Alice had nowhere to go. The ocean stretched as far as the eye could see. The madness of the world’s logic nearly drowned her as she paddled herself to stay afloat. She quickly lay on her back and floated on the lake’s calm surface like a starfish, staring into an empty sky.

“I’m scared…” The only thing that could keep herself calm was her own voice. She divulged into imaginary conversations again. The scenery she experienced was all too familiar. The first she couldn’t put her finger on it, but the second was definitely from the Anid forest.

Alice didn’t know what the Anids looked like. She had seen them but it never registered in her mind. No matter how hard she tried to remember, her brain would throb and keep the memories locked away.

“The medicine helps me.” She echoed the words of someone she couldn’t remember. “… it helps me. It always helps me. Like Ara and her liquid bliss.”

Now that she realized it, the water was unnaturally blue. It looked just like the medicine she took for her headaches. She sipped on a bit and quickly spat it out.

“Salty! It tastes like tears!” This was because this lake was created by her tears, and she was drifted away by an invisible current.

Suddenly, the shadow of an approaching figure loomed over her. A person with an exaggeratedly large head with giant mouse ears emerged on a small boat. It was a man from what she could tell, and their body was thin as if they hadn’t eaten in months. He wore a perpetual smile, grinning with no lips like that of a character mascot.

He spoke in a foreign language. But she had heard of it before. It was the dialect of Grandis but spoken in a way that made it sound joyous and filled with excitement. She almost believed she had left the nightmare now, happy to see a face just as happy as her own.

“I’m… I’m Alice! Do you know how I can get out of here?” The mouse-man seemed to understand her but could not properly speak back. “You can’t understand me?”

He suddenly began to write in the air. Words written in red floated above his head, his teeth chattering like that of a nutcracker doll.

“Be not afraid.” It wrote as she heard whispers from all around her.

While the past two memories were likely those of her own, this was not. The Mouse invited her on board. With no other choice, she accepted and took his hand. He handed her a red towel before he began to row the boat in a seemingly random direction.

 

“It all began with Cognition.”

 

The voices eventually became a unified whisper belonging to the White Rabbit. She didn’t know if it was speaking to her directly, or to someone else. A thick fog rolled in from seemingly nowhere, causing the Mouse to pull out a lantern made from the head of a smiling eaglet.

It warded the fog as her head began to ache. The fog seemed to be the source of the whispers. It was an entity. One that attempted to devour the boat. The lantern was the only thing keeping them safe as the Mouse stared absently at her with its giant, black eyes.

“Do not listen to the voice.” He warned in writing. “The owner of this reality speaks to all.”

 

“Because she has been seeking for someone to answer her curiosities.”

 

The other voice from before interjected, causing Alice to look all around her. This person must have been close if they were able to see the man’s writings.

 

“Thought propagated from the rivers of the Miracle of Cognition – The Source. Where creation streamed and flowed to all edges of existence.”

 

Alice had no idea what the White Rabbit was talking about. Creation? Cognition? Existence? She was overwhelmed with it. A mere child could not begin to comprehend things, nor were they expected to be exposed to it. Of all the things her imagination hid from her mind, this was not one of them.

It was the rawest piece of information she was ever given, and her vivid imagination caused her mind to swirl.

 

“Humanity struggled to grasp them.”

 

“You don’t need to listen to this. This does not concern you, Alice. The White Rabbit speaks to someone from the Outside.”

 

“My head… It hurts so much…” She whined. The Mouse paid no attention to her, only smiling at her agony as he began to pat a red, colorful hammer that looked like it couldn’t harm a soul.

 

“There was no logic involved with its mechanism. It always has, always been and always will. From its river’s creation began, and its children drank from the same rivers, strands, and wings; bearing the gift of cognition, conception and wonders born from fleeting Stars and Glimmers.”

 

“Just like this weird world… It makes no sense. No logic.” Alice said, causing the Mouse to turn his head with an audible creak. “Can I ask you what this world is supposed to be? I don’t want to stay here anymore.”

“You’re a denizen now.” It wrote. “No logic applies. For instance, my absence is missed by those I’ve turned into lanterns. How can that be so?”

“… Are they ghosts?” Alice groaned, seeing the silhouette of an island behind the man.

He didn’t say anything more. Instead, he slowly revealed the plush heads of multiple animals that were turned into funny lanterns.

The head of a dodo, a duck, and finally, a lory.

“They don’t want me to leave. We’re together forever…” Each head had a strange dent on the side of it, right near the eye. Alice’s blood chilled, yet she did not know why. All she knew was that this man was probably not as friendly as he appeared.

She knew that as soon as they reached the shore, she’d have to run as far as she could.

 

“Yet humanity was unsatisfied with only existing. It was not enough that they could deform themselves into beings no longer resembling those of humans. Miracles were used to create profits. To sate avarice and gluttony.”

 

“Are you afraid?” The Mouse asked, cocking his head to the side eerily.

“N-No! I’m… I’m just –!”

“Medicine.” He suddenly wrote, grabbing the handle of his hammer as they neared the shore. “The doctor said its your turn. Alice. Why has it healed?”

He reached for the same spot on the heads of the lanterns on hers, finding that she no longer had a wound hidden beneath her hair.

“Do you want to make everyone angry again? We have to punish you again.”

 

“So they created the Miracle Catcher. No longer sated with miracles from the rivers, they sought to reach into The Source.”

 

Alice rocked the boat as soon as the man stood, knocking the lanters into the water. A hideous, inconsolable wail sounded from within the Mouse-head as he reached into the water, desperate to grasp them. Alice pushed herself as far away from him as possible, shivering in terror as the fog quickly surrounded them.

He luckily caught the dodo’s head and held it high like a trophy.

 

“And from it, they acquired a speck of light.”

 

He placed it down and took hold of his hammer again, the fog growling in anger for they had nearly reached them. The shore was only meters away now. But still too far for Alice to jump towards.

Waves rocked the boat, the tempest matching the rhythm of her heart as she stared at the plush hammer, knowing well that it would hurt.

 

“The last star in a world devoid of stars, all from their own doing.”

 

The words then appeared beneath the man’s face:

“You ate it didn’t you? You ate the king’s –”

Suddenly, just as she blinked, the Mouse’s head disappeared. His body flopped lifelessly in front of her, revealing a black-haired girl with cat-ears.

“A-Are you okay! I’m Revy! I’m a good person! You can trust me!” Her face was bloodstained, and in her hand was a garden scythe. As heroic as she seemed, the self-proclaimed Revy trembled and held tears in her eyes. “Come on! Quickly! This place isn’t what it seems!”

She took Alice’s hand and dragged her off the boat just as they heard the pattering of many footsteps approaching from the surrounding fog which now rolled onto the sandy shore.

 

“And from the apple that was eaten, a God of Cognition was born.”