call it "going mad"?
Victor looked at the dismal state the ward was in. The lighting overhead was dim, the floors and walls were dingy, and the wholle place smelled of chemicals and uncleanliness. Over all, the place was as disturbing as the patients, and Victor wanted nothing more then to run out the door and go back home. Still, it was for Alice's sake that he was making this trip, so the least he could do was see her once before running out of the building in a panic.
After what seemed like hours, Doctor Burton stopped in front of a door. The numbers on it seemed to have been scratched out, so Victor couldn't read them. Doctor Burton took out a set of keys and unlocked the door, then knocked gently. Victor couldn't be certain, but he thought he heard a small voice say quietly, "Come in," but it was so still and weak, that he wasn't sure. Doctor Burton gave Victor a "prepare yourself" look, and pushed the door open.
A dreadful sight met Victor's eyes. There, her knees clutched tightly to her chest, her hair an unclean and disheveled mess, sat Alice. She was gazing at the door with empty, green eyes. They reminded Victor of dog eyes, for there was almost no life in them at all. Alice's skin was a sickly palour, and she was as skinny as match sticks.
"Alice, you have a visitor today," Doctor Burton said gently. Alice didn't respond, but continued to look at Victor with those same, dead eyes. "It's your cousin, Victor. He's come all the way from Buckinghamshire to see you. Be sure to be on your best behavior." Doctor Burton said all these things in a very slow manner, and it reminded Victor of how a parent would speak to a young child, to be sure they understood. "Go on and greet you cousin, Victor."
Victor stepped forward hesitantly, unsure of what to say. He had never dreamed that anyone he knew would end up like this. His own green eyes looked into Alice's, but found he couldn't for long, and decided to look at her nose instead.
"H-hello, Alice," he said cautiously, and Alice responded with nothing more then a slight sigh.
"I shall leave you alone," Doctor Burton said, turning to leave. "A nurse will be just outside if you need anything, or you see any sort of change."
"Thank you," Victor nodded as Doctor Burton walked out the door. He looked around the room, trying to get a feel for what Alice had to deal with day in and day out.
The room was a small square, with bare, gray walls, and a single window next to the bed. The bed itself look as though it was lumpy, and hardly comfortable to sleep on, but Alice hardly seemed to notice. A small, metal chair was positioned next to the bed, in front of a table, probably for the doctor to take notes on. Victor placed his bag on the table, and sat down slowly on the chair, keeping his feet together and his hands on his lap.
"So, um, ar you doing well here?" Victor asked softly, unsure of what else to say. He never imagined he would speak with a mad person, and his parents had told him to not treat her any differently then he would any other person he would visit, so he decided to give the proper questions as a form of conversation.
Alice did not answer, so Victor just sighed and looked around the room again. "No, I suppose you aren't doing well at all. But that is to be expected after all." A long silence pervaded the room, and Alice's eyes seemed to look at Victor with a certain degree of accusation. The silence was terribly uncomforatble, so Victor felt that maybe so reminiscing would help.
"Do you remember when we were younger? How we used to play all sorts of games? Oh, the hours we spent cricket, or chess, and croquet when it was really nice out…" Alice's eyes narrowed on the word croquet, and it made Victor's stomach tighten. "Okay, so maybe we didn't play that game too much, and I remember that you were never very fond of it. Still, we did have some good times over the old chess board, didn't we?"
Alice glared at this, and Victor almost jumped up from his chair. It seemed Alice didn't like to talk about games, so he changed the subject.
"Well, we did have lots of fun, didn't we? Remember how we would talk about the silly grown-up matters? Like boring books? I still don't like one's with no conversations, though I can read a book with no pictures."
Alice appeared to calm down again, so Victor continued. "Speaking of books, I have met the most interesting man. He came to visit mother and father not too long ago, a Mr. Lewis Carroll. Yes, he was very polite, but I didn't listen too much. They talked about things concerning the church and government, so I grew bored and left. Still, before they grew dull, Mr. Carroll spoke of his interest in writing children's literature. My father thought it was balderdash, to try and write something for children to read, but mother liked the idea. That was when you ended up in the conversation. They talked about, you, and Mr. Carroll had mentioned that he had been to see you."
