“Hey it's Alice...and the time is 1:30 in the morning. I know it's late but I need to tell you. Something nobody knows. Something I've been afraid of for the longest time. Lewis, I am so sorry. For everything that I've ever done to hurt you."
"That was a horrible apology yet it says all it needs. I love you, Lewis, I really do. When we first met you were 17 and I was 10 at the time. To my young eyes you seemed so foreign and different it was exciting and riveting. Ever since that day I told you my dreams. To me today you still are the most magical and amazing thing I've ever seen. I've grown into a woman, Lewis. You stayed a man like you were when I first met you. I love you. I do. More than anything. I made this call to tell you everything and to ask you to don't do it. Just don't do what your going to do. I just know your absolutely crazy and will do something insane. I love you."
Lewis screams loud. The yell echoed though out his hollow halls. Barreling down the staircase to the kitchen where the cook slept lightly. Lewis took the answering machine in his shaking hands.
And as if he were handling a baseball the small plastic box collided against the pale white walls.
On contact the machine and the message left by Alice shattered on to the floor. Leaving only a dent in the drywall.
Lewis fell. He fell to the floor wishing the pain in his chest would stop.
Please. Stop. The Voices begged.
You love her. They told him. Then Jerk him to hate her again.
Free me. He whimpered.
Hours passed while Lewis stayed crippled in the floor crying tears that tasted like poison.
From the other side of the room the wooden door squeaked open. The maid ran to his side checking his pulse and screaming for a doctor.
Still Lewis laid unchanged on the floor. Unconscious or not he could still hear his heart beating and the pain in his heart.
It seemed like days passed before the door squeaked open again. Lewis lays unresponsive now on the four posted bed after being transported by the Gardner and the doctors stinging hands.
Lewis was used to the constant visits from his family and his employes by now. Yet lately the visits became less and less.
This time the door open just a sliver and the footsteps were light. It sounded like a fairy just waltzed into his room. But he knew that was imposable.
The soft feet stopped at his bed side. A hand went to his face, stroking it lovingly as the person made a tsking sound.
He stilled. His heart and his thoughts became nonexistent.
"My Oh my, Lewis Carroll. What a mess you've gotten your self into!" By the sound of the young voice Lewis, automatically knew who was now kneeling at his bed. Alice.
"Alice." The name came from his lips it felt natural and calming so he repeated it a few times.
"Yes, Lewis?" Alice spoke with amusement leaking from her voice.
"Alice." He purred again placing his hand atop of hers.
"Should I kiss you to break the spell your under to wake you from this deep sleep? Like in the fairy tales, princess?" She asked.
Only teasing, of course, she would never be so straight forward. Alice giggled that giggle she thought was stupid.
The small laugh made his hand tighten on hers.
"You're so strong. I know you are. You are being such a dramatic. I'm here now I came all the way from Kingsbury just to see you. And here you are throwing a fit!" She paused.
"Ridiculous!" She took her hands and threw them in the air. Her scoldings made Lewis laugh inwardly. Alice can never try to be serious without making Lewis laugh.
There was a pause before Alice opened her mouth to speak.
"Lewis, please wake up. I know you can her me. You react to my presence."
Still nothing not a movement. Lewis stayed completely and totally still. Not even a twitch. He wasn't sure why because he knew plenty well he could easily move Alice into his arms. Yet he didn't move just to see her reaction.
Minutes passed slowly. The only sound Lewis could her was Alice's heart pounding in her fragile chest.
"Lewis?" She asked calmly. "Lewis?" The more he refused to answer her, made more urgency to Alice's voice.
Eventually she started crying. Her head rested on his chest and she sobs. Openly upon his chest that tightens when he sees such a sight.
Tears were shed openly trying to free themselves from the pain. Whilst she sobbed her hand ruthlessly tightened around his to a point in which he was in a high amount of pain.
That's quite enough now. He thought.
Lewis's hand caressed her hunched back and squeeze back Alice's hand. Alice stilled at the touch as she knelled at his bed side.
"Wha-" The words badly left her mouth before she was plucked from her spot on the floor to the arms of the only man she loved.
"I-" Again she was interrupted by the pressing of someones lips against hers.
The feeling was foreign and different from anything Alice had ever felt before. It was an innocent kiss one kiss to take on the rest of the world. It was Alice's first kiss and Lewis's last.
Lewis fell apart in her arms. He tried to be strong.
Oh, how he did.
Yet his chest was pained and his heart was beating at his rib cage to be let out. He was gone from the usual but welcomed into a place if unusual.
"Alice." He shivered.
