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You suddenly found yourself falling face first down a very long vortex like tunnel made up of a rainbow of clashing colors. You were plummeting at an alarming speed that sent your hair and clothes flying in the wind behind you. You were falling so hard that you couldn’t even see anything but a smear of colors that flashed through your vision and made you dizzy. Your ears were filled with a deafening whooshing sound as this strange multi-colored hole rushed past you at the speed of light. It was like being caught in an acid trip wind tunnel.

Without any warning the ground below rushed up at a rate too fast to prepare for. With absolutely no time or way to do anything to stop it you held out your hands in front of your face to brace for impact. Before you had time to blink you face planted the ground so hard that you felt your entire body vibrate from the collision. Your body laid sprawled stomach first on a blanket of fresh green grass. You had a helpless terrified moment of panic where you couldn’t breathe. Your sudden crash landing had knocked the wind completely out of you, leaving you gasping for air like a fish out of water. Your chest took in a wracking breath that sent tendrils of pain all along your ribs. You opened your mouth wide to suck in the glorious air, but with it you also got a mouthful of not so glorious tasting grass. After spitting out a few pieces of wayward greenery you did a mental check on your body. Luckily you had managed to land on this plush bed of grass which absorbed most of the impact for you. While your body ached in protest at the impromptu abuse, you were pretty sure nothing was broken or too badly damaged. Once you were sure that you would be okay to move, though a little sore, your brain started to focus in on other important factors. The first one being that wherever you were smelt like damp stagnant air. It smelt just like the kind of acrid air one would smell in an underground cave somewhere. You wrinkled your nose up in distaste. You preferred the smell of the grass below. The second thing your brain brought to your attention was the drip dripping noises of a leaky faucet that sounded out all around you. Though your body protested you forced yourself to stand up. Once you had managed to get back on your feet your eyes finally got their chance to take in your surroundings.

You had crash landed on a small patch of bright green grass that was dotted here and there with eye-popping bright yellow and deep scarlet Marigolds. Some unknown weeds grew wildly here and there around the edges. But what made your ideal landing spot so weird was the fact that the grass patch was no bigger than an inflatable pool and ended like an island surrounded by shallow murky water right dab in the center of a dark corridor of what appeared to be a broken down abandoned building. The grossly humid air smell you had sensed earlier was from the old sitting water that flooded the hallway’s floors and the dripping noises came from beads of condensation plopping off of pulled out dead electrical wires that hung from odds and ends of the empty building’s ceilings and walls. The place was creepy to say the least.

“Hello?” You called out aimlessly into the abandoned hallway ahead of you. No answer came, but your ears picked up a distinct sloshing sound coming closer from a distance. You squinted your eyes to try and get a better look down the gloomy passageway. That’s when you saw the figure of the man in white appear further down along the corridor. “Hey!” You called out to him, but as soon as he heard your voice he turned his back towards you and took off further down the dank hallway. Not knowing what else to do, once again you gave chase after the mysterious old man. You followed him like a mad woman throughout all manners of the run down building’s winding corridors. You ignored the freezing cold water that seeped into your boots from the ankle deep dark water that filled the hallway’s floors. As you ran you saw not another soul other than the man in white. You were a bit slower than before thanks to your aching muscles from your previous fall. The old man however didn’t seem to have any such problems, for he darted in and out of hallways like a young track star. You tried your best to keep up with him, but eventually he managed to get so far ahead of you that you lost him.

You couldn’t afford to stop for a break though. You had to keep following him until you could make him tell you where they had taken Alice. Still running you took a sharp turn to a grungy closed door where you suspected from the still rippling water that he had just entered. Without a second thought you pushed it open and charged on through like a bull in a china shop. Once you made your way through the doorway you had to force yourself to stop abruptly when you noticed that the door had lead outside to a cement sidewalk that acted as a ledge. Over that ledge the rest of the building just seemed to drop off into thin air. You dug in with the heels of your boots and luckily came to a stop before you could careen into what was certain to be a drop to certain death.

You backed up a few steps, but leaned your body forward just enough to safely peer over the edge. You found that you were hundreds of stories up in the air. The view below was like a city stacked on top of another city. Buildings seemed to be piled high on top of one another. You were so high up in the air that you couldn’t even see the ground below. Feeling a wave of vertigo starting to overcome you, you blindly backed up until your back hit the solid bumpy wall of the building. You focused your gaze straight ahead where you noticed another building complex a few yards away directly across a large expanse of open free falling air. Your eyes took in your surroundings on all sides. You could see other dilapidated buildings all around you with similar blocks of sidewalk-like ledges that seemed to lead off to nowhere as well. You also happened to notice however that there were also other connecting thin sidewalks that bisected some of the buildings, making a sort of walking path from one building to another. Wondering what the hell is this place you casually looked over to your right and noticed that way further down the ledge you were currently on was the man in white. He seemed to feel your eyes on him and once he turned to spot you he began to run away again. Not wanting to let him get away again you renewed your chase. You followed him down the slim ledge around the corner of the broken down building. “Wait!” you cried out to him as you tried your best to run and stick close to the side of the buildings you passed so you couldn’t fall over the edge. It was a difficult task to keep your eyes on your feet so you wouldn’t trip over any overgrown weeds that seemed to pop up mysteriously through the cracks in the sidewalk and to keep the man in white in your sight at the same time. It also wasn’t easy to try and dodge the passing rubble of bricks and construction mess that littered the ledge walkways you were trying to maneuver through as you made your way past several identical buildings in your pursuit. The man in white ran with the quickness of someone used to his surroundings and it wasn’t long before once again you had lost him and he had vanished completely from your sight.

