Parallel Binds [Kingdom Hearts Watty Awards--Parallel Universe/Canon]

:14: The Madness

The Hatter was a ghastly sight, with hollowed out eyes and skin that seemed to hang from his face. His nose was crooked and his chin sharply angled. All his features were pulled down as if by tiny strings, and the ring finger on his right hand shivered uncontrollably. His stare was still as death, unwavering straight ahead even as Dark crawled slightly closer to the bars that separated them.

“Who are you?” Dark called, narrowing his eyes to see the features of this figure more clearly. The man only looked a man, though his eyes gave away that there was surely something peculiar about him.

“Why is a raven like a writing desk?”

Hatter’s voice was low and gruff, yet it spoke quickly and without hesitation. It rang with the eerie absence of an echo. Dark frowned and looked away for a moment. “Excuse me?”

Hatter stared at him for a bit, the hollowness of his eyes making Dark on edge. But slowly, the droops of his mouth started to curl upwards until he showed off a drowsy grin. “You heard me, lad.”

Dark felt his heart beat out of his chest in frustration. Why was this world so difficult to handle? Nothing around here seemed to make sense, and he could never get the upper hand on any of the nut cases that lived here. Instead of replying with his usual curtness, Dark sat back and thought. There was no use arguing with a mad man anyway. “Well, they both have plumes on them, don’t they?”

A gravelly laughter slowly rose from the man’s cell, and Dark saw him finally move as he choked on chuckles. It escalated so quickly that the man was soon rolling on the floor, his eyes unable to hold back joyous tears.

Dark frowned at the man; this response almost frightened him more than how he was before. “It’s not that funny,” he muttered.

The man suddenly flew to the bars, his hands grasping them and his face squeezing through the gap just in front of Dark. “Why ever not?”

Dark yelped and scooted back, spooked by the hollow eyes so close to his own. But the Hatter wasn’t backing up, almost staring straight through Dark.

“I asked a question,” the Hatter said, “or did I imagine that?”

Dark frowned and looked away. “If I don’t answer, you might as well have imagined it.”

There was a long silence, then chuckles again. “The boy starts to think like a hatter. But who’s ever heard of being two things at once? Which one are you?”

Dark frowned further. “What?”

“Are you hard of hearing?” Hatter asked, still grinning and chuckling away. “Are you a boy or a hatter?”

Dark bit the inside of his cheek and looked away stubbornly. “I’m a boy! I mean—no, not a boy, I’m—” He stopped himself. He shouldn’t say he was a man, because that wasn’t quite right either. Because the Hatter seemed so terrifying in his nature, Dark sat back and looked away, refusing to continue their conversation.

--------------------------------------------

What darkness does precisely, Dark didn't know, but for the life of him he couldn't understand how the darkness in this dungeon was so different than all the rest he had lived his life in. After all, he began to shiver and start when he saw things that weren't really there--kept trying to convince himself that, no, there was nothing in his cell with him ready to rip out his throat, but that's how it felt. This darkness seemed to have the ability to conjure up monsters for Dark to writhe in front of.

Having quite enough of that, Dark's eyes struggled to make out the form of the massive beast that lay in wait outside of their cell. It was huge and wretched; it's exact size unknown because of the scraggly rug of fur that hung from its skin. The teeth, of course, could be seen very clearly from his view, but Dark chose to avoid the sight of those. Instead, he looked at the chains holding the beast to the wall. They didn't look all that secure. In fact, he could see spots on the wall where they had evidently been ripped out and took a chunk of stone with them. How many times the beast had broken free, Dark couldn't tell. Only that with the right leverage, the beast had the potential to break free.