<style>
tw-passage{
background-image: url("http://jolineblais.net/nmd341/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/Vanidestine_10_7-1024x683.jpg");
}
</style>
<p>Years after her ventures into wonderland. Years after her first tea party with the Hatter, March Hare, and Dormouse, and meeting a peculiar cat. Years after she was threatened to be beheaded. Years after all of her adventures. Alice, now an elderly woman with children of her own, even grand children, sits upon her back deck with a dull expression spread upon her face. Vacantly she rocks in her chair and looks out over the river just outside her back door. With a sigh she recounts these adventures as if they were yesterday. She shakes her head, finding herself yearning for those days yet again. </p>
[[Next Page->The Rabbit Hole]]<style>
tw-passage{
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<p>She stole herself from her seat and thought a walk through the woods would put her at ease as it had for the past decades. As she trod through the forest however, the briefest glimpse of a white blur captured her attention. She thought to herself, <em>White Rabbit?</em> No, that would be impossible... then again, would anyone think wonderland is possible? She walked towards where she had seent he white blur and found a stump, with an abyssal hole staring right at her. Once more she could enter wonderland. Just once more. She began to climb into the hole, descending into the dark. Climbing down... down... down... until the light seemed a pinhole of its initial self.</p>
[[Next Page->The Return]]<style>
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background-repeat:round;
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<p>As one light slowly exited out of existence, another began to be brought into it. Soon instead of climbing down she found herself climbing up once again. The opposite direction of which she came. She knew that where she ended up would be different than where she entered from. After what felt like hours of climbing, she finally emerged from a fully grown tree in the middle of a field... but something was... off. Instead of the vibrance of the wonderland she remembered, the color was replaced with a lack of thereof. A fog surrounded the lone tree which seemed to house the last bit of color to be seen. "Hello?" she called out. "Hatter? Cheshire?...White Rabbit?" No answer.</p>
[[Next Page->The Silent Flowers]]<style>
tw-passage{
background-image:url("http://jolineblais.net/nmd341/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/Vanidestine_7_S2_3.jpg");
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</style>
<p>She ventured out of the fog and came across the familliar sight of the talking flower garden. Though, she was suprised to see what she had observed: no color, no sound, and a garden filled with withered flowers. "Oh my... what's happened here?" She thought aloud as she scanned the flower bed for even the most remote signs of life. To her dismay, this amounted to none. She slowly became worried at the lack of anyone around. She thought that maybe something was going wrong in wonderland. "Maybe they're all meeting at the Hatter's tea party... I should head that way." She pointed in the direction opposite of where she had actually started walking. Hoping the off rules of Wonderland still applied.</p>[[Next Page->Where the Momeraths once outgrabed]]<style>
tw-passage{
background-image:url("http://jolineblais.net/nmd341/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/Vanidestine_7_S2_4.jpg");
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</style>
<p>The path she chose lead her in the right direction. She wandered through the forest. The continuing silence unnerved her as she journeyed. No creatures at all were greeting her. Not the Tweedles, nor the Caterpillar where there to welcome her back. Not even the momeraths were there to outgrabe and break the silence that very much needed to be broken. The forest was illfully silent as the only thing that did break the silence, but not what she had in mind for breaking, was the crunching of leaves beneath her feet. Not a breeze, nor a sneeze. Only the leaves.</p>
[[Next Page->No Tea]]<style>
tw-passage{
background-image:url("http://jolineblais.net/nmd341/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/Vanidestine_7_S2_5.jpg");
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</style>
<p>Upon her arrival to the tea party garden, she was shocked to see that it was in a state of abandon. Though this would have been her preferred state. Not only abandoned, but the garden had become a ruins. Rotted chair and table splinters littered the ground, some furniture still barely intact. The ceramic shattered and strewn about and silverware rusted beyond recognition. One may think that touching something would turn it to dust. Then off one edge of the garden stood a rough wooden pole surrounded by a cesspool of a swamp. "This can't be right... where is everyone? I simply must find them." She nearly stuttered. </p>
[[Next Page->Time Continues]]<style>
tw-passage{
background-image:url("http://jolineblais.net/nmd341/wp-content/uploads/2018/12/Vanidestine_Final3-1024x683.jpg");
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<p>She searched Wonderland for hours. Hours turned to days, days to months and months to what felt like years. All passing without any evidence of her friends. No one was to be found. She was getting desperate, even looking for those she was less acquainted with. The snow crunched beneath her feet while she trekked on. The cold adding to the sharp pain of lonliness. Her breath turning to clouds in the air, and her aged body aching and sore. Yet she did not give up hope that she would find someone soon. How wrong she was.</p>
