Brainstorm

Alice awoke in a cold sweat, her body aching all over. Harsh fluorescent lights blinded her as orderlies strapped her wrists and ankles to a metal table. Dr. Bumby loomed over her, his eyes sparkling with sadistic curiosity. "Let's see if we can fry that Wonderland right out of your brain,"he said, affixing electrodes to Alice's temples.

Without warning, excruciating pain shot through Alice's body as electricity coursed through her. She screamed and convulsed, feeling as though her skull might split open. Through watery eyes, she saw Dr. Bumby watching intently, adjusting the voltage higher. Agony overwhelmed Alice's senses. Her back arched off the table as muscles seized uncontrollably. Through it all, Dr. Bumby took notes, his expression one of detached fascination.

Finally, the torture stopped. Alice lay limp and shuddering, saliva dripping from her mouth. Dr. Bumby leaned over her, hisface blurry through her tears.

"Tell me about Wonderland," he demanded. But Alice had sunk too deep into shock and misery to respond. She could only weep silently as darkness closed in. Alice awoke shivering on the cold floor of her cell. Her mind felt scrambled and raw from the electroshock treatment.

Dr. Bumby knelt beside her, his face swimming in her blurred vision. "How are you feeling, my dear?"

"I...I can't remember," Alice whispered. "Wonderland is gone."

"Good," Dr. Bumby soothed. "Those delusions will only hold you back from recovering. Soon you'll forget they ever existed."

Alice trembled, clutching at wisps of fading memories. Faces and places she once knew had dissolved into the fog of her fried mind.

"You're safe now," Dr. Bumby assured her. "Let go of the past and focus on getting well. This is for your own good, Alice. Trust that I know what's best."

His words echoed in Alice's muddled mind as darkness closed over her once more. She had lost the last remnants of who she was, sinking deeper into the abyss of her shattered self. Alice lay in her cell, staring blankly at the walls. Her mind felt like a shattered mirror, fragmented memories cutting her already bleeding brain grasping at images that never fully appeared. She tried to recall her mother's face, but saw only a blur. Snatches of a nursery rhyme drifted through the fog, haunting and distorted.

Flashes of color and movement tormented her: a grinning cat, playing cards with cruel faces, trees with eyes that wept blood. Alice clutched her head, whimpering. Who am I? she thought desperately. Am I mad, or is this place driving me mad?

A memory surfaced of following a white creature down a hole. But had it been real, or was it another delusion? Doubt gnawed at her like a parasite. Exhausted, Alice curled into a ball, tears leaking from unseeing eyes. Her identity had been stripped away, leaving only a hollow shell of a girl locked inside an illusion with no escape.

All that was left was a void. Alice sat huddled in her cell, lost in a waking nightmare. Dr. Bumby appeared, his eyes glittering coldly. "My dear, there is something you must face," he said softly. "About what really happened to your parents."

Alice trembled, clutching at the tattered remnants of her memory. "I...I can't remember. I cant remember their faces. Why?"

"They were ashamed of your madness, my child," Dr. Bumby continued, his voice oozing false sympathy." In a fit of insanity, you turned on them with an axe. That is why you were sent here- to atone for your sins."

"No!" Alice cried, hands over her ears. "I wouldn't...I couldn't..."

But Dr. Bumby's words had taken root like a weed in her mind. Images flashed behind her eyes, an axe dripping with blood, her parents' lifeless bodies broken and twisted.

"You killed them, Alice. You are a murderer. And you will never leave this place," Dr. Bumby whispered. Then he was gone, leaving Alice alone with the darkness and her new revelation. Alice sank to the floor, clutching her head as horrifying visions assaulted her.

A towering figure in red appeared, its face a grinning version of her own, "Murderer," it cackled. "You killed them all. And you loved every minute of it. You loved the noise the axe made as it cut through flesh, you just kept hacking and hacking."

"No!" Alice screamed. "It wasn't me!"

The Red Queen threw back its head and laughed, the sound echoing in Alice's skull. She scrambled away, backing into the wall.

"You'll never escape me," the apparition hissed. Its form began to warp and twist, becoming a mass of twisted limbs and grinning faces. Each a mutation mirror image of her own.

Rage and terror overtook Alice. With a wordless howl, she launched herself at the cell door, pounding it with her fists. "Get out!" she shrieked. "Leave me alone!"

But the Red Queen had vanished, leaving Alice thrashing wildly as her screams dissolved into hysterical laughter. She had lost the last shreds of her sanity, swallowed whole by the darkness within. The orderlies burst into Alice's cell, alarmed by her screams. She whipped around, eyes wild with madness and fear. "No!" she shrieked. "Get away!" But the men were too strong. They grabbed Alice's flailing limbs and wrestled her to the floor as she kicked and bit like a feral animal.

"Hold her down!" one orderly grunted as Alice's elbow caught him in the jaw. They pinned her down, ignoring her screams and pleas. One produced a syringe and jabbed it into Alice's arm. Within moments, her struggles began to weaken. Alice thrashed a few more times before going limp, panting heavily. Tears streamed down her face as the drug took hold, dragging her back into nothingness .The orderlies watched warily but she no longer had the strength to fight. Her eyes rolled back in her head as exhaustion claimed her at last. Then there was only silence in the ruined cell, Alice's still form sprawled on the bloody floor.

Another lost soul claimed by Rutledge's shadows. Alice awoke to find herself strapped to a bed, her body aching. Dr. Bumby sat beside her, regarding her kindly. "You gave us all quite a fright, my dear. But it's over now. You're safe."

"A...,"Alice croaked. "Where..."

