Chapter 18: Chapter 18: A Last Chance

A Last Chance:

(1911 A.D., The Pale Tower, Old Wonderland, the Realm of Ishrakie)

The stroll with Cheshire left Alice with many strange thoughts and uneasy feelings. She decided it best not to dwell at the moment and instead to try and calm herself. She lays back down on the bed and lets herself drift away from worry and concern. After a few hours, she wakes to find a bowl of warm spiced soup placed neatly on the nearby table. The spiced soup smells and tastes exactly how her mom used to make it at home whenever she got sick. She nearly cries. Her hatchet has been cleaned to a perfectly polished shine and then placed on a small table next to her bed. Its blade reflects the dazzling light of the luminous crystal walls.

After finishing her soup, she makes her way over to the door. Listening intently, she eases the door open and steps onto the landing. As a test, she descends the stairs towards the main foyer of the tower, casually waiting for alarm bells, or for Cheshire to step out from a hidden doorway and stop her. There is only one landing before she reaches the foyer and finds the eerily familiar door she entered through yesterday. It opens at her touch. She is free.

She descends the few stone steps to the grass, carefully letting her bare-feet meet the soft wet evening dew. She gets about ten feet from the tower when she remembers the hatchet. Alice scolds herself for being so stupid. I left it in the room, and I was just looking at it. She hesitates, unsure about what to do. The girl whips her head back and forth between the forest that nearly killed her and the white tower that fills her with hope, tainted by fearful uncertainty. She breathes deep, searching herself and then makes a decision.

Within moments she is back up the stairs, but not back to her room. She ascends higher, shouting and banging on closed doors as she goes.

“Hey! Hello? Cheshire! Elf lady? Where are you? Come out! Hey!” calls out Alice as she climbs ever higher.

The woman appears, descending regally down the stairs toward Alice, smiling warmly.

“Hello Alice,” responds Ishrakie.

Alice stares her down, violent rage burning in her eyes. Somehow, her hatchet finds its way from her room to her hand. Ishrakie breathes deep and nods her head understandingly.

“How do you know my name?” growls Alice through gritted teeth, stepping towards the older woman menacingly.

“What do you mean how?” replies Ishrakie, still smiling. She continues to look upon Alice lovingly as she stands resolute, unafraid of the advancing girl. She can feel Alice’s rage, but more importantly, she can feel her fear.

“I mean, you did not just hear it from Cheshire or something. You knew my name, you knew me before I ever even came to Wonderland, didn’t you? Did you do this to me? Did you bring me here?” Alice shouts, closing in on her target.

“Alice… Alice, please. I know you are scared. I know you are angry. There is a storm raging inside you, and it terrifies you. I know your longing and I know your fear as I know all my father’s children,” continues Ishrakie coolly.

“Enough! Answer my questions,” demands Alice, pointing the hatchet at Ishrakie menacingly, her body shaking with fury.

“I will, but one question at a time, or you will just be more confused. As hard as it is for you right now, I need you to calm yourself and let me explain,” replies Ishrakie, arms open wide, exposing herself to whatever her would-be assailant feels she needs to do.

“Let’s start with your first question. Yes, I knew you. I have always known you. I knew you before you were born. I knew you when I made you in your mother’s womb. I have watched you grow. I have felt your joys and endured your sadness. I felt the warmth you felt when your mother would sing to you, the joy you felt when your sister was born. I was there with you when your father died. You could not feel me, but I held you as you cried. Your tears became my tears and your smiles made me smile.”

“Shut-up! Liar! Witch!” Alice buries the hatchet into Ishrakie’s chest. The blade sinks deep.

Ishrakie wraps her arms around her young attacker, pulling her into a tender loving embrace. Pinkish-pale plasmatic vapour bleeds upwards from Ishrakie’s wound as Ishrakie strokes the raging girl’s hair gently. The pale witch places a soft kiss snugly into the nook of Alice’s neck as Alice drives the blade even deeper, blinded by her own fury. The wounded woman collapses backward onto the steps, pulling the small lass on top of her, refusing to let go.

“It’s okay, Alice. It’s okay.”

“Shut up! Shut up!” screams Alice into Ishrakie’s bosom, pushing the blade as hard as she can further into the woman beneath her. Hot tears wet Ishrakie’s breasts as Alice’s raging screams give way to heavy sobs. The hatchet falls from Alice’s hands and tumbles down the stairs. The young girl falls limp, sinking deeper into Ishrakie’s embrace as her heart crumbles in the pale witch’s arms.

“It’s okay. Let it out, let it all out. All the shame and all the hurt, let it out. You are not a monster. You have had to kill to survive, and you made it through, you made it here. What you have done does not define you. You’re a good girl with a good heart. You are loved more than you will ever know,” whispers Ishrakie as more uncontrollable sobs ravage the young girl in her arms. The moments pass and the tears fall until at last Alice lifts her gaze to Ishrakie’s.