[[Next Page->The Duchess Shed]]<style>
tw-passage{
background-image:url("http://jolineblais.net/nmd341/wp-content/uploads/2018/12/Vanidestine_Final4-1024x683.jpg");
}
</style>
<p>Soon she began to recognize the area. She was near the Duchess' house. She picked up her pace and started in a brisk walk to the small palace. Her heart dropped upon seeing what she had saw. What was once a small palace was barely even a place. It looked closer to a rickety old tool shack. Alice inspected it from all angles, walking around it in less than a minute. She looked through a window and had a hard time determining whether the inside was littered with dust or pepper. All she saw was darkness inside. She could not believe anything at all. She had looked everywhere. Well... everywhere but one.</p>
[[Next Page->In the Courtyard]]<style>
tw-passage{
background-image:url("http://jolineblais.net/nmd341/wp-content/uploads/2018/12/Vanidestine_Final5-1024x683.jpg");
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<p>She traveled to the courtyard of the Queen's castle. Soon memories came rushing back to her. From the painting of the rose's to the queen's croquet game. It all seemed like it was all happening just now. As if she were watching herself from another point of view, seeing the card soldiers feverishly painting the white flowers into a crimson red with her helping. The scene slowly shifted over to the flamingo being difficult with her in the game of croquet. She gave a gentle chuckle as the ghosts of her past vanished from sight. Walking over to a rose bush would have been.</p>
[[Next Page->Off with their Heads]]<style>
tw-passage{
background-image:url("http://jolineblais.net/nmd341/wp-content/uploads/2018/12/Vanidestine_Final1-1024x683.jpg");
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.cheshire{
color:fuchsia;
}
#card{
color:black;
text-shadow: 1px 1px white;
}
#card::before{
text-shadow: -1px -1px white;
//content:"Look out now, Five! Don't go splashing paint over me like that!";
}
#queen{
color:red;
}
</style>
<p>While she inspected the rose bush, or rather the thorny stems of the bush, memories echoed in her mind. "<em id="card">Look out now, Five! Don't go splashing paint over me like that!</em>" "<em id="queen">OFF WITH HER HEAD!</em>" "<em class="cheshire">How do you like the Queen?</em>" "<b class ="cheshire">Alice, this way.</b>" The last words uttered were more vivid than before. Her eyes widened. She uttered but one single name. "Cheshire?"</p>
[[Next Page->Cheshire?]]<style>
tw-passage{
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</style>
<p>Upon hearing the familar voice, she began to rush towards it. It kept calling to her in that ear to ear grin: <em>"Alice...Alice...Alice..."</em>. It began to ring in Alice's ears as she desperately tore at branches and brambles that got in her way. Thorns giving her cuts across the surface of her skin, whipping at her flesh. All lashes being ignored by her determination to find someone. Finally coming to a clearing where she yelled. "Cheshire!" He was all there. He was not there at all.</p>
[[Next Page->The Borogrove, now extinct]]<style>
tw-passage{
background-image:url("http://jolineblais.net/nmd341/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/Vanidestine_7_S2_6.jpg");
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<p>The only thing to greet her was the rotting corpse of a bird long thought extinct: the Borogrove. It did not look like a bird, as much as it did just another lenght of wood amongst the forest. There were not even flies around to eat away at the rotting meat. Alice, horrified by the sight, stumbled into a tree near the edge of a cliff. Everything falling away from her. The ground, the trees, the sky even. All that was left now was a void and a monochrome window of a lovely view of her home river, and a noose of vines. </p>
[[Next Page->Eternity's Edge]]<style>
tw-passage{
background-image:url("http://jolineblais.net/nmd341/wp-content/uploads/2018/09/BrushBench-1024x683.jpg");
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<p>She awoke, on a stone bench in her back yard garden. Her grandchild, Alice, named after her, was looking her in the eye. "Gramum! I saw it I saw it! I saw the White Rabbit!" The little girl squealed gleefully. "You did deary?" Alice spoke. "That's wonderful. Tell me all about it!" The little girl told her story about her wonderland, and as she did, Alice, the elder, began to realize that her old wonderland was gone, and that's okay. Her new Wonderland was right here infront of her. Her family made life wonderful, and hearing how Alice, the younger, met all these new wonderlandians made the elder Alice happy as can be. This was her wonderland. The New Wonderland.</p>
[[The End->After Wonderland]] <style>
tw-passage{
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<p>Tears started to stream down Alice's face, now faced with the ultimatum. Continue to be lost in the darkness, or to step over the threshold into peace. Her trembling body slowly began to walk towards the noose, putting her hands around it. There was nothing left for her. There was nothing to keep her happy. Being widowed and alone for years, longing for a world that no longer existed, and finally accepting that her friends were gone allowed her to step towards eternity... before the vines slipped around her neck, she felt a tug at her shirt. "....gramum....gramum..." called a voice. She turned away from the vines and flash of bright light filled her vision.</p>
[[Next Page->The New Wonderland]]