Once apon a time, a teenage girl named Alice was doing her chemistry homework under a tree in the woods. Her pet tarantula, Dinah, sat next to her in a little glass box. “Dinah,” Alice said to her pet “You’re so lucky. Spiders don’t have to go to school. It’s miserable! I hate my home base, I don’t understand a thing in math, and I can’t think of a stupid fairy tale for creative writing class. All you do is sit and make webs in your little box all day and eat. I wish I was out of this whole place. I’d rather be anywhere but here.” As she said that, she laid back against a tree. She heard a few cracks then a snap as she fell backward. It was a long, dark all and the only light was coming from the hole where she came from. There wasn’t enough light to see the bottom, but just enough to see the black and white spiral walls with pictures of white rabbits hanging in red frames. “I wonder if Dinah will get out.” Alice thought. “I hope someone finds her before something happens to her.” After a while of falling, she fell to the cold, hard ground with a thud.

Alice opened her eyes to see a very bizarre room. It was circular, (much like the hole she came from) and the walls and floors were black and white checkerboard. The only things in the room were a red plastic table with chocolate bars on it and a red plastic chair. She sat down at the table and looked around. The only ways out of the room was the hole she came from, which was no longer visible, and a little dog-sized door. She started to tear up as she realized that she would never go home.

Alone and confused in this strange little room, Alice felt was hungry. She looked at the chocolate bars. There was a big one and a few bite-sized one. She put the big one and a couple of the bit-sized ones in her pocket for later and ate one of the bit-sized. She could feel herself getting smaller after a few moments. In a flash, she was no taller than a Barbie doll. Just then, a pure white rabbit in a grey and purple hounds-tooth coat scurried by and checked his watch. “I’m so late!” cried the rabbit, “The queen will have my head if I’m early again!”

Wait? What was that? He just, like, came from nowhere and that bunny was totally wearing a jacket and a watch. Oh my God, where am I? Alice wondered. She ran to catch up to the rabbit to find out where he came from in case he could get her back home. She sprinted to catch up to the odd little white rabbit, but it was too fast. Alice lost him after he turned a corner in the woods. Frustrated, she looked around to see where she came from, but the road separated into five different paths. Having time to rest, she looked around and actually noticed her surroundings. This place was dark and scary. The sky was a purple-grey and the trees surrounding the broken cobblestone path have long since died. The air smelled of rotted flesh and some of the little plant life dripped bright red. The road ahead was scarier than any of the roads behind. There was no way she could find her way out of this now. “Damn it all!” Alice shouted in frustration. “I hate this place. I want to go home!” she shouted at no one. She fell to the ground and started to weep. Just then, White Rabbit ran past her, stopped, about faced, and hopped back to Alice.

“Mary Ann, I’ve forgotten my glasses back at the house. Go fetch them for me,” White Rabbit demanded.

“What?” asked Alice, “Where’s the house?”

“Silly girl. Though the trees. My God, it is so hard to find good help these days,” replied White Rabbit. Alice ran through the brush to a broken little cottage in the middle of a clearing. She burst through the open door and picked up the thick black framed that lay on the coffee table.

“Next I’ll be running errands for Dinah,” thought Alice as she raced back through the woods. “Now, Mr. Rabbit, I have some…” she started to say before Rabbit cut her off.

“Now, now Mary Ann, this can surely wait until I get home. Now run along,” Rabbit said as he departed in to the blackness of the forest.

“This is really weird,” she thought aloud. “I’m being bossed around by a rabbit. I don’t even know where I am.”

“You’re in Wonderland.” A mysterious voice called out through the darkness. Alice looked around and saw an old, ugly caterpillar sitting on a rotten mushroom. “Who are you?” He asked as he took a drag from a cigar.

“Me? I’m Alice. Who are you?” she replied.

