Drake in Wonderland - Haunted AU

✧ Chapter 8 ✧

    "How much farther do we have to go?" Drake asked, having tucked his umbrella under his arm. His dizziness and fatigue had faded away a while ago, much to his relief.

   "Not too much farther, I think." the Hatter responded, checking his map for the third time in ten minutes. "Yeah, just up ahead." Drake nodded, looking over his shoulder. Far behind him, beams of light and shadows covered the path into nothingness. He couldn't help but to feel the weight of someone's stare on his shoulders. Sighing, he looked to his left at Armen, who was walking along and staring at nothing in particular.

   Drake nudged his arm. "Hey," he whispered. "Something wrong?"

   Snapped out of deep thought, the humanoid cat lifted his head and shook it slowly. "Nah, it's nothing." he lied. In truth, his head was clouded with thoughts and he couldn't see much farther than what was lying on the surface. It had been over three hours since the clash with the Nightmare creatures, but he was still feeling the effects of them. He huffed as he tried keeping himself walking, as he noticed he was constantly slowing down. As much as he needed and wanted rest, there wasn't time for that, not now.

   It seemed Hatter was having the same problem. Exhaustion was becoming overwhelmingly strong; they needed to rest, otherwise finishing what they had set out to do would be next to impossible. "I know you might wanna keep going, but I think we need to--"

   "We should go a bit farther." Armen cut him off, taking in a deep breath and marching forward before collapsing.

    "I'm sorry, Armen. I know how much you want this to be over, but we're in no condition to keep going. You'll get yourself hurt if you push yourself anymore." Grayson responded, removing his hat and setting himself down underneath a tree. He placed his hat next to him, slightly jealous of the sleeping Dormouse on the brim.

    Drake picked up Armen and threw one of the Cat's arms over his shoulder, walking him to the tree Grayson was resting at. He let Armen curl up between two large roots and the humanoid cat was fast asleep, his pale face easing from an obvious grimace. Despite also wanting to continue, Drake was more than delighted to sit down and think for a moment.

    While lying down in the shaded area, Drake fished the burnt notebook from his pocket, opening it to the first page. Still, none of the words were clear enough to him. Drake flipped through as many pages as he could, trying to find at least one clue as to who this notebook belongs to, what was in it, or how it had gotten in his possession.

   Taking a deep breath, Drake snapped the notebook close and shoved it in his pocket. It was better not to mull over it so much and only exhaust himself more. He began to question how he might return home, but quickly forgot about it as the sounds of the world faded out and he drifted off into sleep.

***

   Drake awoke from his sleep no more than an hour later. He surprisingly felt completely refreshed. He promised to help his altered friends, but he was slightly disappointed to find himself still in Wonderland. He had originally thought he was only dreaming, but he had begun to second guess himself. He was very skilled in lucid dreaming, so why didn't he have any control over what was going on? Was this perhaps another dreamworld he thought up of? But that in itself wouldn't make much sense; the world was too bizarre and unrealistic, it would have been too obvious that he was in a dreamworld.

   He decided to stop thinking about these things, as he was tiring himself just trying to process it. He huffed as he stood up, stretching his arms and legs. Grayson was already awake himself, in the process of waking up Armen. The Cat yawned and stretched, scratching at his ears. His calmed expression froze into seriousness. "Come on, we've slept longer than we should have."

   Drake, though also wanting to leave immediately, was curious as to what was making Armen so anxious. This Armen and his own were alike in this manner; they were both terrible at lying and hiding things. Drake quickly caught up to him and confronted him about it. "I don't know," the Cat had responded quietly. "I just have a bad feeling. Something just doesn't feel right."

   To Drake, this Armen didn't seem like the type to be anxious or paranoid. The carefree attitude he had witnessed earlier had melted away. "Hey, it'll be okay. I'll make sure everything works out." Drake reassured with a gentle smile.

   A couple yards behind them, Grayson was strolling along. Mairyn was still deep asleep on the brim of his hat, as waking her up purposefully was next to impossible. That is, of course, unless one attempts to drown her.

   "Are you sure you're safe with them?" Grayson stopped in his tracks. The voice speaking to him sounded nothing like Armen or Drake, and definitely did not sound like Mairyn. It wasn't a voice familiar to him at all. He excused it as still being a little dazed and sleepy. "Are you sure you're safe with them?" the voice repeated slowly. Of course he felt safe, he trusted these people with his life. What reason did he have to doubt their loyalty or trust?

   "Don't you remember the last time you trusted someone this much?" a different voice questioned. The Hatter growled to himself, clawing at his face. He had fought of these thoughts in his head for so long. Why must they return in the most inconvenient times?

   He had gotten so used to constantly throwing tea parties to distract himself from these annoying thoughts. Now they were more aggravating and disturbing than ever. He wished there were some way he could make them all stop, but the only solution his mind could wander to was completely out of the question. The voices were once so nice to him; whatever happened to that?

   Normally, Grayson would grip tightly on his axe to calm himself, but Armen still had it in his possession. "See? Even the damn cat doesn't trust you. Why should you trust him? You're a monster; you know that, he knows that, we know that." Without the weapon in his hands, the only other option he had was clawing at his own skin. "Besides, don't you remember what it was like to watch life drain from a person's eyes? Wasn't it great?"

   Grayson felt his shoulder being forcefully moved and his head shot up to find Drake bent over slightly, trying to examine the Hatter's face. "You okay? You look a little out of it." Drake said, patting his shoulder. The Hatter considered the fact the hybrid had stopped and checked up on him; it surprised him realizing Drake still trusted him even after what had almost happened a few hours ago. It was quite relieving, actually.

   Grayson grinned. "Yeah, I'm okay. Thank you. Are you okay?"

   "I feel perfectly fine. C'mon, we're almost there." As Drake said this, they were tackled from behind by the humanoid cat. He giggled hysterically and Grayson joined in. Mairyn was sent flying into a bush. She chased after the Cat with her needles, screeching about sticking them in his skull. Grayson and Drake followed after, laughing when Mairyn surrendered. She was too small to keep up with Armen, who kept vanishing and hiding in trees.

   The laughter died down when the overshadow of the outer walls covered the forest like an impending dread and rain drizzled down from the sky.

~~~

WOOOH! A CHAPTER ON TIME EVEN THOUGH I FEEL PHYSICALLY WEAK AND I'M HUNGRY!

Okay so stuff is getting kinda intense, isn't it?

Anyways, hoped you enjoyed the chapter! See ya later!