"Hush now, don't strain yourself. You've been very ill," Dr. Bumby soothed. "Your mind is broken, shattered by these delusions. But I can help put you back together." He took her limp hand in his. "I know the memories torment you. The pain, the fear, the guilt. But I can make it all go away, wipe your slate clean. You'll be free of this dark energy." His words wrapped around Alice's battered mind like a poisonous vine. "To forget - what a blessing that would be. Let me heal you, Alice. Trust in me as your doctor, your friend. Soon this will all seem like a bad dream. You need only obey me, and the shadows will disappear. Now rest. I will be here when you wake."

Alice drifted in and out of consciousness, her mindfloating in a haze of drugs. As she faded, she heard a familiar voice whispering urgently. "Alice...Alice...you mustn't forget. Wonderland needs you."

She forced open heavy eyelids to see the White Rabbit peering at her from the foot of the bed, its red eyes gleaming.

"Forget...Dr. Bumby said..."Alice mumbled. "Make it stop."

"No! Wonderland is real, you must believe!" The Rabbit cried. "He wants to steal your soul, Alice! You can't let him win!"

But Alice was too weak to respond as darkness pulled her under once more. As she slipped away, the Rabbit's pleas dissolved into the distance. Wonderland, her true self - all were slipping through her grasping fingers like sand. Then there was nothing, as Alice surrendered fully to the void.

Alice opened her eyes to find herself standing alone in a dark forest. Twisted trees reached for the sky like gnarled fingers. She was back in Wonderland. But this place was different - decaying, diseased. The grass underfoot was brown and brittle.

"Hello?" Alice called, her voice small in the vast silence. "Is anyone there?"

Only the wind answered, sighing through dead branches. Alice shivered and walked on, drawn deeper into the woods by some unseen force. As she walked, the forest grew denser around her. The trees' bark was black and peeling, their eyes hollow sockets leaking thick fluid. Alice stumbled over gnarled roots, her breath coming faster.

A flash of movement - the Cheshire Cat's grin, melting back into the shadows. Alice spun, heart pounding. "Where are you? What do you want from me?"

"I want you to embrace me again. To clutch and hold me. To release me from this prison. I want freedom. I promise not to be a naughty girl anymore," Her voice echoed inside her mind, or was it her own. She didn't know anymore, she folded to the ground and let out an unintelligible scream sobbing.

Her cries dissolved into mad laughter that echoed through the abandoned woods. Alice had lost herself in Wonderland's rotting corpse, her mind crumbling into the abyss along with this cursed place. She saw a phasing version of herself phasing in and out sliding a knife around her face then peeling it off revealing the meat and skeleton beneath.

"No more! Please, no more!" Her pleas answered as the doppleganger vanished with laughter but now there was only silence. She was alone with the ghosts of her broken soul. Alice continued sobbing as the trees creaked ominously above her. Which was real - this place or the asylum? Neither or both?

She didn't know how long she had layed there before feeling strong hands gripping her arms, dragging her upright. Orderlies, she thought dimly. No, could it be the Queen's guards had found her at last. A flicker of memories of Wonderland flooding back. Yes and I'm Alice, that was the Red queen... Then an ignition of her inner ember to fight also resurrected and raged inside, she launched a surprise attack on the unknown assailants. On her right she lunged with a fist then a swipe digging her nail in peeling the skin on his face claws gouging out his eye. Then elbowed the one behind her in the face that came running to grab her from the back when he realized she was no longer zombified. From her side she was lifted and slammed by the one who had the large meaty hands. Her breath winded, yet when he tried to pin her she punched him in the Adam's apple as hard as she could his face swollen instantly unable to get air in and out instead just blood poured out his mouth and she rolled out of his path as his lifeless body hit the ground.

She stood triumphantly then a sharp pain and a fog covered her vision, instantly her thought was these fucking orderlies and their syringes. Four surrounded her and she collapsed to the floor. Her brain bruised and beat she couldn't take another defeat as she collapsed outreaching towards the window. She blinked and she was strapped to a rolling table.

Alice thrashed and screamed but they held her fast, bearing her away in this place designed by her distorted mind or an architect who'd gone mad. As she was carried deeper into the woods, the trees melted away into damp stone walls. Rutledge. An illusion within an illusion within a nightmare with no end. How deep does the Rabbit Hole decend? Alice's mind had shattered completely, mentality splintering into a kaleidoscope of possible augmented realitys. Dr. Bumby's face swam before her, his mouth twisting into the Red Queens. "Welcome back to Wonderland, my dear." And the flip of a switch sounded throughout the room. Pain surged and surged and suddenly it numbed, the sound of electric fading into the distance her ears left with a faint hum. What had she done to deserve these tortures. Inside her mind she looked for an answer but she couldn't find anything in the mush other than her name amongst the scattered remenents of the place she once called Wonderland.

The platform she stood on slowly faded away, she dropped to her knees as she watched her memories all dissappear with each electric shock. She closed her eyes and repeated her name so it would be burned permanently in her mouth.

Alice. She repeated. Alice. Then another flick. And she felt the ground beneath her feat crumble away. Falling deeper down the hole still whispering "Alice.. Alice," flick and that too disappeared into a cloud of dust, plunging her in nothingness. Trapped in its inky void, lost between worlds, her identity torn to pieces. Now there was only the spiral into the depths of her soul plummeting so very deep down the rabbit hole. This was her home now - a place where light and reason could never find her because there was nothing left to find, just an empty shell whose insides are cooked, roasted, and shoved on a plate for Dr. Bumby. Another flick echoed and Alice was gone.

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