two in a crowded room while others fade away: b-side [original draft]

[ceu]

So, as I've said a lot of times before, way back when I wrote a 15,000 word draft for this fic, hated it, and rewrote all of it and it ended up being 8k longer than the first draft.

The first draft was originally handwritten. I typed it up, printed it out, and while sending it to about four people to help me beta, beta'd it myself. Just from my own judgment it was bad and awful beyond repair, which was why I ended up rewriting it. I do have the original draft though - all fifteen thousand words of it. I think it was here before, and I deleted it, but it's here again.

This was written in February 2011 and finished around the end of the month. The second draft was written in April 2011, two months after I battled every word here and just decided it was hopeless. But I like archiving my attempts and 'outtakes' and whatnot of my writing, so! Here it is :)



--

The sun is high, shining brightly against the pale blue surrounding. There’s not a single cloud around, as light sweeps over the landscape.

Three girls are running along the grass, two with dark hair, one with stark yellow, almost white hair. They’re all in little dresses, though the two with the blacker hair are dressed in a traditional pink while the lighter one is docked in a boyish, baby blue. They laugh as they run past a tree, making their way into a dandelion-covered field.

“Jia! I so caught you hiding there!” calls one of the dark-haired girls.

The blond girl, Jia, turns around and laughs at them, cheeks flushed pink. “You did not!” she yells, eyes teasing. Her long legs taker her farther, and she approaches a log resting on the grass at the side.

“She did, Suzy did!” the other voice calls indignantly.

Jia giggles and turns around to face the two other girls. “Fei, when did you become such an ass-kisser?”

“Hey!” Fei makes a face, like she’s hurt.

Jia just smirks to them. “Don’t let your knickers caught in a bunch—”

“Watch out!”

Jia turns forward again, startled—but Suzy’s call is too late, when Jia suddenly finds herself tripping on something on the ground, and then falling. Falling forward, falling backward—she’s not sure—falling sideways—can one even fall sideways? She’s soaring, soaring in the air with her dress flying behind her, soaring to the lump in the ground where the log she had spotted earlier is resting—but what’s this? There’s a hole in the mound.

“Jia!”

But Jia is curious, intrigued as she looks into the hole, reaching toward it, hands grasping onto thin air. And she lurches herself forward, maybe a little more than she’d want, than she should...

And then she finds herself falling...

falling...

falling...

falling...

There’s a rabbit.

He’s white, as far as she can tell. Even though it’s a bit hard to see anything in the dark cavern. The rabbit is wearing a petticoat, too, and is holding a large, golden wristwatch.

Jia rubs her eyes and thinks she must be dreaming.

But, of course, she’s not, because when she opens her eyes again, the rabbit is still there. He’s peering down at her through a pair of spectacles perched on his tiny pink nose, and his long white ears tucked behind his head twitch in anticipation.

Jia picks herself up from the dusty, dirty ground; astonishingly, her dress is as clean as ever. She looks around to the earthy walls framing the large tunnel. Then she glances up; far, far in the distance, she swears she can see a small bright hole at the top of the cave. She thinks that maybe there are two heads there, staring down into the hole—but she can’t really tell.

She looks down again. The rabbit is still watching her intently. His whiskers flick upward.

“Hello,” she says to him, bending down slightly and patting down her skirt. “What’s your name?” It’s the polite thing to do, she knows; besides, the rabbit looks awfully friendly.

The rabbit’s whiskers twitch again. “Hello!” he squeaks, perhaps a little too quickly. “You don’t belong here.” He doesn’t even bother to consider answering her question: his gaze remains on her, glossy, fixed.

Jia stands back up. “Well then,” she huffs, glancing around. “Perhaps you can tell me where I am, then?”

But before the rabbit can open his little furry mouth to speak again, a girl appears out of the shadows. She’s short, Jia notes; shorter than her, at least. She has bold black hair, deeper than any shade that Jia had seen before, and her bright red lips are decorated in lipstick.

“Sorry,” she says to Jia, as the rabbit cowers in sight of her. “Was my pet bothering you? He does that a lot.”

She kicks the rabbit lightly; he yelps and flies to the side. The girl laughs. “Creepy little fucker, isn’t he? Oh well.” She bends down and picks him up, scooping him into her arms. “Come on you dumbshit, let’s go.”

They walk off into the darkness, and Jia watches them, stunned. Then after a moment, she calls, “Wait, where am I?”

There’s no answer. She’s alone now.

