[A/N: Now much longer than the first chapter. Wow. I really didn't expect that much positive feedback. I'll be revealing more and more in the coming chapters, so please, wait until you get your answers. It's not fun anymore if I reveal everything in just a single chapter, no? Rip it up to bits.]
Alice Who Lives Down the Rabbit Hole; Ch. 2
The Mirror
Cool, icy orbs eyed the gleaming string of metal binding the little marionette’s form, seeming to originate from everywhere and nowhere at all. Round, sapphire little spheres wandered slow and unfazed to her wrists, her neck, her ankles, too, where they held her in place. Poor thing, she thought, trapped and all alone, while in turn not noticing her own misfortune. The only point she realized is that she was immobile, and cannot even stand up to lace up the beautiful, well-tailored little boots which adorned her soft little feet. They’ve come undone for some reason, and she was more than tempted to tighten them and lace them up, to start roaming about the room in them, to go adventuring everywhere with them on. They’d be the envy of anyone who saw them. And so she strained to reach them, despite her bind.
A sudden glistening caught her eye.
It was strange; she never noticed this before, but there it was, standing straight and solid, facing her.
A full-length mirror.
And the marionette she saw across herself was she.
She had never seen herself in a mirror before, but the boots her opposite wore gave the fact away, since they were the same as her own. She had considered the fact that this one across her might not really be herself, but the way she seemed to mimic her every gesture proved her certain. Her dress - a puffy sleeved white frock with frills about the bodice and a beautiful, flowing red sash about the waist, adorned with ribbons and pearls for buttons - was also the same with the reflection's, she concluded as she glanced back and forth from the mirror to her own form.
Willing to use the presence of this unobtrusive object – at least, she prays it to be so – to her advantage, she studied the room through it. Why she couldn’t just turn her little golden head to take a look around, you might ask? Sadly, though, as much as she wanted to, all that encompassed her view whenever she does so is blank space, whitewashed walls; nothingness. All that were prominent in detail were that one single window where she watched the sky from and that odd, minute door where her meals were presented.
But the mirror was different.
It was strange that she hadn't noticed anything else ever before. It's as if she were blinded by some kind of veil; a veil which conceals the truth. Is this her master's work? Certainly, he didn't want her to witness what was going on about her, maybe as part of her punishment.
Now she knew why.
He did this to present her with fear.
All kinds of oddities resided in this room - very large, at that matter - from a ridiculously huge cat, preening its colossal black wings and staring her down with green, slitted, transparent globes for eyes. It was beautiful, yes; but in an instant, it could eat her whole if ever it pleased to do so. The feline licked at its white-booted paws, fur reflecting the sunlight back in a much darker shade, as dark as midnight. The floor was checkered with black and white, like a chessboard. More so like one with towering sculptures of a knight and a king belittled her already diminutive form, casting a sinister shadow over her head and dimming her view of anything else in the mirror, but not enough to block out all that went on opposite it.
There were little winged mice scurrying around, and the cat was catching them by the tail and shoving them inside a gigantic golden cage with brass bars and copper swings inside them, for the mice to play inside. They would go wild and zip about the cage at first, just as they do when they were at large, but then they would settle down and sing the naughtiest of carols she had ever heard in her lifetime. With each shrill carol they sang, she giggled uncontrollably, but then reprimanded herself for being such a dreadful girl. And then, at some brief moment, she thought – if she were to sprout wings and be able to fly like the cat and those little mice, will she be able to free herself?
After each catch, the cat would lick at the underside of its snowy paws, soft and pink and subtle. She wondered how they would feel like beneath her palms when she kneaded them. There was a snack table set for two in between the statues of the two chess pieces – made of ice and intricately carved, she noticed now, with their gem-studded large swords and detailed folds of clothing, each little piece dulled or shined in order to create a more realistic effect; to make them stand there true, and truly and thoroughly scare the girl they did – and sitting there, fast asleep, was a little boy.
A little prince.
And the shadow dancing behind him.
The girl gasped, terrified. Why it had become so prominent to her vision was a mystery she couldn't place a finger on to; a shadow was never made to stand out at all costs. And never has she seen a shadow dance to its own accord, without a master to bend it to their every whim.
Like herself.
Herself, who can't even lift a finger without a direct command from her domineering god.
Is she a shadow? She doubts that greatly. Surely, no shadow is made of this soft flesh, this warm blood? But how can she be truly certain that she is not one, not the mirror image of herself just mimicking what her real counterpart is doing; if she were just the girl in the mirror? That she is a reality? Is it because she feels hunger? Thirst?
And a new kind of thirst at that.
A thirst for the boy.
His parted lips, cherry red; his mop of unruly, butterscotch hair, and the colour of his eyes – so beautiful were they! A bright, almost transparent sea green, flecked with olive and lined lightly with the most stunning shade of navy; a gas-flame blue. They peeked out ever so often when his eyelids would flutter, when his chest would heave and he would stir in his serene kip, the cloth of his white sailor clothes lifting gently up with each breath, the satin blue ribbon tied around his collar rising with it, teasing her, beckoning her. Such a face he had! Such smooth ivory skin! It was as if he were innocence itself; so close and within her reach, yet so far and fragile at the same time.
And then there was the shadow.
It twirled; a graceful, mysterious and ominous gazelle, edging painfully closer to the naive little child. In one dark silhouette of a hand, it held a knife.
She wanted to wake little dreamer, to interrupt his sweet dreams for one moment and forewarn him of the grim fate about to descend at him.
At the depth of her musings, she had not noticed the silvery chains which held her crackle and snap.
She was free.
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