Determined to catch him still, you continued to follow his trail as best as you could. You turned the sharp corner of the ledge at a quick pace, but you stopped short when you saw a cross section of sidewalks that seemed to make a makeshift bridge; where the two men in the black suits from before were currently dragging Alice’s small unconscious body up a set of cement steps into another run down building across the way from where you stood. There was a decent sized tree growing out of the patchy sidewalk ledge you were standing on and you dove behind it as you watched on silently. The man in white suddenly darted out of another nearby building and you watched as he ran across the sidewalk bridge to catch up to the suited men. “Come on!” you heard him yell to them as they all disappeared through the metal front doors of the building.

When they were behind the doors you raced across the concrete bridge towards the front of the building. You took the steps two at a time until you reached the entrance. The silver front doors had a logo brandished onto them in a shape similar to that of a coat of arms with a character of a white cartoon rabbit sticking out at the top. In the middle of the coat of arms was a black shield with the drawing of a red human eye in the center. Across the bottom point of the shield was a white banner with big black blocky words that read “White Rabbit”. You stopped to take one last look around to make sure nobody saw you following. It was pointless though because the entire city seemed to be a ghost town. There were no signs or sounds of life anywhere. The run down empty town eerily reminded you of a dystopian novel. Turning your attention back to the doors you slowly opened them, not sure of what you would find. As you peered inside the doorway you could make out another abandoned building like the first one you were inside though instead of the walls being decorated with thick pulled out electrical wires this building’s walls were covered with overgrown wild plants. The floors too were thankfully not flooded with water, they were just bare and worn down.

You were just about to step foot inside when you heard the sound of large machinery approaching. You closed the doors and whipped around to see a giant floating airship that was made of metal and shaped like a beetle-like insect making its way through the labyrinth of buildings. Bright rays of white search lights emanated from the ships high beams and it seemed to pass over everything slowly. You brought one arm up to shield your eyes from the blinding light. The huge machine made a loud droning noise as it hovered along and the force of the ship itself seemed to make the ground below your feet shake. You watched helplessly as the search beam light moved up the stone steps where you stood. You took a few steps back as the light approached but you didn’t manage to make it completely out of its trail in time. A bright searing pain tore through your right shoulder and burned. You gasped in horror and pain as you watched the bare skin on your right shoulder where the light hit it began to turn hunter green and etch itself into a tribal like tattoo of an unknown crustacean. It only took a matter of seconds but once the tattoo pattern had been completed the burning and throbbing sensations ceased and the pain was ultimately gone as quick as it had come. You tried to wipe it away thinking it was ink, but the new green tattoo didn’t budge or even smear. It was completely smooth and dry to the touch. Not wanting to be caught up in the light anymore you bee-lined it straight for the doors. Once you were inside the building you cautiously made your way through a narrow plant filled hallway. Just like the building you had found yourself in earlier, this one was strangely silent as well. You continued to walk forward down the darkened hallway until you came to a cross section of hallways. You turned to look down your right only to see another emptier hallway. When you turned to look down the corridor on your left however you saw a small shaft of light all the way towards the end. You decided to go that way. As you approached closer to where the light was, you saw that the hallway opened up into a white room where right in your line of vision was a small simple white table with a round glass plate top. Sitting on that table was a single clear glass bottle filled with bright red liquid.

You walked up to the tiny table and saw that the glass bottle was elegantly designed with a glass stopper at the top. Attached to the neck of the bottle by a short red ribbon was a white paper tag. One glance around the room showed no signs of life so you picked up the glass bottle and brought it closer to your face so you could read the paper. In bold black block typing was the word “curiosity”. You flipped the tag over to the other side where in human cursive handwriting were the words “killed the cat!”. Feeling a sense of foreboding you quickly placed the bottle back onto the table. You looked around this new room and for the first time noticed that the walls were snow white and thickly padded. This room, unlike all the other rooms before it, was not run down and there were no plants growing here either. The floor itself wasn’t the threadbare carpeting you had seen earlier. This room’s floor was metal in an industrial slate grey color and was perfectly clean. There wasn’t a speck of dirt on it.