“I hate this! I’m so sorry. Please, please forgive me. I just wanna go home. I want nothing more to do with this world. I want my mom. I want my sister. Show me how to get home, please. Please just let me go home,” Alice pleads through bitter tears and heavy breaths as she clings desperately to the wounded goddess.

Alice relaxes and her breath steadies as Ishrakie somehow channels the lullaby her mother would sing to her in times of terror and unease. Ishrakie’s rendition was not a perfect match for her mother’s, but strangely Alice finds it just as beautiful and just as soothing. The pale witch continues to sing the lullaby until the girl in her arms is completely relaxed.

“Now come. I think it’s time you had those answers you wanted,” muses Ishrakie as she softly shifts Alice off of her and stands up before reaching down and helping Alice to her feet. They make their way back to the room of chandeliers.

“You are correct, Alice, in one of the guesses you have already made. I did bring you here, but before you judge me I need you to let me explain. Cheshire already showed you this room, did he not?” asks Ishrakie, gesturing to the room in which they currently stand.

“Yes, he did and he told me its function in at least a basic sense,” replies Alice, stepping up to Ishrakie’s side.

“This room is special. It is not the source of my power or what gives me my connection to all of my father’s creations; however it does amplify both these things and thus allows me to do my work with far greater efficiency,” explains Ishrakie to the young girl beside her.

“And what exactly is your work? Cheshire and I discussed it a little, but only in a limited manner.”

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The tall, pale woman moves through the low-hanging chandeliers. Her hands gently caress against the suspended glass shards as they sway in the phantom breezes of the room. Alice follows close behind her, and the young girl notices that the deeper into the room they go the closer the chandeliers get to each other. Ishrakie lightly grasps two strands that have wound together. Ishrakie gestures for Alice to pay attention.

“This is a naturally occurring problem that sometimes happens. Sometimes universes become tangled with their neighbours. Just as our hair sometimes becomes tangled as we move around. This tangling can become a problem for the strands involved. The problem, if not mended, can become catastrophic as the misguided Vita-Vrillian Energy builds to critical mass and then well...”

Alice watches from beside Ishrakie as the two strands of crystalline shards slowly turn a bright blue and then shatter. The broken pieces burst into flames as they clatter to the ground, burning until they are nothing but ash on the ground. Ishrakie can feel an abrupt uneasiness building inside the girl beside her.

“Do not worry, both those universes were already in their death throes and thus were devoid of any sentient life, but imagine if those had been young healthy universes vibrant with life. What would have happened to all the living things in those universes?”

“They would have died,” replies Alice softly.

“Exactly. Luckily, a single tangle in a celestial thread can be fixed easily enough, however…” Ishrakie gestures for her little student to look up towards the higher chandeliers hanging above them. Alice looks upward seeing hundreds of knots and kinks among the many other celestial strands hanging from the higher chandeliers.

“A situation like that is an entirely different matter. There are trillions of lives, trillions of souls whose fates are bound up in those knots and kinks. The problem so far is not entirely unmanageable, observe,” continues Ishrakie as she leaps high into the air and with a flash of quick, nimble movement unwinds all the tangled strands above them before landing gracefully back down. What happened was so quick and sudden that Alice is barely able to register that Ishrakie even moved at all. Though the moment of exertion was brief, it leaves Ishrakie winded.

“Are you all right?” asks Alice, placing a concerned hand on the older woman.

Ishrakie’s knees start to shake, causing Alice to place an arm around Ishrakie to help support her.

“I’m fine, I’m fine,” mutters Ishrakie weakly as Alice helps Ishrakie to a nearby wall and sits her down against it to rest.

“Normally that would not take so much of my energy but here’s the catch. That number of tangles and kinks is unnatural, something is making them happen. Some ill-will, some sentient force is making them happen. What it is, I do not know, but it is threatening the very existence of all life in the multiverse and killing me in the process,” explains the pale witch.

“The blade of your ax did not make this wound, it simply re-opened it,” continues Ishrakie as she opens the front of her bodice, revealing a massive gash stretching from between the bottom of her breasts to mid-way down her abdomen. The wound is unlike any Alice has ever seen for where there should be exposed tissue there is instead stars and nebulae and where there should be blood there is instead tiny pinkish-pale wisps of light.

“The more my energy is drained from me, the greater this wound becomes. Very soon, it will consume me and when I go…” Ishrakie pulls Alice in close.

“It all falls down,”

Suddenly all the celestial threads on all the chandeliers in the room explode, raining down flaming crystalline debris. Deep suffocating darkness falls upon the room as all of the Multiverse becomes ash on the ground.

“NOOOOOOO,” Alice screams into the vast endless darkness. Loneliness closes in on her. Tears stream from her eyes as she begins feeling around in the dark frantically.

