Final Tea Party

A loud crash rings through the twisted unsolvable madness known as “Wonderland”. All of its inhabitants frantically look up to the sky searching for the sound causing the noise. 

A purple-striped cat quickly sits up from their position in their tree as sharp teal eyes find the sky. 

It glitches. It glitches just like a computer would when a virus takes over. 

A gasp escapes the cat before they jump down from what was once a tree and end up landing in the middle of a table covered in all sorts of treats and tea. 

They hiss as their feet land from the travel before looking around at the few others around the table all watching the sky as well.

“We did not have time to properly prepare.” Cheshire elegantly states.

“You cannot be serious.” A man with tall ears similar to a rabbit’s comments as he looks down at the cat who just ruined their unbirthday party. 

“Have you looked up to the sky recently?” The cat’s gaze is sharp and threatening as they glare down at the hare, who only rolls his eyes as an answer.

“The sky is not the only thing threatening our restart.” A tipsy little mouse pops out from a large teapot and lazily points deep into the forest. The cat adverts their gaze to the trees to see trees glitching in and out of this reality, some shifting to random points in Wonderland while others are moulding into one another and collapsing.

It’s chaos. It’s madness. But it is not Wonderland.

“Some people are threatening to restart as well.” The mouse speaks, and it gains the cat’s attention.

The Cheshire Cat snaps their head up and over towards the opposite end of the long chaotic tea table. They look behind them and are completely frightened at the sight before them.

It is none other than Wonderland’s very own Charming Mad Hatter. He sits on the large plush red chair near the table and gazes blindly up at the sky as if he’s not fully there mentally. His head twitches to the side almost every second with an eye twitch following behind every other second. His ring-clad hands tipped with red, grip onto the table in front of him hard enough to have his knuckles turning white.

But that is not even the worst part. 

The worst part of it all is that Cheshire knows exactly why he’s acting this way.

Cheshire gasps and jumps off the table with a puff of smoke that has them standing up in their humanoid form beside the March Hare who has just taken in the situation that is the Mad Hatter. 

“He is not doing what I think he is doing… right?” The hare asks, biting the ends of his fluffy fingers and looking at the cat beside him. 

Cheshire runs a frantic hand through their hair before dropping it onto the table hard enough to shake it and gain the Hatter’s attention. Said man jumps and looks straight ahead, instantly locking eyes with Cheshire. 

Cheshire seethes, griping the table while they look into those clock eyes never faltering. 

“Hatter.” They grit their teeth as the Hatter’s face only morphs into a wide beaming smile that stretches from ear to ear and Cheshire already knows he’s gone.

“My Alice! She will arrive shortly! She will come back so we can be together again!” He claps his hands together and laughs happily, his posture straightening as he continues to twitch along with the surroundings of Wonderland.

Cheshire almost falls to the floor with surprise when the March Hare beside him completely throws anything he can from off the table to the ground.

“That is not your Alice, you complete delirious moron!!!” Hare screams as he throws his hands in the air everywhere. “Wonderland is resetting its surroundings simply because another person has decided to enter its grounds!! None of us have had time to properly prepare or move on from what Alice did here, so we cannot just accept this new person as an Alice when they are not!!!” Hare gestures widely around them.

Hatter doesn’t falter from his position of delight, and Cheshire realizes they need another plan to snap the madman out from his ludicrous daze. 

Hatter abruptly stands from his seat and slowly makes his way over to Hare. The March Hare’s eyes shoot wide open with fear as he takes quick steps back trying to get away from the Hatter, Cheshire jumps back onto the table letting the Tea Pot Mouse frantically scurry up into his vest pocket for safety. 

“What are you doing?!?! You cannot touch me!!! Harming me won’t fix anything!!!!” The March Hare shouts as he feels around his many countless pockets in search of a weapon of some sort. 

The Hatter only gets closer before dragging his hand out from behind his back to reveal a dagger dressed in gold and red. The smile never leaves Hatter’s face as he approaches.

“My Alice will arrive shortly, and you will ruin our time spent together.” The Hatter grabs the March Hare but the collar of his button-up, the hare gasping as he gets pulled in close to the Hatter. 

He opens his mouth to yell some more, mindlessly trying to get the mad man away from him by any means possible, before the Hatter is raising his dagger and within an instant, the usually bubbling cheery head of the March Hare is being rolled across the ground with a trail of dark crimson following behind. 

The Hatter laughs, insanity lingering in each sound releasing from his throat. 

Cheshire covers their mouth with both of their purple hands in order to silence themselves only slightly better. Tears pick at the ends of their sharp eyes, threatening not only ruin their eyeliner but their attempt at quiet.

“Alice is mine!! That person you,” The Hatter points his dark red blood-stained dagger to the March’s Hare discarded dead head, little flecks of blood shooting everywhere. “calm has entered this broken world of Wonderland is my Alice and will be mine whether she likes it or not!!!!” 

Cheshire knows it to be too late. 

When Wonderland resets, they all must resist its pull in order to contain who they truly are inside. But if they fall weak to their own despair, Wonderland resets them. 

The Hatter has spent one full month grieving over the loss of Alice, he was not prepared for Wonderland to reset and was sent into its pull.

Cheshire fears none of them will make it out of this.

The Mad Hatter spins around to face the cat, a manic smile painfully stretched across his face as his eyes are entirely whitened over with tears coated in nothing but the blood running through his body and spilling out onto his cheeks. His hands shake as they are covered in the blood of his friend. 

Cheshire bites the inside of their cheek as they stand at the ready for what the Hatter may do next.

“This is not the solution, Hatter.” Cheshire warns with a careful hand being raised as if he were trying to calm an animal.

Hatter only laughs at him in that manic fashion.

“The solution is, just stay away from my Alice and we’ll have no issues!!” Hatter heaves as he holds his dagger out to point it at Cheshire.

Cheshire hisses. “Don’t make me do this Hatter.”

The Mad Hatter laughs again, rolling his head to the side looking at Cheshire sideways. “Do what?!” 

“You know what.” Wonderland cracks, the ground shakes and Cheshire is quick to jump into the air to float while they never break their gaze from The Hatter.

Said man shakes and wobbles in an attempt to regain his balance. He mumbles curses under his breath that are directed to the ground below him as Cheshire sharpens their claws and grits their teeth. 

“You wanna go, Hatter?” 

The Hatter snaps his head up and grins, the sides of his mouth breaking into a skin-splitting grin. His clock-like eyes spin faster as a loud chime of a bell rings throughout the land.

They’re running out of time. Time they never had in the first place.

“Always.” 

No one knows who lunges first but soon they’re attacking each other relentlessly and Wonderland is crashing.

And a girl dressed in a blue puffy dress with a black corset and fishnet tights with shoulder-length brown hair falls from the rabbit hole. 

She huffs from the fall and blinks her emerald green eyes decorated with black eyeliner a few times as she looks around her curiously.

“Curiouser and curiouser. Where did that nice white rabbit go?”

And at a tea party miles away a Mad Hatter laughs loudly as he eats the remains of a March Hare as teeth from a Cheshire Cat strung together with purple fur adore his collar bones.