Your feeling of wrongness intensified when you noticed that in the middle of the padded walls just about up to your waist there was what looked to be like a silver mail slot carved into the wall. You went over to the wall and crouched down on your knees as you slid the metal slot open. You peered into the room beyond only to see a wall full of open boxes, and what terrified you most was that in those boxes laid people in the fetal position, all seemingly to be in an uncomfortable sleep. As you scooted closer to get a better view you observed that each one of them had the same green tribal crustacean tattoo as you on various parts of their bodies. One woman had one placed on the entire right side of her face, another man had one across his bare foot, and yet another woman had one banded around her left bicep. What really made your stomach turn was when your eyes landed on a girl just about your age who had short spiky dark hair with a bird like face. You recognized that girl though you didn’t know her. You had seen her face on missing posters plastered all around Alice’s apartment in the city.

“My God,” you whispered aloud to yourself. “What’s happened to you?” As soon as the final word left your mouth there was a sliding sound of a door being shut behind you. You gathered instantly to your feet and swung around only to find that another padded white wall had fallen into place where the hallway opening once was. You banged on the smooth padding screaming, “Hey!” Just then the ceiling above, which was also made of the same white padding material, began to lower suddenly, boxing you in on all sides like a mouse caught in a trap. In fear of being crushed you huddled in a corner and threw your arms up over your head in a futile attempt to try and stop the lowering ceiling. “Stop!” you screamed as the wall in front of you and the wall on your side started to come closer. The little table with its glass bottle had magically disappeared leaving you alone and trapped as the padded walls began shrinking and closing in. Cold panic rose within you as you sank to your butt on the floor screaming “Stop!” as you desperately tried to kick and pound on the padded walls as they came closer. “Stop!” you cried out again and then the walls just as they were mere inches away from touching you stopped. The silver mail slot in front of you, now at eye level, opened up with a sliding bang. Through its opening you could see the face of the old man in white. His empty clear grey eyes stared back at you calmly as he said in his crisp English accent, “Good we have her. Take them away.” You looked at him in shock and yelled, “Let me out of this thing!” The man in white just blinked at you and replied in a patronizing tone, “Temper, temper.” Ignoring his overbearing tone you yelled, “What the hell is this place?” The man in white gave a genial slight shrug and said teasingly, “You shouldn’t have come after me little oyster.” Then he backed away and vanished from your sight. “Hey! Come back here!” You called after him.

Then the padded box you were now trapped in suddenly began to lift in the air with a crane like sound. As you felt yourself rise into the air you heard the man in white’s mocking cultured voice call out after you, “Must dash! Running late.” Then your body was jostled back and forth as the box you were in continued to rise and float in the air. The mail slot disappeared from the wall leaving you closed in complete darkness with the exception of a small sliver of light that penetrated the bottom of the floor of the box by your feet. Your breathing quickened as panic washed over you like a tidal wave, making you instantly break out into a cold sweat. You were trapped! You had to get out! You desperately felt around the floor of your trap box. You felt cold air coming in through the place where the little bit of light was coming in through. There was just enough space to stick something small through it. You thanked God that you had put a bobby pin in your hair that day to tame down a random fly-away. Taking it out of your hair with trembling hands you unfastened the bobby pin and straightened the thin pliable wire out. Then you slipped it carefully along the edge of the base of the floor where you felt the air penetrating in from.

You frantically pulled the bobby pin back and forth across the floor until you felt it catch on something. Upon some more tinkering with the bobby pin, you estimated that the catch was a latch of some sort that kept the bottom of the box attached to the sides. Hope surged through your veins as you maneuvered the slim bobby pin through the latch in a frenzy. You heard the wonderful sound of a click as it unlatched, but before you could rejoice in this victory the bottom of the box you were sitting in gave out beneath you. You had just enough time to grab onto the side of the box as the metal floor gave way. You were now suspended miles in the air above a very vast looking lake. You were barely holding on with one arm as you dangled helplessly in midair. You saw that you were previously held in a crate like box that was now hanging from a long rope off of the beetle-like metal airship you saw earlier. Other ropes dangled beside you that also held other identical boxes; probably filled with the people you saw in the mail slot earlier you guessed. You tried with all your might to keep holding on, but your body weight was too much to hold one handed. As you felt your clammy fingers slip off of the sides you let out an ear-shattering scream. You were now suddenly plummeting towards the lake below.

To be continued…

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Author’s Notes: Special thanks to LikeSoTotally for giving me the heads up that the show is now on Netflix Instant View so if you have Netflix and want to brush up on your Alice knowledge or if you haven’t seen it at all then you can find it there. If you don’t have Netflix but are still interested you can find the full DVD on Barnes & Noble’s website. And holy crap is it hard to describe the crazy dystopian ghost city of SyFy’s Alice! The broken down city is such a pain to try and pick apart to describe in words. I tried to describe it as best as I could, but as they say, a picture is worth a thousand words and so I urge all of you to check out the movie if you really want to understand what the world of Alice looks like. It is soooo complicated to explain! I just hope I did it justice enough without confusing everyone. I’m really excited for the next chapter because that’s when we get to the tea shop and also get to meet the yummy Hatter! I hope you guys are enjoying the series so far and continue to look forward for more!
Much love to you all,
Fox