"Shh, now there Lewis I'm here." Alice soothes while she ran her elegant fingers though his hair.
For the next seven minutes he inhales her scent from her chest where his head lies.
"Alice, I-" He begins but never finishes when a knife pushes though his lower abdomen.
Lewis's hands reach to the pain and gaping hole of raw, bleeding flesh. When he spies upon each hand is a thick coat of red liquid, a small shriek escapes Alice's lips.
Lewis looks upon Alice with eyes as big as tea plates.
Lewis's lips move forming words between sobs of pain. His hands slip to Alice's covered in blood.
"Alice," He asks. "What happened?"
Alice turns away gripping the dagger close to her chest.
"All I wanted to do is be with you, only you," She answers. "But they wouldn't let me! The queen! The Queen wouldn't let me."
Lewis moves to comfort his soul, Alice, but is countered by a force unknown to him in his delirious blood loss state.
Alice winces as the dagger flys back into Lewis's fresh wound. The gouge makes a deep squash sound as it rolls around slicing through another layer of muscle and skin. More blood seeps out less enthusiastically than the previous.
Obviously in immense pain Lewis gathers enough air to rumble her name through bleeding lips.
"Shh," Alice soothes like she does to the animals.
"Shh, shush my love, save your energy." Her hand mats Lewis's hair upon his hand. Petting and caressing it sweetly as a mother would.
"I just wanted to love you!" She sobs raking the dagger out of Lewis.
"That's all! Once the Queen asked me to whom owns my heart and soul. I told her it was Lewis, Lewis owns me as much as I own Lewis."
Lewis's response was gargles on raising blood into his mouth.
"The queen screamed and shouted at me. She said how such a young thing as me could ever possibly love and be loves my one such as Lewis Carroll." As Alice told her story she moved so Lewis's head was positioned upon a soft lap belonging to the women he loved.
"I told her you were an honest man and would love anything that seemed to love everything," Alice fingered Lewis's hair. "Then, as you know the Queen, outraged set upon a mission to make you hate your self and the love you possess for your girl Alice, me."
Liquid rained down over Lewis's eyebrows down to his lips where he welcomed to liquid into his shocked body. Lewis was jostled when Alice raised her arms to wipe away the trail of tears. She shook her head repeatably as if trying to shake away the thoughts.
"I don't even know why I'm crying," She admitted. "I thought my tears would be dry so late in to game. I thought I'd be okay if I stopped believing in Wonderland like she told me to. I tried, I really did but somehow the fact that we created the place side by side I couldn't for the life of me let it go."
"Why can't I let it go? I asked myself for days and days and days. For an answer my mind drew up a blank. Nothing was holding me back so why wasn't I moving forward?" She sobbed pitifully.
"I don't want to die," Lewis cried, deep tears cascaded down his face. Never has he cried such fat tears. Alice caresses his face, outlining his jaw with her smooth hand.
"I know, love, I know." Alice nodded alongside with Lewis.
"That's exactly why we run." Lewis stared up at Alice shocked.
Run?
"The queen has been watching us. We have to keep it quiet, or else she'll over hear." Alice whispered into her lover's ear.
The body beneath her shivered slightly at her warm breath and relaxed forgetting about the gaping bleeding wound in his torso.
"No," She scared as Lewis lost the frightened look in his eye.
"Go back to being pitiful because that's the only way we'll be able to escape. Come now, think about dying again," Alice began applying pressure to his wound, gently stopping the bleeding while busying her self with ripping off the hem of her dress.
Lewis noticed the noise and activity and spoke up.
"What are you-" but was interrupted by an impatient hand.
"Lewis," She warned removing her hand of his face.
Once Alice tied the fabric around Lewis's waist covering his wound she picks up his hand places to dainty kisses upon it. She held the hand with all her might like a rope pulling her out of a trench.
Lewis smiled at her, relieved at the love she is casting to him even after what he did, does, says.
His relief is short lived however when the lights go out and Lewis is rendered unconscious.
Alice parts with a "I love you."
Alice hopes if Lewis had been conscious he would have answered the correct response. Neither of them has really confessed their feelings in person nor receives an answer.
Lewis awakens to the calling of birds. He rolls over in bed and attempts to block out the endless tweeting and tooting. Although tried it failed and Lewis rose to a new day in a strange bedroom.
A pain surged through his head as he stood upon cold wood.
Where an I? He thought running a hand through his hair. But he was more worried about his love.
Where's Alice? He panicked and threw open the chamber door stomping down the narrow hall way.
"Alice!" He called, "Alice!"