tried to follow the stripes on the floor, but in her state she couldn’t understand how they worked. She passed a hallway where 2 green strips and two yellow strips intersected, came to a “T” intersection and opted to follow a thick red stripe. She had the sense of someone standing right behind her, and she looked back often to see only empty hallway. She felt as though she were shrinking inside her body one moment and growing the next. The sense of movement within herself was making her dizzy, and she stumbled more than once.
There were people in the hall, but they were phantoms to Alice; she barely made note of their passing. She kept her head down and her shoulder to the wall. As she walked, her mind began to separate the two sets of memories mixed up in her head.
At some point she had killed a man, she was fairly certain. The electric ball of static at the center of that black and white world had slowly receded until bits and pieces of another memory began showing through; one where she was stabbed in her ass again and again and blew some guys brains out. She was also sure, at some point, she had seen her friend Rabbit dressed in a checkered vest and running for his life. He’d stopped and shot her up. She’d washed blood off in a mud puddle and fallen through her reflection in the water at the same time...
...into an emerald-lit hall with many doors and wisps of people floating like phantoms about her. Just like now. But that was impossible . And there lay the paradox that was threatening to rip her skull apart. Things like that didn’t just happen . You didn’t just fall into a mud puddle and end up somewhere else. That wasn’t how life worked.
Had she fallen into the hospital?
Alice stopped and looked around. Had she been in the hospital looking for Rabbit before the tea party? The hallway she was in now did seem like it was the same hallway from memory, except this hallway had doors...and that other hallway had only one tiny door. Her only memory of arriving to this point had been falling into the water while she was washing blood from her face and hands. And that just didn’t make sense.
The nurse had been asking her about heroin. Was the answer so simple?
She couldn’t remember looking for Rabbit in the hospital because she’d been high the first time she tried to find him. So she’d stumbled around not realizing where she was, and somehow ended up having tea with The March Hare, the Dormouse, and The Mad Hater. And she let Rabbit fuck her. Before or after…
The Royal Court. The Queen of Hearts. Alice had never seen so much blood in all her life. She’d never imagined the level of brutality the woman was capable of. And utterly, completely, insane. It was as though the Red Queen flipped a coin every time she opened her mouth.
Heads. Lucidity.
Tails. Chaos.
But more than the wet stink of the butchered bodies, shit and vomit on pressed silk smells and stark contrasting colours, ripped flesh and blood puddling around their feet and the sweaty grunting of the queen’s servants as they cleared a path for their Bitch Goddess to her throne—more than all of that was the voice of the queen, when she opened her mouth and insanity poured from behind her teeth. Her parched, whisper dry voice screeching and chanting:
Meat is murder!
Meat is Murder!
Meat is Murder!
Meat is Murder!
The lines overlapped when Alice thought back to the Courtyard. She’d looked up at the Queen of Hearts, and the woman had looked back down, eyes wide and electric with her insanity. Her red hair splashed out away from her face like a crooked halo. Her mouth ripped across her face in a snarl, revealing crooked, yellow teeth. Hundreds of them, maybe. Jammed into her mouth haphazardly, angling this way and that way, and behind them her forked black tongue. And as she screamed in Alice’s upturned face, her hot meat breath washed over Alice like an infernal
There were people in the hall, but they were phantoms to Alice; she barely made note of their passing. She kept her head down and her shoulder to the wall. As she walked, her mind began to separate the two sets of memories mixed up in her head.
At some point she had killed a man, she was fairly certain. The electric ball of static at the center of that black and white world had slowly receded until bits and pieces of another memory began showing through; one where she was stabbed in her ass again and again and blew some guys brains out. She was also sure, at some point, she had seen her friend Rabbit dressed in a checkered vest and running for his life. He’d stopped and shot her up. She’d washed blood off in a mud puddle and fallen through her reflection in the water at the same time...
...into an emerald-lit hall with many doors and wisps of people floating like phantoms about her. Just like now. But that was impossible . And there lay the paradox that was threatening to rip her skull apart. Things like that didn’t just happen . You didn’t just fall into a mud puddle and end up somewhere else. That wasn’t how life worked.
Had she fallen into the hospital?
Alice stopped and looked around. Had she been in the hospital looking for Rabbit before the tea party? The hallway she was in now did seem like it was the same hallway from memory, except this hallway had doors...and that other hallway had only one tiny door. Her only memory of arriving to this point had been falling into the water while she was washing blood from her face and hands. And that just didn’t make sense.
The nurse had been asking her about heroin. Was the answer so simple?
She couldn’t remember looking for Rabbit in the hospital because she’d been high the first time she tried to find him. So she’d stumbled around not realizing where she was, and somehow ended up having tea with The March Hare, the Dormouse, and The Mad Hater. And she let Rabbit fuck her. Before or after…
The Royal Court. The Queen of Hearts. Alice had never seen so much blood in all her life. She’d never imagined the level of brutality the woman was capable of. And utterly, completely, insane. It was as though the Red Queen flipped a coin every time she opened her mouth.
Heads. Lucidity.
Tails. Chaos.
But more than the wet stink of the butchered bodies, shit and vomit on pressed silk smells and stark contrasting colours, ripped flesh and blood puddling around their feet and the sweaty grunting of the queen’s servants as they cleared a path for their Bitch Goddess to her throne—more than all of that was the voice of the queen, when she opened her mouth and insanity poured from behind her teeth. Her parched, whisper dry voice screeching and chanting:
Meat is murder!
Meat is Murder!
Meat is Murder!
Meat is Murder!
The lines overlapped when Alice thought back to the Courtyard. She’d looked up at the Queen of Hearts, and the woman had looked back down, eyes wide and electric with her insanity. Her red hair splashed out away from her face like a crooked halo. Her mouth ripped across her face in a snarl, revealing crooked, yellow teeth. Hundreds of them, maybe. Jammed into her mouth haphazardly, angling this way and that way, and behind them her forked black tongue. And as she screamed in Alice’s upturned face, her hot meat breath washed over Alice like an infernal
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