Wonderland Syndrome

Chapter One - Around The Steps (again and again)

The library was nice at night. It smelled of old, grassy notes with a tang of acids like the first hint of the taste of an orange and a dash of vanilla over an underlying mustiness.

In the daytime, dust that never had time to settle would shimmer in the light that swims in from the large, faraway windows like fairy dust, but at night everything was still. The vaguely-haunted room was filled with tall, mahogany wooden bookshelves growing like trees in neat lines, with little gold plaques sorting them into even, alphabetical rows. Books lined the shelves like obedient soldiers, one occasionally sliding its way off the shelf and slamming into the ground with a dull thud in a show of defiance.

The room descended into a cold ocean of silence at night, the various old lamps around the room occasionally flickering like fireflies in the dark, and only a few glowing bright enough for one to be able to read under it.

The only sound was the occasional careful turn of a thin page as Jay read, his eyes gliding across each curve of every letter and taking in the words like they were smoke being breathed into his skin. They blur together. He can't help but think reading would be much easier if books were nothing but pictures.

His half-coherent thought is interrupted by the ever-so faint tap of Cookie's nails against the floor as she sorts and resorts and sorts a deck of cards on the floor, leaning against the couch like she didn't have the energy to support her own weight. The cards lay against the parquet design of the maple hardwood floors, some crooked, some set religiously straight, this time in pairs of four, organized by suit.

Neither of them speaks, and Jay runs a thumb against a smooth page in his book, Tale Of Two Cities. In truth, he's read the same few fragments three times, but his mind keeps drifting. He looks up at the library around him without lifting his head, once again losing his place in his book, and stares out into the misshapen shadows of the room.

Cookie's copy of Jekyll and Hyde sits on the table in front of them, finished. The girl could have left hours ago, yet she remains; sorting cards. She probably knows that Jay hasn't flipped the page in minutes, but she says nothing. She hasn't gone for a smoke break since she burned through the one she keeps tucked behind her ear hours ago. She's wearing her pyjamas but not wearing her mask, as there's no reason to in the manor, herself rather than her alter-ego.

Although, who's to say which was the alter-ego? Jay knew he felt himself both with and without the mask, so did any of them even have alter-egos? Did the mask make them a different person, rather than a different version of themselves? Did it have that much power?

There were many differences between masked Jay, and unmasked Jay, as there is between masked Cookie and unmasked Cookie; his thought process, his posture and even his friends all change and shift into something not quite the same. He considers asking Cookie about it, but he doesn't want to bother the girl. Then again, would it be bothering her? If unmasked Jay had a best friend, it was unmasked Cookie. But masked Jay's best friend was indisputably masked Ty and unmasked Jay hardly ever saw non-masked Ty, always missing them and seeing masked Ty, and masked Jay never saw unmasked Cookie. So, was masked Ty, who unmasked Jay rarely seen, Jay's best friend, or was unmasked Cookie, who he, unmasked Jay, seen all the time, his best friend? Could masked Jay and unmasked Jay have different best friends?

Jay's eyelids feel heavy, and he can feel the bags under his eyes like a heavy coat of make-up, but he stubbornly refuses, dedicated to finishing his book once again before the sun arrives to ruin the dalliance between him and the pages.

He shakes his head to banish unrelated thoughts and finds his place on the page again. Despite his efforts, he can feel his eyes sliding shut when suddenly there's a loud bang from behind him, where the door to the rest of the house is. Jay jumps like a startled cat, the hair on the back of his neck rising. He quickly looks to Cookie, expecting to see the girl gun in hand with a predatory grin, only to find that both her and her casino card deck are gone, as if never there.