Red Queen Rises

Alice sat motionless in the cold metal chair, staring blankly

ahead as Dr. Bumby paced around her. Her mind felt shattered, like a porcelain doll whose pieces had been glued clumsily back together.

"Your name is Emily," Dr. Bumby said sternly, peering at her

with his beady eyes. "You grew up in an orphanage after your

parents died of cholera. You were always a shy, lonely girl with an overactive imagination."

Alice tried to shake her head, but it felt too heavy to move.

Nothing Dr. Bumby said felt true, yet she could recall nothing of her past to contradict him. "This Wonderland you speak of, these...creatures...they are not real," he continued. "They are malignant manifestations designed  by your troubled mind. You invented them as an escape from your depressing bleak life." Dr. Bumby pulled out his pocket watch and swung it back and forth, its pendulum hypnotizing her. "You will forget Wonderland, Emily. From now on, you are Emily from the orphanage. Say it."

"I...I am Emily from the orphanage," Alice repeated numbly. But deep inside, a small voice screamed that it was a lie. She did not know who she was anymore. Her identity had been lost in a static fog, laying heavily over an abyssal hole, and only madness awaited its finders in the depths of her shattered soul.

"No, my name isn't Emily, and I've seen Wonderland it's as real as you and me," she said weakly, her voice barely more than a whisper. But when she searched her fragmented memories, she found only shadows and distortions where concrete details should be. She remembered following the White Rabbit and tumbling down the rabbit hole. She recalled strange lands and curious creatures, herself a queen of this place where no human dare ventured. But her life before Wonderland was shrouded in fog.

Dr. Bumby regarded her with cold disinterest. "You believe that fairy tale because you want an escape from your reality.

But I am here to free you from delusions and help you face the truth.

Alice squeezed her eyes shut as if trying to block out his words. Her head throbbed with a dull, persistent ache. When she opened her eyes again, for a moment she saw not Dr. Bumby, but the grinning visage of the Cheshire Cat, its purple eyes gleaming with mischief. "No!" she cried, lurching backward in her chair. The cat vanished, leaving Dr. Bumby staring at her with a look of pity and impatience. Alice lowered her head in defeat. Without solid proof, she could not dispute the identity he had given her. Her true self remained as elusive as a dream upon waking.

Dr. Bumby regarded her with a calm but stern expression. 'You are confused, my dear, as any person would be after such trauma. Memories can be distorted by troubled thoughts." He leaned forward intently, his gaze fixing her in place. "You must accept that Wonderland and these..these...creatures you speak of are not real. They are fanciful delusions that your mind invented in an attempt to escape hardship."

Alice's head spun with uncertainty. Could it be possible that

Wonderland was merely a dream? But its images had seemed so vivid, so true.

Dr. Bumby sensed her wavering resolve. "Your memories are

fragmented, like pieces of a broken picture frame. I am here to help you piece them back together in the light of your shining mentality, not dark fantasy. You must trust my guidance if you want to heal." His words carried an ominous conviction that shook Alice to her core. As her grip on identity and perception slipped further into the abyss, Dr. Bumby seemed the sole anchor in a sea of overwhelming mental anguish. But could she trust the man who claimed to reshape

her very soul?

That night, as Alice tossed fitfully in her cell, Wonderland invaded her dreams. She found herself in a dense forest, the gnarled trees stretching endlessly in every direction. Fog swirled at her feet as she ran, panic rising in her chest.

From the mist emerged twisted forms - cards soldiers with

leering grins, wielding pikes and swords. At their lead marched what appeared to be herself, her face contorted with rage.

"Off with her head!" the she shrieked. The cards charged at Alice with a roar. She pumped her legs furiously, dodging their jabbing weapons as they swung wildly and tried to gore.

Ahead, a crimson figure appeared through the trees, it was her again but she was grinning happily and at her feet, The

Cheshire Cat beckoned to her, its grin wide and toothy. Alice

followed blindly as the cat led her deeper into the woods.

Behind, the sounds of pursuit grew closer. Cold metal fingers

grasped at her neck. With a cry, Alice jolted awake, heart

pounding against her ribs. The forest had disappeared, but the Queen's malevolent laughter seemed to echo endlessly through the asylum corridors.

