The Rabbit Hole

Once upon a time there was a girl named Alice. Alice had been stolen by an evil sorcerer when she was a very young child. The sorcerer had no children of his own and had always wanted a little girl. Alice simply had the misfortune of being in the wrong place at the wrong time, and was snatched away to the sorcerer's tower.

For a time, Alice lived happily with the sorcerer. She was a good child, always listening, generally quiet. She seemed well suited to the sorcerer's tower. But all that changed the night Alice turned seven. For as she lay sleeping, dreaming the dreams of good little girls, it just so happened that her dream started to take shape within the room, coming alive. Alice was one of the rare dream weavers, one who had total mastery of dreams. She could enter dreams, and shape them to her desires, even bringing them with her into the waking world.

On the night that this first happened, the dream was innocent enough; Alice had been dreaming about a fluffy bunny she vaguely remembered from the time before the sorcerer. In her dream, she had been trying so hard to remember him that she accidentally took him with her into the waking world. Well, the sorcerer flew into a fury when he discovered the dream rabbit. He knew what the dream bunny meant. He had wanted an ordinary girl, not one who could very well be more powerful than he was! And so he ordered the construction of a great prison where he would keep Alice away from the world. He wanted to ensure that no one would be able to find her and teach her how to use her powers.

And so Alice was sent far away from everything she had ever known, with no explanation from the sorcerer. She spent the beginning of those dark days ashamed of herself. As far as she knew, she had done something so terrible that the sorcerer had sent her away. Yet she could not understand what that had been.

But as is often the case, a bit of light managed to pierce the darkness. Alice found, when she was really depressed, that she would often wake up and find company, often in the form of friendly little animals, but sometimes toys and other wonders. At first she thought that the sorcerer was sending her these things. But eventually she discovered that these wonders were often the very things she had been dreaming about! And so it became a sort of game, where she would consciously try to bring things out of her dreams, which she nicknamed the rabbit hole in honour of that first bunny that she brought out.

As time passed, Alice became very good at pulling things out of the rabbit hole. What had originally been a dreary cell became a colourful haven for the girl. She had toys, clothes and pets galore. And whenever something happened, a toy broke, a dress tore, or a pet disappeared, she could simply dream a new one to take its place! Sleep became a haven for the young girl, a place where anything was possible.

As Alice grew up, the sorcerer was busy building his empire. After banishing Alice, he had the fortune of finding one of the rare spell books of a long dead wizard. Using these spells, he was able to summon a monstrous horde with which he began conquering first his native country, and then the surrounding countryside. None could stand before his mighty horde.

By the time Alice turned eighteen, the sorcerer had long forgotten her. He had left her prison under the control of his aging manservant. The manservant eventually turned Alice's care over to his grandson, Tim, as the man's son was commander of the sorcerer's army. From the first moment he laid eyes on Alice, Tim fell in love with her. He did not see why so lovely a creature as Alice should be confined in a prison so far away from everything. And so he went to her, telling her he would free her if she would be his wife.

At first Alice was afraid, as this was the first person who had been nice to her in over a decade. But she longed to leave her prison and so she agreed. Tim released her and brought her back to civilization. Alice was shocked at the transformation of the land: all was blackened and burnt where before it had been green and alive. She was even more shocked to learn that it was the sorcerer who had scarred the land.

For the first time, as Alice lay asleep that night, her dreams were truly troubled. She knew that someone would have to speak to the sorcerer and get him to change his ways. Otherwise all that was good and green in the world would be lost. In her dream a woman spoke to her, telling her the way to the sorcerer's tower. To help Alice reach it, the woman gave Alice a magic carpet.

When Alice awoke, the carpet was there with her, hovering a few feet over the ground. To her delight, she realized that the carpet could fly! She found Tim and told him her plan. He tried desperately to talk her out of confronting her prisoner, the sorcerer, but Alice would not be swayed. And so Tim agreed to accompany her on her journey.

They flew over a desolate landscape, heading to the sorcerer's tower. After a harrowing journey, they made it, aided many times by Alice's rabbit hole. They fought their way to the sorcerer's throne room where Alice pleaded with him to stop. At first the sorcerer failed to recognize her, but he flew into another rage when he realized who she was, and who Tim was. He opened his great spell book and struck Tim down, dead, for failing to keep Alice imprisoned. To punish Alice, he warped her mind, changing the good dreams into terrifying nightmares. But failing to realize that Alice knew how to pull things out of the rabbit hole, he sent her to sleep.

For the first time, Alice was truly afraid. Her dreams had always been a sanctuary for her. But now she found all manner of monstrous things waiting for her. She battled her way through the dream, altering it so that she had protection as was her right as a dream weaver. She struck a bargain with one of the denizens, who would destroy the sorcerer in exchange for freedom from the rabbit hole.

The sorcerer was unprepared for when Alice awoke. For with her rose a gigantic centipede with the head of a child and limbs made of children's arms. The centipede tore the sorcerer to shreds and then escaped into freedom as was agreed.

While the kingdom rejoiced at the end of the tyrant's reign, there could be no such rejoicing for Alice. The man she had always thought of as her father lay dead at her feet, beside the man she loved. She had released an unknown evil into the world, one which only time would reveal whether it was lesser or greater than the sorcerer had been. And so Alice took her final journey into the rabbit hole. She fights the evil now in her dreams, with Tim at her side. But she knows that she can never return from the rabbit hole again, for who knows what other evil she might bring with her into the waking world.