Alice, who had been resting her head on her knees this whole time, lifted her head slightly, and her eyes showed a faint interest. This seemed good to Victor, so he went on. "Yes, he talked about how he had written down everything you had told him, about Wonderland and all. My father said it was all rubbish, the ravings of a silly person." Victor decided to conceal what his father had really called Alice, and continued. "Anyway, Mr. Carroll said that it may have seemed like nonsense, but that that was what he liked about it. He wanted to publish what he had written, but said that he would give the very first copy to you."
Victor looked into his bag and pulled out a simple book, a hard, green cover and white pages showing the newness of the text. "This is it. It's actually two pieces. He put them together. They're called, Alice in Wonderland, and Through the Looking Glass and What Alice Found There. The titles are rather straight forward, aren't they?"
Alice's eyes just narrowed again, and Victor cleared his throat. "I remember what you told me about Wonderland. I think I liked the Cheshire Cat best. He seemed to be the most sensible to me. The thought of an endless tea party also seemed fun. Do you remember how we would play pretend Wonderland? You were always yourself, and I would be the others? I never much cared for playing the Duchess, but at least she had a small role. You always did have such a fantastic imagination, Alice."
Alice didn't respond, but simply laid down and placed her head on the flat pillow. Her eyes remain open, and she stared blankly at the ceiling. After another uncomfortable silence, Victor looked down at the book in his hand.
"I have not read this yet…shall I read some to you? Then we can see how well he wrote Wonderland." Alice didn't make any movement, and the only sound in the room was her's and Victor's breathing as it echoed off the walls. "I'll take that as a yes," Victor nodded, still nervous about how his cousin may react. Although the doctor had told Victor's parents that Alice had raved about Wonderland, and that these fantasies may have been the cause of her mental instability, Victor felt that perhaps, since it was going to be a children's story, it may do some good to take Alice into a happier place, or at least a less stark land.
"Alice was beginning to get very tired…" Victor began. The story was very well written, even for a children's story, and it looked like the real Alice was paying attention to the story; at least, it looked that way. All the way up to the Cheshire Cat, Alice seemed to listen. She lay on her side, her head still on her pillow, and her eyes still blank, as if she were far away, but listening all the same. However, when he reached the part about the Queen of Hearts, Alice took on a profound change. She clutched at her pillow, and looked like she was trying to rip it apart. Victor was startled out of his reading by this, and immediately closed the book. Alice continued to act violently, and Victor was at a loss at what he should do. He remembered that the nurse was outside, but then recalled how they just gave a shot of something to the lunatic in the hall, and decided to try and stop her himself. She may have scared him, but she was still his cousin.
"Alice," Victor said gently, trying to do as the doctors had done with the man, "It's alright, it's alright. Just try and calm down. We don't have to read anymore." He reached out to her, his hands open, trying to touch her shoulder reassuringly. Alice just swung her pillow at him, and seemed to growl slightly. Victor jerked his hand back, and looked into Alice's eyes. The girl seemed to be screaming in her eyes. They burned with anger, fear, hatred and so many other emotions running in her once dead eyes that Victor almost wished they would go back to their emotionless state.
"Alice, please, it's alright. Please, calm down, I don't want to call those nasty nurses in here. If you make me, though, I will, so please just calm down. It don't want them to give you any of those wretched shots, so please just stop!"
This seemed to get through the tantrum, and Alice stopped for a moment. Quite suddenly, she flopped down on the bed and fell asleep. Victor was breathing faster then usual as he watched his cousin's tantrum end. He moved his hand slowly and touched her shoulder gently, very lightly, not wanting to wake her. She didn't stir, and Victor sighed heavily. It was awful seeing the girl whom he had played with when they were young in such a state, but he knew that it was true. At first, he didn't quite believe it, but now that he had seen a small fit of rage, Victor knew that it was undeniable.
Victor spent the remainder of the day with his cousin. She slept the whole time, and Victor contented himself with reading the rest of Mr. Carroll's book. He must have read right through tea and supper, for he had gotten to the Ward late in the afternoon anyway. The sun was setting as he began to dose, and just as he finished reading about The Walrus and the Carpenter, he fell asleep.
Victor jerked awake, the sound of creaking filling the room. He looked around to see that the room was empty and very dark, with only the light of the half-moon bleeding through the window. Victor stretched and looked around, because the creaking noise continued. He noticed the door was opening slowly, and Victor rose up as Doctor Burton came in.
"Just came to check on you," he said quietly. Victor noticed he was holding something in his hand, and as he stepped into the light from the window, Victor saw it was a ragged, stuffed bunny.
