Unawakening

Chapter One: Alice

Alice was looking up at the sky. A pegasus swooped overhead as its rider, a man with a squid for a head, tipped his top hat toward her. She sighed and nodded back.

[Why did I sign up for this? God, this is insanity]

Alice walked along a paved street that turned into a jungle at the end. There he was. She was so relieved her nurses on the outside would have had to change her bed pan, if she hadn't been so adapt at controlling herself here. Whereever here was. She waved to him and he ran to her. She smiled as his golden pony tail bounced in the wind and his dark eyes sparkled like a cliche romance movie.

"Alice, I thought I'd never find you here!" He said as he wrapped his arms around her.

"I'm glad I found you, Twist. This place is crawling with madness everywhere I look." She cracked him a crooked toothy grin and motioned with her finger back the way she had come. Of course, she had the feeling that it was no longer a quaint little town. "Saw old Tentacle Head back there. He seems to be alright with us here. Didn't give me any trouble." Twist stretched his neck to look over her shoulder.

"Hmm. He must have been feeling homesick, then." He gestured around and she turned. She groaned. 

"I hope he doesn't find out we can't swim."

"I know you don't mean Squidy." Alice closed her eyes. They had both been strangers before this expieriment, never met before in their lives. In the Awakened state. Volunteering meant being rewarded whatever you wanted or needed. Alice wanted the power to finish things she started. Twist had wanted the power of bringing imagination to life. Though with the last meeting they had been sent, they were both starting to doubt if they would ever even see the ceiling of the hospital again. 

"You haven't run into Marin, have you, Twist?" She suddenly asked anxiously. She gestured to the path to a newly constructed cafe with a rhino serving blue-flavored coffe on the inside and they began to walk. Twist shook his head, his pony tail swinging back and forth.

"No, but I hope I do soon. I'm starting to fear that-"

"Don't say it," Alice snapped. Marin was Alice's cousin. She had volunteered because she wanted the power to set things right. And she wouldn't let Alice go alone. "Don't you dare say it. She's probably being Reassessed. You know how long that takes, don't you?" Alice remembered when she had been Reassessed just a short while before. The nurses on the Outside had Awoken her. She remembered blinking and looking around, staring at the IV where Marin had been clutching her arm moments before, the two of them riding in an air-machine high above grazing green cattle-pigs. It had been an entire Outside month of questions and mind-delving before they slipped the IV back into the drug and put her back into the....whatever it was. 

Twist gave a curt nod. As they walked, Alice noticed that her left hand was warm. She looked down and saw. She was locking fingers with Twist. She found that it felt strange, but she didn't mind it much.