“Mother! Mother! Emilia! Sister! No! No!” she falls to her knees in despair.

“Fear not, child, for it is only a glimpse,” coos Ishrakie softly, appearing out of the darkness and embracing Alice in her arms once again.

Ishrakie snaps her fingers and the lights return to their place, revealing that all the chandeliers and shards there-on are still intact.

“A glimpse, a glimpse of what?” cries Alice, nuzzling deep into Ishrakie’s neck for comfort.

Ishrakie strokes her hair soothingly.

“A glimpse of a future that will come to pass very soon, if my power is not passed on to a worthy successor.”

“Me. You mean me… going home was never an option, was it? I can’t go home, can I?” counters Alice, looking deep into Ishrakie’s eyes.

“We did not lie to you. I do have enough strength left in me to get you home, and I will, if you wish it, but there is not much time left in the Multiverse and I need you to understand that there is no one else. For me, for this place, for everyone, this is it. You can go home and enjoy what little fleeting time is left with your kind and loving family, but sooner rather than later, I will die and so will they and so will you. I know it’s not fair, and if there was any other way, I would take it, but there isn’t,” explains Ishrakie, her tone heavy with a mixture of despair and disgust at the cruelty of the horrible choice she is forced to offer the young girl in her arms.

Alice shakes her head as dreadful uncertainty fills her. She flees towards the door leading back to the stairs. Ishrakie rushes after her as they both move swiftly back down the stairs.

“Alice please… please wait, I know it is a terrible thing to ask but I have no choice, you know I don’t. Alice please…” Ishrakie feels her strength begin to fade once again as her vision and mind go black.

The pale witch collapses, tumbling down the stairs. She tumbles past Alice, finally stopping with a loud hard thud on the landing below. Alice looks on briefly in horror at Ishrakie’s unmoving, sprawled-out body before rushing to the unconscious witch’s side. The young girl examines the goddess frantically, unsure of how to help.

“Cheshire! Help! Cheshire!” screams Alice.

“What happened?” demands Cheshire, as he rushes towards them from the door of the next landing down.

“We were coming down the stairs. She suddenly collapsed and tumbled down,” explains Alice as Cheshire scoops Ishrakie’s limp body up into his arms.

Cheshire slams the ground hard with his right heel, causing reality and the tower around them to shift. Alice finds that they are now standing in a grand ornate bedroom of magnificent splendour. Cheshire places Ishrakie softly down onto the bed. He kneels beside the bed, taking Ishrakie’s hand gently in his. The young girl walks slowly over and places a supportive hand on Cheshire’s shoulder. He turns and stares at her for a moment, but then turns quickly back to Ishrakie. Though he only looked at Alice for a moment, she could see the overwhelming worry and fear in his eyes.

“How long does she have?” asks Alice meekly.

“Not long. Time in Wonderland is very convoluted, but if I were to put it in terms you would understand, I would say two maybe three months tops,” explains Cheshire, stroking Ishrakie’s cheek.

“I told her there was not enough time, but she didn’t listen. No, she believed in you, bet it all on you. Now, here we are.” continues Cheshire in a tone of subtle anger.

“What do you mean?” responds Alice.

“I mean there is no time left. We can’t get someone else anymore,” barks Cheshire.

“That’s what she said,” mutters Alice looking down at her feet as monsters of uncertainty wage war in her brain.

“Look, you should just go. I’ll use the tower to send you home. Just go spend whatever brief time is left with your family so I can tend to mine,” presses Cheshire, grabbing Alice roughly by the hand and leading her toward the door.

“Wa… wait. Le... let he… her go. Che… Cheshire.”

Cheshire looks back at Ishrakie, loosening his grip on the young girl. Alice rushes over to Ishrakie’s side with Cheshire in tow. The young girl grabs Ishrakie’s hand gently. She looks down at the weak and terminal goddess lying before her, and suddenly it all becomes so clear. She could go home and be with her loving family like she has dreamed of for so long. But could she live with herself knowing she had doomed all of existence to die? Could she look her sister and her mother in the eye knowing that by returning to them, she was also dooming them to a horrible fate? Is that love? No, she knows it is only selfishness, using love as a mask. She knows what she has to do, she knows what the right path is, and she knows she must walk it.

“I kn… know it isn’t f... fair,” continues Ishrakie to Alice weakly.

“It’s okay. I’ll do it. I’ll stay. I’m yours,” replies Alice, smiling tenderly as she runs her hands lovingly through Ishrakie’s hair.

“Tha... thank you,” responds Ishrakie, her voice so weak it is barely audible. Alice holds Ishrakie’s hand as the glowing white goddess drifts back off to sleep.

“We should leave, let her rest,” chimes in Cheshire, gesturing for Alice to follow.

Alice walks over and joins him as they both proceed out of the room shutting the door behind them.