Alice the Amazing ⇒ STRANGER THINGS

[44] Down The Rabbit Hole

{The Flayed, Part I}

Down, down, down. Down the rabbit hole.

As Alice and her friends barreled through the earth, she wondered if this was what the rabbits had been warning her about.

It was probably around midnight on July 4th—the day she was going to die.

Oh well, Alice thought as she fell. At least I won't die alone.

After an eternity of insufficient gravity, and a lot of yelling from her brother and friends, the elevator halted to a stop. The momentum pulled Alice and her friends to the ground.

She and Dustin fell in a heap, arms tangled in her backpack straps.

"Let me go!" Alice said, trying to yank her backpack free.

"I'm trying!" Dustin snapped.

"Agh!" Steve grumbled, being squished by one of the heavy boxes. "It fell on my groin! Dustin! Get this off of me!"

Dustin, once he was no longer linked with Alice, helped Steve up.

"Is everyone okay?" Robin asked as she checked her friends for visible injuries.

"Yeah, I'm great!" Steve snapped. "Now I know that Russians can't design elevators!"

Steve tried smacking the console again.

"We've clearly established that those buttons don't work!" Willie said with a glower.

"All that button-mashing is what got us in trouble in the first place," Alice pointed out, glancing around the elevator. If only she could use her powers somehow to break them free...but how?

She tuned out the rest of the group. While they freaked out about electronic keycards and the inevitability of them being trapped, Alice closed her eyes and took a few deep breaths.

Clive, she thought, eyes still closed, if you want to pull a white rabbit and show me the way home, I wouldn't be opposed.

When she opened her eyes, her heart soared. Clive Cottontail, the rabbit from her dreams (and nightmares) sat upon a stack of Imperial Panda boxes. He nibbled at a delicious-looking stir fry and rolled his little pink eyes when he saw the way Alice's friends argued.

"Humans," he sniffed. "So barbaric."

Alice walked over to him and, so her friends wouldn't hear, mumbled, "Clive, you've gotta get us out of here."

"Can't do that, love," Clive said, taking a rather large bite of carrot and broccoli. "I'm just in your head."

"But you and your rabbit friends have helped before!" Alice hissed. "First on the Indiana Flyer, and then on the contest car...haven't quite figured out what that one was about yet...and last year, with those dreams when I was freezing."

Clive tapped his chin with his paw.

"Hmm," he said. "I guess I am rather helpful, aren't I? And I suppose I could help...for a price."

Steve's yelling distracted Alice for a moment. Clive seemed to imperceptibly fade, but when Alice focused on him again, he brightened back into existence.