Eventually she decides that she can’t stay here forever and must go somewhere. So she starts in the direction of where the girl and her rabbit had left, into nothingness.

Suddenly she’s in a forest, surrounded by trees and the sounds of plants and animals. The animals are all scurrying around and squawking, while the weeds and trees are whispering to each other. Quaint, Jia thinks, but not entirely strange.

She wonders once again where she is; asking would be rude. She imagines that the creatures would only ignore her, or run away. Right now they’re just staring at her, intrigued.

Jia leans over to peer at an animal closely—it jumps a bit. It’s a bullfrog, she notices, even though she hadn’t realized it before. It has a brown furry face, with two horns protruding from its head. Its legs are green and bent, feet and toes webbed. Jia pokes her finger out to touch it, but then it suddenly jumps and swells up, before hopping away.

“Interesting,” Jia murmurs.

In retrospect, she reasons that the forest isn’t scary. It can’t hurt her, after all—actually, it seems to be more frightened of her at this point: with the trees swaying their branches away from her, and all the critters scurrying off. Jia chuckles at this realization, and then starts along the red marked path, black buttoned shoes denting into the ground step by step.

As she walks along the dark, thick wood, she passes by a garden where a group of roses appear to be singing. Yes, they are, she observes when she takes a second glance—and the daisies are as well. The lilies are the baritone so it’s only reasonable she hadn’t heard them the first time (roses are rather boisterous, showing off their flowery soprano voices—flowery, and Jia chuckles to herself) and the chrysanthemums are a modest alto. The tiger lily is in the corner, growling and reaching only the lowest notes. Jia stops, staring in awe.

“Hello!” she calls to them, cupping her mouth. “You sound lovely!”

The flowers suddenly turn quiet—and then they start shrieking. Their petals rustle and their stems move about, scrambling to duck and hide. A guilty knot twists in Jia’s stomach; she hadn’t meant for them to be scared. After all, they should know how wonderful they sound. Jia just watches as they panic, before shaking her head and continuing on.

She ends up on a beach (“What’s a beach doing in the middle of the wood?” she speculates,says with a grin, plucking one of and handing it to her. “Here. “They’re pretty good, actually though she supposes that if this is the geography of the land, she shouldn’t question it), where a walrus, a butcher and a family of oysters are hopping along.

“Hello?” she calls out to them, but before she can run over, she’s stopped by two boys in her way. Both are short and plump, and seem rather out of place here, in contrast to the sun dangling in the sky, highlighting it yellow. Their faces are the same, however, so Jia suspects that they must be twins.

“Hello!” says one of the plump boys. Jia notices that they’re both dressed in striped shirts and suspenders, with little hats as round as rice bowls perched on top of their heads.

“How do you do!” chirps the other. Their collars are tucked up; Jia can’t tell who’s who.

“Hello,” she says to them. “I was wondering if—”

“You shouldn’t be here,” says the first (or perhaps the second) boy.

“You don’t belong here,” squawks the second (or is he the first) boy.

Jia sighs exasperatedly. “I know, I was wondering if-if you could tell me how to get around—”

“We don’t tell anything,” says the first-or-perhaps-second.

“We never tell anything,” agrees the second-or-is-he-the-first.

“We don’t tell nobody nothing.”

“We tell nothing to nobody, never.”

“We hardly ever never tell nobody nothing.”

“We tell everybody barely never nothing, no.”

“We don’t not tell nobody nothing but anything.”

“We tell nobody anything and nothing, never.”

“No, it’s tell nobody nothing—”

“No, it’s not tell anybody anything—”

Jia’s head is hurting by this point, and as the two boys argue, she decides that she should leave if they’re not going to help her. She thanks and bids them good-bye (though it’s not like they hear her) before turning and continuing on. They should be grateful she had thanked them, she thinks. They hadn’t done anything for her; it was the least she could do. For nothing. Or for never not anything—her head hurts again, so she shoves these thoughts to the back of her mind.

By the time she decides it’s time for her to stop—after all, walking for several kilometers (as far as Jia had measured) tends to hurt one’s feet. Besides, she had just seen a little baby turn into a big, running away from a short plump woman and a tall, well-dressed frog. Out of all the curious (and curiouser) things that she had seen so far, this had startled her the most. So she decides that it’s time to allow her poor feet to rest.

The moment she sits down, she notices something peculiar in the tree above her.

“Giving up so soon?” says a voice.

“I’m not giving up,” Jia replies; instinct tells her that she should be frightened but she is not. “I’m only stopping for now.

