A Lease on Wonderland

Prologue

The first sensation she had was that of falling. She knew that she should not have been that surprised when falling down a rabbit hole. That rabbit had not been careful enough if he had not wanted anyone to follow, but it was just how sudden it had been. How true it was. This was no dream. She really was falling!

What had she gotten into!?

She almost regretted it, especially when thinking of hitting the bottom. Could she survive it? Wonderland or not, she could not tell if this led to her destination or if she was falling through the vacuum abyss between worlds forever. What was Wonderland and what was simply the result of what she dared to do?

Down, down, down, down.

At first she was screaming but the further she fell into this inky dizzying cavity, the more she had time to think and more time to overcome her panic. She actually opened her eyes and looked about her.

Half-formed objects passed by when they threatened to go near enough to strike her. Colors winked forming the silhouettes of those objects that, if anything, carried an antique affect under a more modern lightshow. Victorian pattern and ancient Greek and Roman motifs seemed to haunt everything like ghosts— unless she was the ghost going backwards through some tunnel of time and space.

All flashed or shadowed by in a fast motion that made her unable to tell if she was falling very fast or if everything around her was being thrust upwards simultaneously with her plunge. It felt like riding a train at night with eternal city lights through a drizzling rain only going downward.

Her heart pounded in her chest. Her breathing was desperate like floundering in water to an unknown surface.

She would faint before she reached the bottom if she kept on like this.

Suddenly she closed her eyes again. It would not help her with anything but vertigo. She was no little girl fantasizing, and such images would only serve to unnerve her more to look at them. Nothing would hit her it seemed, and if something did she would be done for before she knew what had happened, but there was a sort of current between her and what she passed.

With nothing now but her own thoughts to worry about with eyes tight enough to block out all but the brightest flashes through her eyelids, slowly, she managed to get control of her shallow panting and to breathe more normally.

How long until the end?

Would it ever end?

She dared not look down.

Too late!

She did look down.

But there was nothing down there to see but blackness and colors neon and dizzying in a kaleidoscopic fever.

She almost screamed again, but she was suddenly too frightened to do anything but bite her lip as suddenly an overwhelming feeling took away all other senses. Her breath was nearly stolen right out of her lungs, but what was literal was that her loud pounding heart was unexpectedly drowned out by a clomping— a colossal tick-tocking. It went through her inside and out like a great clock's bongs, but it was only its seconds being tallied.

She could not move but just allow herself to fall now.

It was almost painful but mostly it was crushing like the feeling of the weight of something hitting but never hurting again and again. This was added to by being unable to know the source or if it. Was it all in her head?

Tick-tock? It was more than that. It was more like a blrock-blrook! Blrock-blrook! The clock the size of a mall. A clock deep within her as though replacing her own heart.

Counting down the seconds of her life.

Counting down the seconds of eternity to the end of the universe.

Blrock-blrook!

Like swimming through a churning pool pulsing with every second.

And then—

A splash without wetness. A shattering without glass. It was enough to make one mad. Perhaps that truly was all she would find there— madness without redemption. She almost could not remember what she was doing or why.

Did she still know who she was?

Stillness...

Blackness...

Nothing...

Then she felt something— at least she thought she did— solid enough beneath her feet. It was vibrating and creaky. She opened her eyes, but all she could see was steam at first. At least the feeling of falling had stopped even if she was still recovering from the effects of it. She still felt dizzy choking in the white smog around her, its bitter metallic taste assailing her from every side. The grinding of gears, the hissing of pipes and spouts was all around her, but at least the deep universal clock was gone.

Or was it?

She still could not feel her own heartbeat, though she felt she was tense enough that she should.

She felt instead, though faintly, something reminiscent of something she had felt before. A counting, a ticking like some ubiquitous metronome keeping everything in tune to itself in some cosmic simulation of a far more earthen reality... or the ticking of a titanic bomb from benthic depths for the disintegration of a celestial fleet?

"It's awake!" cried a voice, deep but definitely a female's voice; something like an opera singer's; though not quite as in-tune melodically even if in-time with that metronomic dominance. "She works after all!"

Works?

"She almost seems to be contemplating her existence!" that same voice went on.

There was a sort of murmur of agreement beneath the sounds of the hot machinery chugging with prevailing ease like the purring of the lost vigorous cat at Paul Bunyan's massive hearth.

Or perhaps it would be better to describe it as though it was she who was the size of a mouse in the presence of a normal cat? Maybe several.

My existence she said...?Oh, right, I work. It worked. I'm here, thought the faller not daring yet to speak in case her voice might sound out of place given the circumstances. Wonderland. The plot was a success, but now that I'm here can I ever get back out...?