"I brought this," Doctor Burton said, indicating the stuffed rabbit, "It was Alice's when she was a girl. I thought it may help her. Has she done anything out of the ordinary?"
Victor wanted to say that her being here at all was out of the ordinary, but then, he knew the doctor was referring to her typical, blank stare.
"No," Victor lied, "Nothing strange. She fell asleep a little while ago, while I was reading to her."
"Very well," the doctor replied as he placed the bunny next to Alice's head. Alice awoke for a moment, looked at the rabbit, then clutched it slightly and pulled it to her side before falling asleep again.
Doctor Burton didn't say a word as he turned to go, but stopped at the door and asked, "Will you be coming along now, Victor? We have a room set up for you at a little place down the street."
"No, I'll stay with her a little longer," Victor answered. For some reason, seeing her asleep with the moonlight on her pale, thin face, she didn't seem to be quite as frightening as before, and Victor didn't think he could leave her now. Doctor Burton nodded and said, "As you wish," and started to leave. Then he stopped and turned back around. "Here," he said, handing a key to Victor. "This is a copy of the key for the room. A good deal of the patients are locked up for the night, but sometimes we have a problem with attendents not shutting the door properly. The patients like to take advantage of this sometime. Be sure to lock the door when you leave." Victor nodded, not understanding where the man's trust for a young person came from, but decided that it was fine either way. As Victor took the key, the doctor turned and walked through the door, closing it behind him.
Once again, the room was completely dark, with no light from the hall to brighten it. Victor looked down at Alice again, and settled back in the chair, preparing to fall asleep again. He closed his eyes, but heard the door open again. He rolled his eyes as he stood up.
"What is wrong, Doctor Burton?" he asked as he turned around, but didn't see anyone in the dark hallway, just beyond the open door. Shaking his head, and mumbling about the doctor not knowing how to shut a door, he closed the door and sat back down. Just as he did, the door opened again, this time very slowly, and the creaking sound it made sounded more like a scream then a creak. Victor looked to Alice to see if the sound had awoken her, but she hadn't stirred if she was awake, so he got up and tip-toed to th door again, this time, his breath quicker, and his heart beating a little faster then usual.
This time, he closed the door and locked it with the key Doctor Burton had given him. The lock worked on either side of the door, so he locked it, then tried to to open it. It wouldn't budge. Thoroughly pleased with his cleverness, he turned to sit down. The moment he turned, the door opened with a creak, and Victor felt himself shaking, his heart beating hard in his chest. He turned to see the door open fully, and suddenly a gust of wind blasted through the opening. It was cold, and chilled him deeply, but as soon as it started, it stopped, and Victor was panting as the peculiar wind ended.
Forgetting the door, he turned around to see if Alice was well, though he doubted that he himself was. When he looked to his cousin, he jumped, for Alice was sitting up straight, her rabbit held close to her, and her eyes wild with a fright.
"Alice! Alice! Are you alright?" He ran to her bedside and took her hand in his. As he did, she started to mumble something. He could barely understand her at first, but as she spoke, her voice grew louder and louder, each word seeming to have increased to a volume higher then the previous one. Victor would have been able to appreciate that these were the first words he had personally seen her speak, if he wasn't too terrified at the moment to think about it.
"They call me back to heal the land, and bleed the sickness from her veins. To sooth her wounds and hold her hand, until her mind is sane again. And then I'll sleep without the fear; no voices, shivers or attacks. And if my sleepworld's free of tears, I think, perhaps, I'll not come back!"
This last phrase was said with so much force, and was said so loudly, that Victor worried Alice was going beyond any form of madness she had before. She turned her eyes towards his, and he felt completely numb in her gaze. It was so terrifying, that he wanted to shut his eyes, but found that impossible. The wind had started again, this time as powerful as Alice's voice had been, and it whipped around the room with a terrifying ferocity. Alice's hair flew about wildly, and the rabbit that she clung to seemed almost alive. Its button eyes shone with a fire, and Victor started to back away from the pair. He stumbled against the wind, and tripped over the chair behind him. He couldn't even shout, he was so horrified by everything. The wind, the rantings of his cousin, the crazed look of her eyes, and then the stuffed rabbit. All of it was horribly overwhelming, but he couldn't close his eyes to escape it.
The door slammed close as he stumbled to it, and the wind died again. Victor, now probably as crazed as some of the patients turned when he heard bare feet step onto the cold floor. Alice was out of bed, and was walking towards him.