In her cell once more, Alice found no escape from the terrors of Wonderland that haunted her dreams. Alice awoke with a start, drenched in cold sweat. The remnants of her nightmare still clung to her like cobwebs. At breakfast, she stared vacantly at the grimy mirror hanging above the washbasin. A beautiful, yellow-eyed girl stared back,

skin flawless, it was her as the queen on the throne. But Alice felt detached from this stranger, as if gazing at someone else entirely.

"Who are you?" she mouthed silently.

The girl in the glass brushed her against the mirror wildly. The closer she got, the more the doppleganger started smiling. Then it let out a hot breath, consuming the mirror with filament and her message read, "I am a part of you, your apart of me and together we are Wonderland's Red Queen."

Remorse etched on Alice's mouth, she muttered, "I can't remember, I'm sorry," sticking her open palm to the glass. Tears streamed down her cheeks as the apparition's eyes shifted from her face to her hand, mirroring her actions. Its face and eyes returned to her gaze, its smile now sinister, with cat-like pupils glowing in the darkness. Leaning in, she fogged the mirror once more, revealing the message, "It is time." Suddenly, her hand was seized from the other side of the mirror, pulling her through the looking glass. As the apparition passed through, Alice was thrust back into the mirror, trapped as it returned to its original state with no trace of her escape attempt. Desperate, she pounded on the glass, tears blurring her vision as the apparition walked away, leaving her in a murky, twilit parallel realm. She sensed something approaching from behind, and before she could turn, a voice asked, "A cup of tea, my dear?" A smile spread across her face as she recognized the familiar question.

Doubts writhed within Alice like voracious rodents. What if Dr. Bumby was correct, and she was not Alice at all, but another lost soul drowning in a sea of shattered memories? Maybe Wonderland was her true home, the other reality a figment of her broken psyche. Without a stable sense of self, she feared being swallowed whole by the endless void.

Her reflection taunted her, a pale imitation of a true person. Desperate, Alice splashed her face with cold water, yet the new girl in the mirror remained, her gaze vacant and judgmental. Shuddering, Alice turned away, questioning who it was staring back at her. The girl was weak and gaunt, her identity slipping into the fray, replaced by a terrifying abyss of sinister dreams. As she turned to accept the cup from the man that read, "Drink me," she knew she was losing herself to this twisted Wonderland.

Dr. Bumby's session that day was very unexpected. "You killed your family, Emily," he said calmly, watching her

reaction closely. "One night, in a fit of madness, you seized an axe and hacked them to pieces. Their blood is on your hands."

Alice shook her head frantically. "No, it can't be true!" But with her memories blurred, she could not disprove the horrific claim since it was not alice but she who was playing his games with Alice trapped behind Wonderland's mirror frame the Red Queen had come out to play.

The doctor's voice took on a hypnotic tone. "You were always

unstable, prone to fits of rage. The pressure overcame you that night. You've repressed the grisly truth because you can't bear it."

Images flashed in Alice's mind - a dim room, screams cut short, slick crimson coating her hands. She laughed hysterically, twisting her head violently.

"You're lying!" she fakefully cried. But even she heard the lack of conviction in her own voice. Without a solid identity, how could she call anything a lie? Dr. Bumby seemed determined to replace her memories with these twisted new ones and without proof, yet the Red Queen could not resist the insidious invasion of the little man as she continued to goof. "I have caused much destruction throughout my existence. So, what evidence do you have? Each crime I leave behind a clue, a painting created with my trusty axe as my brush. Let's determine if your narrative holds true or if your lies have entangled you in a fatal mistake." For the first time, Bumby saw a malevolent grin consume Alice's face.

Dr. Bumby took a step away, his brow furrowed. "A-Alice?" He asked his lip quivered midsentence and again at the end.

With a sharp snap, Alice broke the left strap of her wrist restraint, filling the room with a resounding echo before leaving behind an unnerving silence. The Red Queen, with her now glowing eyes, never averted her gaze from Dr. Bumby. Then, with a whisper barely audible and a devilish grin, she muttered, "Wrong. Try again."

With unsteady steps, he inched closer to the door, revealing a puddle of urine on his pants. It trickled down his knees, seeping into his shoe and staining the floor. "Emily?" he stuttered, his voice resembling a desperate cry, shaking his head in disbelief at what stood before him.