“But isn’t that giving up, for now?”

When Jia looks up to the tree branch again, she sees a violet-striped cat sitting there, with a large, wide grin stretched across his face. “I’m sure it’s not,” she tells the cat, only to be polite. “And who are you?”

“I am whoever you want me to be,” the cat replies, moving its head slightly; suddenly, he’s looking at her ninety degrees from the side. “Call me a tabby, a pest, a kitten, a nest; a pet, a friend, an animal, a rodent; other may say more or less that, though I am known most as the Cheshire cat.”

Jia wants to say something about how “that” is not the proper pronoun use in the tense. She also wants to mention the Cat’s horrible use of assonance. But she figures that the only polite thing to do would be to clap—so she does just that—and then says, “I will call you the Cheshire cat. My name is Jia.”

“Strange little one, are you?” the Cat says in an observant tone. He turns his head once more until it is right-side up (or, perhaps, wrong-side down.)

“I’m not strange,” Jia says, crinkling her nose.

“You’re rather normal,” the cat tells her.

“I’m not normal either!” Jia stops her foot and glares at the Cat, for being called normal is like being called not special.

“Make up your mind then, which one are you? Strange or normal?” And all the while, the Cat does not stop smiling.

A thought strikes Jia. “Hey, you can talk, can you?”

“The last time I checked,” the Cat responds, “I could sing as well, though I’m not quite sure you’d want to hear that.”

Jia waves his nonsense aside. “I was wondering if you could tell me where, exactly, I am. And where I should be going.”

“But of course, you’re walking, correct?” replies the Cat.”Therefore, you must know where you’re going. But if you want advice from me, then I say: continue on your path. This world is a wonderful place.”

“Yes, but what is this world?” Jia asks.

However, the Cat is starting to drift away into thin air, becoming nothing on the tree branch. Jia’s eyes widen in panic as she gets up from her seat on the rock and starts toward the Cat, shouting, “Wait, wait!”

“I do believe though,” a voice says suddenly—Jia turns around to see the Cat again, this time floating around between some trees, “that there are humans at the Red Queen’s palace. Perhaps you can go there. You’ll have to go through that house, first.” He points to a small cottage between a bend of trees, not far away.

“I hear that the man who lives there is mad,” he whispers to Jia.

“Mad?” Jia whispers back.

“Mad!”

The Cat suddenly lets out a scream of laughter and rolls around in the air, still cackling. He rolls and rolls and rolls and rolls—and then he stops and grins at Jia. The rest of his body slowly starts drifting away, until nothing is left except for his smile.

Jia trudges through the riverbank to get to the house the Cat had pointed out. The frogs scurry along and the fish rush to collect their money before Jia can bother to apologize to them, so she continues on without much hesitation.

The house is small, actually, in the vast clearing, but there seems to be some sort of celebration coming from the backyard. Upon coming closer, Jia can see a man in a large top hat (with a card imprinted “10/6” in its brim) and a hare as tall as the man bounding along with him—they’re singing, Jia notes. There appears to be a dormouse with them, as well. A girl is sitting at one of the large chairs which are surrounding the table lined with plates of food and cups of tea.

“Um, excuse me,” Jia says once she’s close enough for them to hear. The Hare is about to put a candle on the Dormouse’s head. “Do you happened to know where the Red Queen’s castle is?”

The girl in the chair turns to her immediately, at the sound of her voice. Her black gaze sparkles when she sees Jia. “You,” she says, getting up from her seat and walking towards her.

Jia shifts uncomfortably. “Yes, me,” she says.

Something shatters, but the girl approaching Jia pays not notice. Jia, on the other hand, can see from the corner of her eye that the Hatter, the Hare and the Dormouse in the Hatter’s hand are frozen in place. In the Hare’s hand is a broken piece of a plate.

“You’re that girl I saw in the tunnel earlier, aren’t you?” The girl examines Jia thoughtfully, tapping her chin, where the ends of her wild black hair meet. Then, she breaks out into a smile and sticks her hand out. “Hi, I’m Min.”

“Jia,” Jia says, taking it. Min’s hand is small and slender, but strong. She feels lost when their hands separate.

Min continues grinning. “Why don’t you join our party,” she says, clapping Jia on the shoulder and guiding her to the table.

The Hatter and the Hare (the Dormouse may have scattered away) shout at this. “Yes, join our party!” the man says.

“Join it!” the Hare encourages.

“What’s the party for?” Jia asks, turning to Min as she settles into a chair.

