Avra stood motionless, trying to make sense of her surroundings. The world around her had grown eerily quiet. The chaos, the overwhelming rush of adrenaline from earlier, seemed to evaporate into nothingness. What had once been a vibrant and threatening Wonderland now felt like an old, forgotten memory—a faded photograph that no longer sparked any emotions.

Devereux had gone silent after his last words. He stood there, almost bored, as though everything around them no longer mattered. The towering trees that lined the clearing swayed lightly in the breeze, but their leaves barely rustled, almost as if they were tired, exhausted from the world they had once been part of.

Avra glanced around the desolate landscape, where the once-beautiful garden seemed to have dulled in color, the flowers looking lifeless and still. The air was thick with a sense of stagnation. It wasn’t the stillness of peace; it was the stillness of something waiting—waiting for something to break, to stir things up, to make them move again.

“Why is it so quiet?” Avra finally asked, breaking the silence that had settled over them like a heavy blanket.

Devereux didn’t answer at first. He looked at her as if her question had caught him off guard. Then, his lips curled into a faint, almost nostalgic smile. “Because Wonderland is tired, Avra. It’s been a long time since anyone truly believed in its magic.”

His voice was almost too soft now, lacking the sharp edge it had earlier. Avra couldn’t help but wonder if this was the real Devereux—a man who had built this place but had long since lost the fire that had created it.

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She shifted her weight, the ground beneath her feet soft and squishy, as though the earth itself was unsure of its own stability. “What happened to it?” she asked, her voice barely more than a whisper.

“It lost its purpose,” Devereux said, his gaze drifting far off into the distance. “Wonderland was meant to be a sanctuary, a place for dreams. But like all things that are given too much time, too much freedom… they begin to fall apart. And the dreamers… the ones who used to come here… they stopped dreaming.”

Avra felt an odd chill crawl up her spine as Devereux’s words seemed to settle in her mind. She couldn’t quite explain why, but his calmness now unnerved her more than his earlier intensity. There was something about the way he spoke—like he had already given up. Like he knew that whatever had happened here could not be undone.

“Is that what this is? A dream gone wrong?” she asked, unsure if she wanted an answer.

Devereux didn’t reply immediately. Instead, he looked at her with a strange, almost empty gaze, as if he were seeing her for the first time. Then, slowly, he nodded. “Yes. A dream that became a nightmare, but only because no one was there to wake up.”

A distant sound caught Avra’s attention—faint, like something stirring just beyond the trees. For a brief moment, she thought she saw the outline of figures moving in the far distance, their shapes hazy and indistinct, but the longer she looked, the more they disappeared into the shadows.

She turned back to Devereux, wanting to ask about the figures, but something in his expression made her hesitate. He was staring at her now with a cold intensity, like a man who had seen too much and had nothing left to give.

“Do you think you’ll ever leave this place?” Avra asked, though she already knew the answer. She was beginning to understand that Wonderland was not a place that allowed for escape.

Devereux didn’t respond right away. He stared at the ground, and for a moment, it seemed as though he was lost in his thoughts. “Leave? Wonderland is both a prison and a reflection, Avra. You can never leave because you never truly arrive. We’re all stuck in it, just like you.”

The words hit Avra like a cold wave, the weight of their meaning pressing on her chest. She couldn’t tell if he was trying to comfort her or if he was simply telling her the harsh truth.

The stillness around them lingered, heavy and suffocating. The world, it seemed, had stopped moving altogether. Nothing stirred in the air; nothing rustled in the trees. For the first time, Avra realized that Wonderland was not a place of chaos—it was a place of waiting.

And in that waiting, something was beginning to stir.