Swiftly, she snapped the restraints with her other hand and vanished, leaving his mind frozen in time. The room filled with her voice, declaring, "No fool, it is I. For what you did to my dear Alice, I shall make you suffer till you wished you weren't alive."

His face regained its mobility as he whispered, "No... No... You can not be real?" His body followed suit, frantically scanning the room for any sign of her, but to no avail. He sprinted towards the door, fumbling with the keys in his haste to unlock it. He struggled, dropping the keys not once but twice as if she were breathing down his neck. Peals of her laughter engulfed the torture chamber as he finally found the key. Letting out a relieved sigh, he inserted it into the keyhole and turned. The click of the door echoed alongside the squeaky hinge as it swung open he was free.

Just as he was about to flee, a force collided with his chest, and as he looked up, suspended in midair, the Queen stood on the other side of the chasm with her outstretched palm, thrusting him back to the very place he longed to escape from. On the ground, she leaned down, her soft hands firmly gripping his. Bringing his hand close to her chest, his eyes glazed over as if under a spell. The trance spread throughout his body, and he rose like a puppet, strings attached to her mental manipulator.

With a giggle, "Dr. Bumby, my little marionette, do what your queen demands."

He walked over and grasped a serated blade, maintaining a face emotionless but his eyes and breathing frantic. Making his way back to his own torture seat he sat breathing erratic, you could hear whimpers in his voice as he was cast under this witches magic and unable to move anything but his eyes he was most surely beginning to panic.

She walked past brushing her hand seductively down his cheek, "You look famished you should eat." Making her way to the door, she picked up the fallen keys. It groaned, opened, and squealed closed sealing. Dr. Bumby in his homemade coffin of his own torturous devices. His face looked down, his eyeballs looking around the room wildly trying to escape this prison of his own flesh. As the spellbound corpse grabbed the blade and plunged it beneath his chest, sawing towards his pelvis. The sound he could hear as his stomach fell out. He couldn't even wince or close his eyelids, and they were open wide, leaving his eyeballs to prowl.  Scream and scream he tried to push out as his hands grasped the horror of the gore splayed, pummeling them to his mouth hearing his jaw chomping an undescribable pain wreaked havoc on his physical and mentality. And not a moment was spared as he watched as he ate and regurgitated eating more and more of his own devoured stomach rot. He begged in his mind for it to stop, but it did not for what seemed like an eternity. Then as if nothing happened he returned to where he had been standing, and Alice walked in, repeating their last session from the beginning. The door closed behind her escorting orderly as they made their leave.

"You wanted to see me, Dr.Bumby," she smirked with a grin.

Bumby stepped back and repeated the act time and time again in a continuous loop till eventually a session started, and he collapsed, clawing the eyes out of their sockets. A feral scream lurched deep from within as the orderlies subdued him with the same syringe Alice befell on the regular from their pocket.

His mind had been driven to madness by the Red Queen, and he was far from done. She snapped her fingers, and another lapse begun. He stared defeated dropping to his knees distraught screaming, "Please let this end!"

"You had your chance to do the same for poor Alice? Is that what you did? Doctor?" Her smile faded for the first time since her reveal.

Snot and drool flooded from his nostrils and mouth as he sobbed, crying out, "I'll do anything. Please make it stop."

She leaned down, grasping his hair, her face now a scowl, "Your doing exactly what I want for you to do, and you'll keep doing it till I'm sufficed with your punishment. Till then..." she punched his jaw, breaking it almost completely off as flesh held on with a desperate grip. Blood oozed as did the sound of a dying animal out the gaping hole that was now his mouth. "Keep your mouth shut. Next time you interrupt, I'll make you eat something else of yours even more horrific and sick." Her eyes moved down to his prick and he whimpered a fearful howl holding his jaw up as tears from his eyes fell down. Bumby's torment resumed with no possible end, each time becoming worse if he insist to resist. A bitter end some would say he deserved, others a little extreme, I suppose, but who knows what one should suffer. What vengeance is too much? For destroying a young girls mind just because? Regardless as the horrors resumed, Bumby knew in the end his life was gone when it all came to a close. His price for his crimes was a living hell and his eternal soul.

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