Page 32 of Escaping Wonderland

Alice made a mental note toverycarefully choose her words when asking Shadow questions in the future—and to pay extremely close attention to the way he worded his answers. She shook her head and reached forward to knock on the door. Before her knuckles made contact, Shadow grasped the latch, pushed open the door, and stepped through.

Her eyes widened. “Shadow! What are you doing?”

He paused and twisted to look back at her, brows knitted. “Visiting Jor’calla, of course. That’s why we came.”

“Yeah, but you don’t just walk into someone else’s house uninvited.”

“Perhapsyoudon’t.” He turned and continued inside, adding over his shoulder, “Besides, he already knows you’re here. Why waste time knocking?”

Already knows I’m here?

Alice glanced up at the sky and sighed. “That’s not the point.” Reluctantly, she followed Shadow across the threshold.

The interior of the house was dimly lit, but once Alice’s eyes had adjusted to the gloom, she came to an abrupt halt and glanced behind her to make sure she’d actually entered a building—the inside of Jor’calla’s home looked exactly like the forest outside, with lush vegetation and huge tree trunks. But in here, it was relatively dark—the only light was provided by those little orbs floating around like tiny, faint suns.

She didn’t know if it was the result of expert paintings, holographic projectors, or simply another quirk of the simulation, and she supposed it really didn’t matter. If she had to journey through this world to find a way out, she’d have to learn to shrug off things like this no matter how disorienting they were.

Alice hurried to catch up with Shadow, who was several paces ahead. Everything was closer together in here, giving the sense of walls and a ceiling around her even if she couldn’t see them, and the air was hazy with sweet-smelling smoke that thickened as she advanced.

They followed a path between the trees and thick clumps of foliage, curving ever to the right, as though they were winding steadily toward the center of the building—but it seemed to go on and on, much farther than could’ve been possible given the size of the home from the outside.

Finally, Shadow stopped. Alice peered around him to see a door in front of him—not a door on a wall, but a door on theforest floor, standing without any apparent support. Like the door through which they’d entered, this one was oddly shaped and overly wide, as though it hadn’t been designed with humans—or humanoids—in mind.

Alice placed her hands on Shadow’s back, instinctively pressing against him. “Is it…safe?”

Shadow twisted to glance down at her; his eyes and grin were bright despite the poor lighting. “As safe as anything we’ve done so far.”

Before she could reply, he took hold of Alice’s wrist, reached forward, and opened the door.

A cloud of smoke billowed around them. Alice coughed, squeezed her eyes shut, and waved a hand in front of her face to clear the air. The smoke filled her nostrils and stung her eyes, and its sweetness was overpowering. Shadow pulled her forward.

“No, no, no!” someone cried in a thin, warbling voice. “You’re not supposed to be here, not you, not now.”

With a final, sputtering cough, Alice opened her eyes.

Though a faint haze lingered in the air, the worst of the smoke had cleared. Her eyes rounded; she was now standing inside a circular room, its walls made of the same material as the outside of the home. The light in here was stronger than in the fake forest—or was it technically afake-fakeforest?—they’d just come from, cast by electric bulbs in several lantern-shaped light fixtures along the wall.

Large pieces of fabric in various colors hung from the wall and ceiling, and an overly wide bed was positioned directly ahead, covered in what Alice could only describe as a nest of blankets and pillows. Sticks of incense—the source of the smoke—glowed orange as they slowly burned on a table positioned on the right side of the room. The lantern light, which was somehow white and gray at the same time, dulled all the colors and madethe entire room seem…muted. It was reminiscent of the lighting in an old underground bunker.

That thought didn’t provide Alice any comfort.

She glanced behind her to see a closed door identical to the one Shadow had just led her through.

Her attention finally fell on the individual who’d spoken. She’d seen many aliens during her lifetime—though she’d seen few of them in person—but none of them had been quite like Jor’calla. From head to toe, he couldn’t have stood more than four and a half feet tall, but he was at least just as wide thanks to his long, spindly arms—sixlong, spindly arms. His legs were comparatively short and thin, and he seemed to support his hunched upper body on his knuckles. Each of his hands had two long, thin fingers and a thumb of nearly equal length.

He had large, black eyes that gleamed with reflected light from the lanterns, and long, yellow protrusions sweeping back from his head. His mouth was a set of insect-like mandibles, which seemed odd given that he had skin rather than a rigid exoskeleton. He was primarily green, but there were splashes of yellow around his mouth and along his forearms, and a deep, rich purple at his shoulders, fingertips, and around his neck, with another swatch of it bisecting his face.

To Alice, he seemed almost a cross between a spider—an oddlycutespider—and a caterpillar.

Jor’calla lifted one of his arms—Alice guessed it was at least as long as he was tall—and pointed a finger at Shadow. “Ill omen, harbinger of doom! Youshould notbe here.”

Shadow lifted the hat off his head and dipped into a bow. “Pleasure to see you as well, Jor’calla. It’s been too long.”

Jor’calla turned and paced away—primarily using his arms to move—shaking his head; the gesture seemed more like he was simply thrashing his chin from side to side, as he seemed not tohave much of a neck. “Never too long with such as you. Grinning Ghost, Slinking Shadow, Faceless One.”

Alice frowned as she glanced between the two of them. “What does he mean we shouldn’t be here?”

“Not you,” Jor’calla said, “him.”

---