Chapter 2: Her Days of Wonderland

DIMENSION: WONDERLAND

Place: Shay Austin's Home

Shay looked up to the ceiling from her bed. The aliens implanted bad dreams when she was first abducted fifteen years ago. She hated thinking about it. She was so young back then. A stupid party, and a cornfield. Regular kids who got punished for sneaking out would get grounded for a month. If she only knew that her punishment would be getting abducted.

She sat up in her bed, reaching over to her end table for light. The dreams weren't just hers, they were traditional with everyone. Every night at three o' clock, anyone that had been abducted would wake up with a shriek. Waking up in sweat and with tears, no one remembered what they dreamt of.

Shay was the same way. It wasn't hard to guess that it was probably the fear of abduction all over again. Created so that humans remained subservient. Subpar.

Shay grabbed her necklace off the end table. After she opened it, the picture of her old self smiled back. Just a kid, an idiot back then. What she wouldn't give to have a picture of her parents. Instead, all that remained was the reminder of how she took things for granted. Family. Friends. Good food. The ability to choose.

Hope was useless, she learned that some time ago. No one made it out of Wonderland. Well, it was possible that there had been one. But instead of a magical world of white rabbits, talking cards and the Queen of Hearts? This world was simply mad, delusional and cruel. There was nothing wonderful about Wonderland.

Fifteen years. That's half of her life in Wonderland, and she'll probably die there. Like the old Alice, she had dreamed of finding a way out years ago. Now, she would settle for getting into a position that wouldn't put her life in jeopardy every day. Enslavement to one person and not a planet, that was her ever after, and she would be glad to accept it.

Shay only had one friend, Torah. Her brother had enough skill that he was considered useful by Wonderland. Instead of the planet owning him, his boss had paid a high fee and kept him for himself. He had higher creds, and almost a normal life. He was appreciated, respected, and hopefully kind.

Her friend wasn't talking to her right now. During the fright hour, she knew she had to be up. All the lights across Wonderland had turned on that had involved anyone taken from their home planet. So many, streamed across the sky. This was when she always talked to her friend, Torah.

She pulled her arm to her face, turning on her monitor watch. On her monitor, Torah's face had shone. Tired, with her hair a mess. "Torah, can we finish talking?"

"What's to finish talking about?" Torah chided her. "You want to make yourself a contract girl to my brother. You want to become his slave. How am I supposed to deal with this Shay?"

Torah didn't understand. She had simple parts to perform in Wonderland. There was one thing that the fairytale did keep completely true. Wonderland was filled with entertainment because it was the number one entertainment planet in the universe. It found creatures across the stars that were unique, and it used them across their films, shows, videos, tapes, FB's, CG's, DVD's, DNS', and every other wild format their customers had.

Torah was an actress. She played next to someone in a drama role. Shay? She had not been good at acting at all. She was a bumble, so Wonderland stuck her into the role of stunt model. There were no pulleys and hardly any safety nets. If she died, so what? They'd get another one.

There was no exchanging her job and she had to perform. Without it she would not receive creds. Creds bought everything, and without creds she would be starving and alone on the streets. Newbies always began that way on Wonderland. Refusing to listen, they would huddle on the streets, trying to get food. Eventually they would either die or come to realize the truth.

Alice never escaped. Once someone came to Wonderland, there was no way out. Alice was a warning not to stray away from the path. To not go out alone and explore, or you could end up in Wonderland. Alice's story was different on Wonderland. In their version, she didn't make it out at all.

She had befriended the Mad Hatter, and he betrayed her. He danced in her blood before disappearing. It was a more sobering version than the fairytale of Earth.

Some who didn't want to believe that said Alice actually still existed on Wonderland somewhere. She had become a writer and had been creating fairytales for the world. She had been useful and had been given forced immortality. Shay greatly doubted that. Especially since there was no magic in Wonderland.

"Shay, are you listening?"

"Yeah, I'm here," Shay said paying attention to her monitor again. Torah was simply warning her about the same thing over and over.

"He could ask for anything. He isn't an easy way out."

"I know."

"You don't know him! He may be my relation, but you don't know him. He could hold you as a sex slave. You've never even been intimate with someone!"

"I know."

"He could beat you. He could do anything."

Same warning. Shay was not stupid, there was no guarantee she would be treated well. Even the basic respect she had of most humans would be gone. For as much as humans hated Wonderland, they hated 'contractees' the most. Humans that made themselves willing slaves to other humans. It sounded sick and wrong to them.

But the world wasn't fair. There was no leaving Wonderland. Shay used to have more than one friend. She had met them in her jobs. Victoria, Allison, Bernand, and Iggy. Good people, all of them. Every one of them had died performing their 'role'. Shay would not leave the world that way, she would not!

Survival. That was what Wonderland was about. If she had to make herself a contract girl to survive, then that's what she had to do. "I am seeing him tomorrow. I made the contract with his boss, and if he accepts, the stunt work is over."

"Shay. I just don't think you understand…"

No, it was Torah that would never understand. "Get some rest. I'll tell you how it goes tomorrow." Shay turned off the button on her monitor and lied back down. Tomorrow she would learn her fate.

***

Cheshire peered from the other corner of her bed. My, my. It was a storm that he could not prevent.

Things used to be simple. He never even messed around in time, simply from place to place. His species had always been fun, time and space had been their playground. Naughty by nature, but in the end, they were just about playing. Even now, he was the last of his species, and he could not stop enjoying his life.

He only wished he could have had a better ending. A little more power like he used to. No more traps. To get away and explore more, the way nature intended the cheshires to do. He had another good two hundred years left if he didn't mess around. He had kept some of his powers away from Alice though. Time glimpsing, that would never be for her. Imagine the chaos she would have accomplished with that? Visiting the past. Pulling simple things out of dimensions, she would abuse that power. She was human, they instinctively wished to go overboard. They tended to become worse as they became older.

If he reached his paw out right now, and whirled her into a different dimension, would it work? He almost wanted to, but he could not control where she ended up. That would be a problem later. Perhaps, he could . . .oh, this was hurting his head. He took his paw and rubbed his head. Wonderland every day had more magic drained from it. Cheshire was one of the last few beings with magic left, and it would be gone soon. If he did something, it would be only once. He had already wasted several trips. Time glimpsing was not a perfect art.

But traveling through dimensions with his body? That wasn't possible for him, or he could stop it all.

If he didn't share his power, he could have gone back further. But, then Alice could die. And after all . . .without Alice, there never would have been a fairytale where his species whimsical nature's could live on. Every dimension had known the tale she created. He was infamous, and most often wished he actually had the ability to speak with the same kind of quotable words others would remember.

But, he was a cheshire. Not a poet. This girl was not Alice, she was a woman called Shay. And this wouldn't be a lovely fairytale with a made up ending. She would be enslaving herself.

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