Wonderland Syndrome

Chapter Three - Pot o' Pepper

He was expecting the tunnel to stretch on forever, long enough for him to go through the stages of claustrophobia through to morbid acceptance, yet he had only to shuffle forwards long enough for his knees to begin to ache before the soft pillowy hollow of the mushroom became hard and square. Before long he was army crawling forward with a vague sense of familiarity, and it didn't take long for him to determine that he was crawling through a vent.

The metal was cold against his bare arms, but it was a nice break from the scalding sun he was previously trapped in, and he paused briefly to press his forehead against the firm floor. With the silence that took the place of his shuffling and the complaining of the easily warped metal, he could suddenly hear a very faint conversation, too quiet for him to make out anything, but there none the less.

He returned to making his way through the narrow vent and in three painfully tight corners he could see light flooding in from where the vent connected to a room. He had to pause, his nose wrinkling and face twisting up as the feeling of needing to sneeze arose, and the closer he got to the end the more he found himself sneezing until his eyes watered and he could barely breathe.

Even louder than his sneezing, which echoed around the dim enclosed space, was the sound of general chaos. Laughing and shouting and the occasional sound of a dish smashing leaked in along with the light, piquing his curiosity and giving him the motivation to continue inching forward bit by bit.

Eventually, he was slipping his fingers between the grates of the vent, twisting and pushing it until it slipped out of place and crashed to the floor below. The crash blended in with the rest of the noise and went unnoticed.

He slid out of the vent with practiced ease, landing next to the vent cover in a crouch. He didn't have time to assess the room he was in, because as soon as he had strained up a large, dark cloud of black powder filled the room and blinded him. He had time to wonder what it was before he was sent into another sneezing fit and it became clear the substance was pepper.

When the pepper had settled and his sneezing had stopped, Jay easily pressed his back against the wall, giving the room a detailed once-over, just like his training demanded.

The floor of the room, which he discovered to be a kitchen, was an ugly blend of different types of tile, switching from a single green diamond to a striped yellow from square to square, no two the same. The wallpaper had a base of some off white or cream colour, and cartoonish kitchen utensils were drawn in pinks, blues, and greens; everything from forks to blenders spotting the space. The cupboards were the same hideous dull green as the ceiling, lining every wall all the way around the room, then again below, topped with a garnish pink countertop. Every surface in the room was covered in high piles of pepper, like snow, including the grinning cat-clock hanging on the far wall.

His eyes hurt just from looking at it, and the crowded furniture only served to increase the overall ugliness of the room. There was a large dining table in the center of the room with an opened official-looking letter sitting in the center, and a stove against the back wall.

In front of the old stove, Jay could make out the familiar back of a figure. Before he could say anything, the hairs on the back of his neck rose and he quickly shifted to the left a few inches, his back cracking as he moved. A plate appeared in the air where his head had previously been. It shattered against the wall, falling to the floor in uneven shards.

He turned in the direction the plate had come from quickly, unsure if it was an accident or an attack, and found another familiar figure.

Mini was wearing a dress straight out of the nineteenth century, with tight seams, poofy shoulders, and ruffled cuffs. Heavy fabric billowed out around their hips and dragged on the floor, stained with pepper. They were holding a tall stack of plates in their arms, the tight fabric around their elbows protesting the bending of their arms.