Personal Wonderland- Chapter 1

     This world is cruel, twisted, mad. This earth is a hellscape in disguise, a place of torment for the weak nature of mankind. It takes all you hold dear, bends you backward until you break, and expects you not to complain. It leaves you to fend for yourself in a world that would crush you with little care for your existence, your soul, your being. 

    Not many people truly survive it without being broken. Many simply escape. 

    But what about my escape? What about my sanity? Why do we have to suffer? I may never know, but I can at least escape while I still have the chance. 

This bed is too soft and far too comfortable to leave its warm embrace. The alarm says otherwise.

Sam's mind swam as she sat up, the alarm clock receiving a hard smack as a good morning greeting. The covers make an impressive swoosh as she throws them off, her polka-dot socks rub against the carpet with a static zap, causing a shiver to run up her spine. She enters the closet with a sigh, rubbing her eyes like the immature toddler she always was in the morning. You would think as she emerged from the adjacent bathroom a half hour later, she would’ve cheered up a bit, her favorite cowl of fine silver woven into a blue-gray slung over her favorite pink ruffled dress and corset, the skirt flowing in a perfect pleated circle around her fragile frame. But that was not the case. Her round eyes and perfectly sculpted brows scowled in perfect harmony with her scrunched button nose, the pink tint of her cheeks matched her pursed lips, thin yet full in their own right. Her waist-length blonde locks surely didn’t help. Her bangs looked extremely disheveled, more voluminous than was typical for her thick waves. 

But no matter. Her stomach was calling to be filled, the clock reminding her it was time to leave in only 15 minutes. “Odd. Guess I'm just slow today.” She trudges out of the sunlit room, tainted with many shades of pink reflecting in the window, trinkets and treasures shimmering and peaking out from every surface crowded in the ample space, the bed dominating the back left corner of the room, adjacent to the door. She gives it one last longing glance as she closes the door, heading down the still hallway, drab in comparison to the bright bedroom before it. “It better not be oatmeal again.”

It was indeed oatmeal. Sugar apple pie oatmeal, to be exact. The smell of the cinnamon reached her nostrils before the sight met her eyes. The bowl of lumpy grains flecked with brown and red dazzled in the beams of sunlight streaming through the white silk curtains opposite the hall. Quite begrudgingly, she kicks out her chair and sets herself in it rather harshly, her movements betraying her emotions. The almost weightless frail woman hunched over the sink did not look up or comment. She knew this behavior all too well. 

The clock chimed a mere ten minutes later to warn her of her tardiness. Has any time passed? It hadn't felt like it. But the bowl was empty. The hands had moved. Time must have passed. It must have. But now it was time to go. She couldn't avoid it any longer. Time to go lock herself in a prison used for “educational purposes." Grab the bag, out the door, down the dusty road to the corner, the unusually bright red stop sign jutting forth from the barren landscape. Here it comes, the torture transport, a yellow human sardine tin can. Up the steps, down the aisle, into the back left window seat, alone, like always. The other slightly less evolved monkeys were quite active this morning, nonstop chatter ringing across the clanking metallic walls of the cursed vehicle. Time seems not to pass now. Everything is moving so slowly. The houses crawl past as if they were moving, not the bus. Finally, stop, hiss, squeak. The same rhythm of every fresh yet painful morning. Too bad the thundering footsteps were never in time.

“Sam, hun, you gotta get off.” The sweet southern woman in her customary straw hat watched Sam’s slow crawl from her seat via the mirror reflecting her sour frown.

“Yeah, yeah, I'm going.” Her voice seemed sharp with anger, but it was undoubtedly etched with annoyance, or at least the expectation of suffering. 

The bell cut through the heavy silence like a hot knife in butter, startling Sam into sitting up straight. The teacher, a wrinkly old crow in her own right, started her daily rant about turning in the assigned work. Sam picked up her bag, slouching slightly under the weight of useless knowledge and expectations. She trudges out, weaving through the halls in a very experienced fashion, quickly making her way out to the lush schoolyard, setting her backpack, or rather tossing aggressively, under her favorite oak tree. She closes her eyes and takes a long breath, trying to release some tension from trying to exist as a perfect child for such a long stretch. She slowly opened them after a few deep breaths, blinking once again in the sun of the midday reprieve from torment. She turned her head slowly in her exhaustion, simply ensuring her school bag had not been tampered with, which it often was. But it wasn't there. In its place was a large hole placed between two roots, unnaturally circular in its perfection. It was so violently yellow that it caused tears to well up in her eyes. Or was that the feeling of familiarity, simply because this sight felt familiar like a dream long forgotten yet still barely lingering? She leaned over to peer inside it, not because she was stupid, but because she could not fight the insatiable desire to get closer and closer and closer… 

Slip, thud, woosh, down the slide. Belly up, riding down twists and turns as her screams of fear echoed off the violently yellow walls that seemed to press in on her, although the tunnel did not get any smaller. Then it ended, dropping into a void that slowly floated her through on a bed of air.