“Nice name,” said the caterpillar. They stared at each other in awkward silence for a few moments before Alice turned to walk away. When she turned back to look at him one last time, he and his mushroom had vanished. She walked further into the woods and found herself even more lost. She slowed to a stop when she reached yet another fork in the road. Tired, lonely, hungry, and frustrated, she just sat down and screamed. All she wanted was to go home, play her video games, and feed her spider. She wanted to just give up and die. All of the sudden, she heard laughter. She looked up so see a black and green striped cat appear in one of the trees.

“Hello. I’m Cheshire Cat. So you’re Alice, huh?” the cat said to her with a grin.

“Yeah. How do you know my name?” Alice replied, more confused than ever.

“Caterpillar is very chatty. Half of Wonderland probably knows who you are by now.”

“Me?” asked Alice, growing more confused by the second.

“Did I stutter? Yes, you. Hatter says you’re the one who’d gonna kill that batty old queen of hearts.”

“Whoa, whoa, whoa! Wait a sec. I’m not gonna kill anyone. Who said this?”

“Mad Hatter.” Cheshire Cat said in a matter-of-fact way as he laughed at her. “Listen, you take a the middle fork in that road there all the way up. Then you’ll see March Hare’s place. You can’t miss it. They’re having a party for you or something. Hare should tell you where to go,” Cheshire Cat said as he vanished.

Alice walked a bit until she came upon a graffitied trailer. She went to knock on the door, but before she could, March Hare had already opened it and was standing there smiling. “Please take a seat,” he commended as he pulled her indoors. Would you like some wine?”

“Uh, sure…” Alice replied as she plopped down in an old beanbag chair.

“Well we don’t have any. Offering it is just polite. We have cola pop and judging by the very audible sound of your stomach, some potato chips.” March Hare said as he brought them over to her. She thanked him and went about eating. When she got more comfortable, she looked around at the trailer. It seemed more like a frat boys’ dorm than a permanent residence. As she looked around, she saw a man in a green top hat staring back at her.

“You need a haircut,” The Mad Hatter said to her.

“That’s really rude of you to say!” Alice said, offended.

“How is a raven like a writing desk?” He asked.

“What?” Alice was becoming more confused by the second.

“Don’t mind Hatter. He doesn’t know the answer either,” March Hare interjected.

“No, I know the answer. Poe wrote on both,” she remarked. The hosts stood in applause then sat back down to their meal.

“What month is it?” Mad Hatter asked March Hare.

“The fourth I think. This new system the queen set up is total jive,” Mare replied.

“Shoot. I thought it was Tuesday. I hate this new set up. The old way worked just fine,” Hatter said. As puzzled as she was at this who conversation, Alice could not help saying:

“Your watch tells the month?”

“Duh,” replied the increasingly confusing Mad Hatter. “Doesn’t yours tell the year?”

“No. A year’s too long. There’s no need for a watch to tell the year.”

“Exactly,” Hatter and Hare said in unison.

“See, that’s who you gotta kill her! This new system is ridiculous,” Hatter said. “I can’t even read a watch.”

“Time for you to go,” said Hare as he pulled her out the door. “Follow the yellow brick road, Dorothy!” He called out before he locked up the doors and windows. When she started to go, she noticed there were no yellow bricks. Only red-splattered tiles. She decided to follow the red droplets. She figured they had to be coming from somewhere. The further she went into the woods, the more the plants looked alive. She went to pick a rose from the ground when she noticed it was construction paper and paint on a dead flower. It was like this all the way down until. After a while, Alice stumbled upon a croquet court where playing cards were painting the roses red.

“Excuse me?” she asked Seven of Diamonds. “Um, hey, have you seen White Rabbit or Cheshire Cat around here?”

“Mr. Rabbit is at the courts miss,” Six of Clubs said. In a flash, an axe came out of thin air and chopped off his head. The Queen of Hearts was here.

“What year is it?” Queen asked Alice.

“2010,” Alice replied, frightened.

“2010? 2010!? Absurd! Lies! Off with her head,” Queen commanded. In no time the cards had grabbed Alice and to her to the guillotine.

“Hatter and Hare where right,” Alice thought. Before another thought could leak out, she felt the cold steel on her neck. And no one lived happily ever after.