But then the Dormouse pops out of the kettle on the table in front of them. “Why, for our unbirthdays, of course!” it replies.

“Only naturally,” adds Min.

“Is it your unbirthday too?” the Hare asks.

Jia thinks. It’s definitely not her birthday, she knows. But what is an unbirthday? A not-birthday?

“Well, I suppose,” she says, “but technically, almost every day is my—”

“Then celebrate with us!” The man shoves a plate in front of Jia. “Here, have some pound cake!”

“Pound cake?” Jia blinks.

Min, from beside her, nods. “Go on, it’s good.”

So gingerly, Jia leans forward and, with a nearby fork, starts picking it off piece by piece. It’s rather hard, though, with only one hand, so she lifts the plate and the cake up as she continues eating. But as she eats more and more, she notices that the cake starts to weigh more too—at least, it takes her more effort to pick each piece up and eat it.

“It’s getting heavier,” she suddenly states aloud, looking up—only to find that the Hare, the Hatter, the Dormouse and Min are staring at her.

“Well?” asks the Hare.

“Do you like it?” the Hatter inquires.

“It’s quite good,” Jia answers. “Though I’d like to know why it’s not getting any lighter, if you don’t mind.”

“Because it’s pound cake, of course!” the Dormouse chirps up. “It always weighs a pound, no more or less.”

“No matter how much you eat,” adds Min.

“But why?” says Jia.

“Well think about it,” the Hare jumps in. “It’s a pound cake, right?”

“Therefore, it must always weigh a pound,” chimes in the Hatter.

“Even when you eat it—”

“—because it never stops being a pound cake—”

“—it’s never a half-pound or a quarter-pound—”

“—just always a pound cake—”

“Forgive them, they’re a bit mad,” Min interrupts, amused by all this. At least, as far as Jia can tell from the smile on the other girl’s face.

“I’ll say,” mutters Jia, glancing at the Hatter and the Hare, who are now arguing about whose unbirthday is first.

Jia turns to Min, who currently has her gaze fixed on the two. “What is this place?” she asks, because Min is the only sane person she’s met the whole time she has been here.

Min chuckles in response. “This is home,” she replies. “For me, at least.”

“Home?” Jia wonders where her own home is, and tries to remember where she had come from, while she gazes at the Hare and the Hatter on the other side of the table, both now trying to poke the sleepy Dormouse awake.

“Hey,” Min says, turning to her suddenly. Her eyes shine vicariously, bright. “Where the hell are you going, anyways?”

“I... oh!” Jia can remember this. “I had been told by a... by a Cat. To go to a palace.”

“Which palace?”

“The Red Queen’s,” Jia responds, recalling the Cat’s words. “Yeah. That’s whose it was. At least, I’m pretty sure.”

“You should know where you’re going or else you’ll end up nowhere.” Min twirls a small spoon between her fingers.

They continue watching the Hare and the Hatter and the Dormouse, who seem to have taken on the role of being the girls’ entertainment. They sing and dance and Jia finds herself getting lost in their songs. Time passes for quite a while—or perhaps, only a few minutes. Jia turns to face Min once again, to see that she is bobbing her head up and down and laughing at the jesters before them.

“I think, I’ve been seeing the strangest things all day,” she tells her. “Am I supposed to do that here?”

“I don’t think you’re supposed to be seeing things anywhere,” replies Min with a chuckle. “What kind of things?”

“I don’t know. Just all sorts of things.” Jia furrows her eyebrows and ponders over this.

Min giggles and nudges Jia’s arm. “I think you’re crazy,” she says. “But it’s okay. We’re all a little mad here.”

“We are?” Jia blinks and stares at her, confused.

“Well of course! Hey.” Min’s face brightens up, suddenly curious, eager. “Tell me about your world. You’re not from here, are you?”

“No.” Jia shakes her head. “My world... It’s... different. Plants don’t talk, or make any sound at all. Animals make sound, but they never talk. We never celebrate unbirthdays. And pound cake is never one pound.”

“Maybe you are crazy,” Min says, amused. Her eyes are wide with surprise, though. “No unbirthday parties? Half-pound cake? I don’t know how you can live like that.” She glances to Jia again. “You’re definitely crazy.”

But before Jia can respond to this, Min jumps off her chair and grabs Jia’s hand suddenly. “Come on,” she says. “Let’s go to the Red Castle.”

The two girls start their journey to the castle, climbing over vines covering the forest grounds. Jia steps around a large dark tree, and then looks to the other girl.