Every color you could think of, plus some whirls past in perfect harmony, swirling in patterns of disformity, an illusion of a perfect circle of psychedelic fantasy. It seems to never end, never change, just repeat its harmony that sings with its blended melodies. Almost as if there was music ringing out. Oh wait, there was. The highs and lows perfectly aligned in a beautiful combination of every kind of music she had ever heard and some unfamiliar, more upbeat tunes that pleased her trained ear. The sound of birds and flutes perfectly clashed with the drums and didgeridoos that rang between her ears, evoking all emotions at once, leaving her in tears by the time she…

THWUMP

If only she could have continued that experience. It would've been paradise to stay there forever. Oh well. Now, this environment… just might make her eyes bleed. Maybe it was the trees speckled with yellow and silver pustules, maybe it was the puke green lake threatening to engulf her in its mud-like consistency, or the pure black grass? Fern? Hard to say. The sky was its usual blue, but the sun was a planet? Looks like it. There was no mistaking the purple version of the ringed sky tennis ball she knew so well. 

But it doesn't matter. There was her pastel blue backpack, sitting in the bizarre grass-like plant. She picks it up, brushing off her dress and taking in her surroundings. 

“That does it. I must be dead.” Her hand finds its customary place on her hip, her fist tightening right along with her pursed lips.

“Far from it, my dear, very far from it. Though you would be better off.”

BAM! (If you thought dying was bad enough, try Death by Parrot statue!)

Black. Silence. The two worst things on this planet. At least, Sam thought so. Blink blink. Color, wait, no, black, white, no color. At least it wasn't all black. Marble. Just marble. The walls and columns seemed to stretch on forever, but they didn't. A throne sat what seemed to be miles away, carved out a deep red stone, shocking, popping out against the otherwise colorless room as an added insult to the injuries already committed to her eyeballs. It was empty. No one was placed there in a position of power untold.

Nonetheless, Sam was determined to leave this place as soon as possible. It was too dull for her liking. Everything except the chair seemed to press against her with its vast expanse of nothing, her mind swimming faster than usual. Then again, her usual was pretty fast to begin with. Broken, the doctor had called it. But there were ropes. Around her wrists, her chest, her legs, almost encompassing her entirely. Were they moving? Hard to say. 

A cold, bony hand forced her to look at the floor. It was tremendous and lanky from what she could feel of it. A door slammed open and shut quite fast from the echoes she could make out, the hand releasing her.
“I’ll be back. Shovel the parrot while I’m away.” 

The voice was flat and melancholy, a hiss of a whisper lined with a familiar annoyance. It was almost distinctly recognizable in a very odd way, like a long-lost pet calling for you in its native sound. A swoosh of air told her senses whoever it was planned on looking her dead in the eye. And she did. Hair perfectly placed in such luxuriously artificial curls of red and black, skin luminescent against the blood dripping from her hairline, nose, and eyes. Scars lined every crack and fold of her face, eyes pools of pure, uninterrupted red. That black dress flowed around her knees so effortlessly, despite only being held in place by a leather harness, her choker could kill a man with those spikes. Five horns perfectly spaced in the voluminous locks held on a small red and black crown sitting in front of a headband of spears and roses. She leaned forward, her hands on her knees. She seemed to be staring at Sam, but it was hard to tell with the lack of pupils. A deck of battered cards sits in her left hand, she brings them annoyingly close. She was getting in her face, which was not the best move. But the crow sitting on her shoulder was just staring, definitely staring. She fans the cards, most of which are blood-stained. From what she could tell, a few select ones were not, mainly the Kings.
“What do we have here?” Her sharp gaze flitted between her eyes and the face of someone else, perhaps the man standing behind her.

"A trespasser, your majesty. She-"

A flash. A bang, a bomb. Rumble, rumble, tumble. BAM! A perfect headshot by a piece of marble ceiling. Ringing ears, and everything was black once more.