Past: The Hatter’s Grave, Wonderland
W ith closed eyes, the Hatter gave in.
The pain had numbed him already and dying was only a matter of time. Ironically, losing his life was the least of his worries. It was the shame of having not stood up to the evil named Carter Pillar. Had he known that death isn’t that much of an issue, he would have been another man entirely.
Another teacup broke on his knee. The Pillar was taking his time. He enjoyed seeing the Hatter in pain.
The Hatter couldn’t wait for death soon enough. His heart was eating him out. With no help from above or below he would soon turn to stardust like everyone else. The pain intensified with the pillar’s pleasure.
“You know what annoys me. Hatter?” The Pillar said enjoying the burial of teacups. “That none of you ever stand up for yourselves.”
The words cut through the Hatter they made guy have as well cut his tongue off.
“I mean Lewis is a giddy old man who loves children and loves puzzles and fun. I get that,” said the Pillar. “Fabiola was under the influence of my Mushrooms. But look at you. You’re neither an addict or an icon. In fact you’re a threat to the children surrounding you in those tea parties.”
The Hatter closed his eyelids harder and tried not feed the Pillar’s ego by screaming.
“What kind of man gathers children around him and can’t protect them,” the Pillar said. “If you think that raising kids is all about fun and games then you missed the point. I was raised in the gutter. I was bullied and left behind and had no one to care for me as a child. But you know what it made me? Grow up into a man in real life. Why? Simple? I wasn’t alluded into thinking this world is a purple colored wonderland by every elder around me bringing me toys and singing me songs. I was given the real deal soon enough. That’s why I am winning now.”
If anything really killed the Hatter then it was those last words. He felt like he had betrayed everyone being who he was.
Even Fabiola.
His puppy live approach to live was a disguise to his cowardice, to his apathy. Not that he had ever understood that before today. The revelation came with a punch and came too late.
It pained him to know what will happen to the children of wonderland after he died. They will grow to be like the Pillar and Jabberwocky, spreading evil all over the world with the excuse of having grown up and become real adults.
There had to be a balance between goody good and slightly evil.
But it was too late anyways. He was being buried under the weight of his own teacups.
One teacup after another.
One.
And another.
Then another.
Then..
Something heavy landed beside him in the grave. Another corpse thudded against the mud. A lighting cracked in the sky. The Hatter could hardly move to check out on the Pillar’s other victim.
He hoped it wasn’t Fabiola.
Noticing that the Pillar had stopped dropping his teacups, the Hatter opened his eyes.
The Pillar’s silhouette stared down at him from above. He didn’t talk which scared the Hatter who waited for another lightning strike to see his face.
The lightning strike came and he saw it wasn’t the Pillar.
The Hatter was staring at Malice, Alice’s darker side.
He hardly recognized her, thinking she was some kind of demon looking like Alice.
“Give me your hand,” Malice said.
This was definitely Alice’s voice.
He hesitated.
“Give me your hand before he wakes up and we can’t kill him.”
The Hatter finally understood. It was the apillar’s corpse lying next to him. Who dared to push the Pillar into the grave? Not even Alice, but her darker side.
He stretched his hand out and she took it. Incredibly powerful, she pulled him up. He screamed from the pain in his body and his wounded skin.
“Toughen up,” she told him. “You can stand on your feet.”
The Hatter tried and was able to stand on his feet. Alice tucked the hose in his hand.
“All you have to do is choke him,” she instructed. “He had made this deal with Looking Glass that whoever killed him wore his face and body for life.”
“What?” the Hatter shrieked. “I don’t want that.”
“You will do that or I will bury you next to him:”
He had always adored Alice but this version of her scared him. Rumors had it that she had this darker side since she crossed over through the Looking Glass.
“You will live as if you were him,” she said. “You will live in his garden, study his books, and learn of his secrets. Then you will become him.”
“You mean pretend I am him.”
She shook her head and slapped the Hatter on the face,” You will become him. You will have his darkness and cunningness but still remember who you really are. You will do what I failed to do when I volunteered to become the Pillar’s apprentice”
The Hatter nodded, noticing that Malice herself was struggling.
“I’m not going to be able to do good for long in this form. You see we all have this other side, and somehow I found a way to sometimes control it and do good things using dark powers, but it doesn’t last. I’m hoping you can make it last with your Pillar face.”
“But why should I do this?”
Malice neared his face and looked into his eyes, “You come find me in the Real World, Pillar,” she was already calling him by his new name. “You come and find me and play the Pillar’s dirty games while deep inside helping me grow up strong enough to kill the jabberwocky. You come and raise me good, with pure heart but with sharp fangs. You come and confuse everyone, the Queen of Hearts and the rest. Let them think you’re the Pillar playing games, and use it against them.”
“I will cross over through the Looking Glass?”
She nodded. reaching for a smaller mushroom nearby. “I’m afraid the darkness in me will take over me. You coming to me as the Pillar will suppress it, make this Malice I’m controlling now think she is following the dark Pillar while you help me save the world. We will do good but always do little bad here and there to feed this Malice in me. This or I’ll turn all dark. Fabiola already knows about my darker side and wants to kill me.”
The Hatter barely understood but he liked the plan: Malice--or Alice--came to him in a time when he needed someone to offer the hard equation. Being good while being bad in the most nonsensical way.
He saw her eating the mushroom and escape. She ate so she--Malice--wouldn’t remember this conversation in the Real World. Now he understood the gravity of his mission. He will have to play devil and angel and guide Alice while she didn’t know the plan she ordered him in the first place. Let alone the fact that if he ever succeeded no one can ever know if he was really the Hatter.
She saved his life and gifted him with another chance.
He climbed down and killed the Pillar, wore his face and lived in depression for some time. Waking up every day with his most hated person on his own face was a struggle. But soon enough he felt comfortable in darkness’s skin, trying his best to remind himself everyday that he was doing it for the sake of the children.
Reminding him of the day Alice controlled the darkness of Malice for a few minutes and forged the greatest trick good had ever known against evil.