"Stay back!" Victor ordered, backed against the door as flat as he could. Alice ignored him, and continued to move forward. Suddenly, a voice called out from the bed, and both turned to see a small, white rabbit with a top hat, waist coat and pocket watch.
"Please don't dawdle, Alice," it cried, "We are very late indeed!"
Alice only nodded to him, then turned back to Victor. The look she gave him was perhaps the most terrible yet, for it a was a smile. A sweet, innocent, and yet wicked smile, and Victor wanted to scream. However, he quickly found he had another reason to, for, from under the bed, a large crack crawled across the floor towards him and Alice. It spread out like a serpent, and then split apart, until it had completely covered the floor, like a giant, black spider web.
Victor followed the crack's trip with his eyes, and when it stopped, he looked back at his cousin. For a single moment, she seemed to be just as confused as he was, but Victor saw this for only a moment, for with a terrible crashing sound that rose to a crescendo in a mere moment, the entire floor fell away, and the inky blackness below swallowed him, Alice, and the Rabbit up.
As he tumbled down the hole, screaming as he did, his hands stretched out for anything to stop his fall. The moonlight from above shone down the hole, and in its dim light, he saw things lining the hole. A broken cuckoo clock, book shelves, stoves and portraits, seem to hover about him as he fell. He looked around, above and below himself, and he couldn't see his cousin at all. The fall wasn't as fast as it started out as, and he seemed to descend into the darkness below very gently. It was very cold, and he rubbed his arms to ward off the goose bumps that climbed his arms.
"Now I understand what Alice meant about falling downstairs," he mumbled to himself, "I don't believe I'll think much of it either…"
He surprised himself, however, at how calm he had become. The whole situation in Alice's room now seemed so trivial and ridiculous that he felt as though it happened all the time. Still, the rabbit, which, now that he thought of it, was the White Rabbit, was more then a little unnerving. Then, as he considered it, he realized as well that he must be falling down the Rabbit Hole. As a child, he had wanted nothing more then to do this, to fall down, down, down into Wonderland. However, there was also the fact that he always saw Alice's tales as just that, tales. Day-dreams was all he heard when she told him about Wonderland, and the looking-glass, and never did he imagine that he would be falling down the rabbit-hole. But was Alice here with him? Where was she? Victor didn't know, but hoped that he would find out soon, for the light from above was becoming nothing more then a tiny speck. Soon, he was engulfed in darkness once again.
Victor had no idea how long he had fallen, if he had fallen asleep as he was falling, or if he was even alive. There was no way to know anything, and so it came as a sweet relief when he felt his feet touching something solid. Of course, as he had not been moving his feet very much during the fall, they had fallen asleep on him, and when he landed, they fell out from underneath of him. His face hit the ground, and he got a mouthful of dead grass for his trouble. He pushed himself up, a scowl on his face as he spat out the vile-tasting grass, and found himself face to face with a cat who had a huge, and somewhat frightening, grin across its face.
"The Cheshire Cat…" Victor whispered to himself. He recognized the smile, at least from what Alice had told him, but the rest of the cat certainly wasn't what he thought it should look like. It was tall, and rather emaciated, so much so that he could clearly see the cat's skeleton beneath its it ragged fur.
"You've grown mangy cat," Victor heard a young woman say, and he stood up and turned to see his cousin coming from behind him. Alice no longer had her dreadful look, for her hair was now nicely brushed, and framed her still pale, but not nearly as thin, face. Her green eyes seemed to have a bit more life in them, and instead of her dingy patient clothes, she had on her blue dress and starched white apron. Already, Victor was confused, by not only by his cousins change in appearance, but also by the fact that she spoke.
"And you've developed an attitude," the cat replied, "Still willing to learn I hope. Now then, who is this?" he asked, waving his paw towards Victor.
"V-Victor Liddell," Victor answered, "And may I say, this is somewhat of an honor for me."
"The honor isn't mutual," the cat replied, then turned back to Alice for an explanation.
"He is a cousin of mine," Alice replied, walking between Victor and the cat, "Now then, just where is that rabbit? He owes me an explanation for his rude wake-up call."
"I was only doing as I was told," the rabbit insisted, seeming to appear out of nowhere, "After all, you were the one who sent me, Cheshire."
Victor listened to the bickering, and found that he was very confused indeed.