The Prelude: When the Eyes Close
In the far left corner of a depreciated room, where light has long since fully described what remains, sits a faded, brown, variously burnt, three legged-wooden chair. (I have always thought that saying where a chair is sitting was one of the world’s most wondrous play on words; though I struggle to fully decide if a chair sits or does it stand?) Dust swims around as if it were alive itself, bathing in the darkness and flirting with the depths. The cool air is so sweet to breathe, yet it takes hold of my spine no matter how thick of clothing I wear. My fears, the demons that haunt me are here, and I know what I say is true because she shows me; every time I drift to sleep.
This little girl, with an elegant dress of late Victorian stature, walks around the room in this way and that; it’s never the same. The bottom of her skirt sways against the floor and brushes the walls as she throws it back and forth. The sound of echos makes it feel as if I were lost at sea, about to be swallowed into the crushing abyss. The idea of escape becomes impossible, and the dust catches on the fright-raised-hairs-of-my-skin as she begins to laugh...
… Her happiness is my despair as I knew her once before a lifetime, but because of me, I lost her.
Her laugh is one that knows that something terrible is about to happen but just thinks it’s part of a game. My skin tightens. I feel nothing inside as I am hollowed out by fear. Though I stare blankly into the void of her direction, I pray to dream away the inevitable screams. Then, she sits down. The sound of the wooden chair reaches my ears as she begins to move around to get comfortable. She gurgles. The sound is soft at first, calm and gentle, like a baby's slur when trying to make words, but as the moment goes on, her efforts to speak turn beastly. She begins to change.
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This madness feels like painful memories stuck on a carousel, and I curl into a ball hoping she won’t be able to find me; I am lost in delusion. The sound of her breaking bones makes me feel as if they were mine. The pouring of blood onto the floor helps describe the never ending tearing of flesh from her body as the black of the corner grows deeper and deeper.
She starts to giggle. I see her hands slam against the wood floor and the darkness of the corner begins to spread. I want to cry out when I see her fingernails rip away from her fragile, child hands as she slowly and heavily drags them towards her body.
She is fully taken by the shadows, but this nightmare forces me to look on. Chaotic glimpses of her transformation are caught as she is thrown about by convulsions of her whole body. At last, what is left of her, she is motionless. Her folded forward body rests in the undetailed border of light where she appears to be anyone or anything, but the odor of copper undertones mutilation.
Her heavy breathing shortens her laughs, and she cackles even as her teeth begin to fall into the strips of her torn away face. I do not sweat anymore; it only helps her to find me faster. She grows in shape. She becomes giant. My tears fall, but I do not blink. There is no child but a terrible truth.
(A frantic shake of my head occurs, and my eyes are open in the dark again)
The Prologue
In the most subtle of whisps, the gentlest of notions, a thought that beats but a fraction of a blink, is how the Hatter came to be. However, introductions will have to come first before the beginning of any madness; that’s the only way to make any sense.
Where they were born, who their parents were, how they were as children or how they grew up, doesn’t make any difference because it didn’t make any difference to them. They both were who they were on account of how they wanted to be; by their own accord. The past was then, the future was always a trifle distance ahead, and now, is exactly where they wanted to abide. That is, until the day they met.