Wonderer's Wish World: An Empty Land

Down the Rabbit Hole

"Follow the right wall," Luz whispered for the seventh time. Kipo stifled a sigh.

"I know, Luz, I am," Kipo whispered back. "I'm doing that."

"But we turned left?" Luz noted, her voice rising in her confusion, and the others quickly shushed her.

"That was right," Kipo replied when Luz slapped her hands over her mouth. "We're... we're still heading towards the castle, I think."

"Okay, good," Luz nodded at her. "And make sure you keep on eye out for that key!"

This time, Kipo didn't correct. "Yeah, I will." Suddenly, Kipo stiffed, and she felt the hairs on the back of her neck rise up. Her ears just barely picked up on the sound of footsteps.

"We're all still here, right?" she whispered to her friends. Her voice was even quieter now, and she wondered if the rest of them could even hear her.

"Oh," Alice spoke up. "No, Kris is gone."

"What?!" Kipo whirled around, and found that Alice was, in fact, correct. Kris had disappeared.

"Alice!" Luz cried (quietly). "Where did they go?"

"..." Alice seemed to think about that for a second. All the Alice's, which were about a million around them. Kipo had to follow their linked hands to figure out which was the right one. "Well, it was a while ago. Kris had seen some sort of eyes on the wall, and when then they told me, and then they let go of my hand and left."

"Eyes? In the mirrors?" Luz asked. "But... all the mirrors have eyes, they're our eyes."

"You didn't say anything?!" Up until this point, Kipo's voice had been a harsh whisper, but now it was slowly rising to a high shrill. She shook herself. "We need to go back for them."

"We do?" Alice asked, tilting her head. "But they have a sword."

"They ALSO can't see," Kipo hissed, and she tugged Luz until their strange little train was moving back towards where they came. Kipo grit her teeth, trying to focus on the sounds around her, but there were too many shuffles, clanks and other sounds that Kipo didn't want to know about to distinguish them.

Eventually, they came to a crossroad, and Kipo sighed. Yeah, this was a problem they couldn't ignore anymore.

"We won't be able to find them by looking," Kipo told her companions. "We're going to have to yell for Kris."

"But they can't yell back," Luz said, but Kipo shook her head.

"There are other ways they can make sounds," Kipo told her. They'd just have to hope that the sound Kris would make would be different that all the other sounds in the maze."

"Well, alright," Luz said, and, taking a deep breath, Luz shouted into the dark void. "KRIIIIIS!!! WHERE DID YOU GO?!?!"

Kipo and Alice jumped, startled. But before Luz could continue shouting, Kipo got herself under control and covered her mouth.

"I...I think that's good," Kipo told her, wincing. Her ears were now ringing.

Thankfully, Luz shrugged and kept silent as Kipo rubbed at her eyes, and started listening to the world around them.

"Oh no."

Luz looked up at her, concerned. Her eyes were wide, and Kipo could see that she was nervous. Well, she would have good reason to be.

"We'll have to go soon," Kipo told her. "It sounds like we just alerted every monster in here to our location."

"Monsters?!"