“Have you been to the Red Castle before?” she asks.

Min glances to her and her face lights up at Jia’s question. “Well of course,” she replies, “or else I wouldn’t know where I’m going, would I?” Her gaze is teasing, amused.

Jia barely opens up her mouth to speak, but Min merely tugs at her wrist, cutting her off. “Come on, let’s go scare some animals!”

“What animals?” says Jia as Min starts to run, pulling her along with her. “What are you talking about?”

“The animals in the forest!” Min giggles. She sprints down the forest floors, gliding, floating, almost flying. Jia finds herself being led around bushes and trees and plants, until they stop at a small clearing.

The creatures in the middle of the path screech and flee in fear while they stand there, watching. As Min shrieks with laughter, Jia looks around at the fawn and the squirrel fighting to get through the brambles, at the foxes running between tree trunks, at the birds escaping and soaring through the air. It almost reminds her of home. Almost.

“Wasn’t that fun?” Min breathes, panting close to her ear. “I haven’t done that in a long time—it’s been a while.” She lifts herself up and grins.

Jia manages a small smile. “I guess,” she says. “Are there animals like this too, all over the forest?”

“There are some,” Min replies. “But most are a lot less boring. I haven’t seen creatures like that in ages. I think they’re attracted here just because of you.”

“Because of me?” Jia says, startled.

Min smirks. “Don’t get too full of yourself. Since you’re definitely not from around here, they probably sensed you immediately. Are there creatures like this in your world, too?”

“No. Well, except for the ones we frightened off,” says Jia.

Min nods thoughtfully. “Come on then,” she says, putting her hand in Jia’s, icy touch stinging the underside of her palm. “Let’s keep going.”

Min brings her to a wooden building at the edge of the forest. Jia’s a little bit wary of going inside, but after Min jerks her head and says, “Don’t worry, just follow me,” she decides that she can trust her and enters the building.

On the inside, shelves and tables line the walls: Jia realizes that this is a shop, not a house. However, there isn’t anyone home, though little wads of cotton are tucked into the splintery ground, making Jia wonder who stays here anyways.

“Are you sure we’re allowed to be here?” she asks Min, who’s browsing through one of the shelves. There are jars of yarn and all sorts of needles—crocheting needles, knitting needles, sewing needles, pine needles. Min picks up a pair of knitting needles and examines them.

“Well of course,” she says, glimpsing at her. “Or else I wouldn’t have brought you here, would I?”

“I guess,” Jia replies, though she shifts uncomfortably.

Min hands her the knitting needles. “Here. We’ll need these.”

Jia stares down at them. “For what?”

“For rowing.”

“For rowing?”

“Yeah. Across the creek.”

“What creek?”

“That creek,” Min says impatiently, taking Jia by her shoulders and turning her around.

Jia’s surprised to see that suddenly, they’re in a small boat that’s floating down a small stream in the middle of the forest. There are small ripples and ebbs in the water, rocking them along gently, but not enough to push them very far. They’re both sitting down too. Jia doesn’t remember sitting down.

“How did we—” she starts, but stops when she sees that Min is too busy staring down in the water, eyes shimmering.

“I haven’t been here in a while either,” she’s saying, stroking her hand along the shallow creek. “I forgot how nice it is out here.”

Jia continues watching, as Min plays with the water, tossing it in her palm. Then she turns back to Jia.

“Here, let me help you row,” she says, taking an oar out of Jia’s grasp—wait, an oar?—and putting it into the water. Then she rocks it back and forth while grinning at Jia. “Well? Aren’t you going to row too?”

“I—uh—yeah!” Jia jerks herself out of her daze, and then takes her own oar and shoves it into the creek. She rolls it along, and the boat starts moving faster.

They push along the path. As they flow along with the river, Jia notices the forest around them: the way the tree branches and vines dangle low, almost touching the top of their heads. Birds are squawking and screaming, even though Jia can’t see any of them. She wonders if they are birds at all. In the background, there might be animals chattering and muttering amongst themselves. Jia doesn’t know, though, through the thick of the wood.

Down below, the water is making noises every time they move their oars, sort of like the sound of a rocking chair. Jia looks down. Eels and all sorts of fish are swimming along—unsurprisingly, she sees a catfish and a dogfish chasing each other (though it’s a bit hard to tell who’s who in the faint light of the water), as well as an angel fish playing a harp and a swordfish with a shield tucked under its arm. While Jia continues stroking her oar and peering into the blue, she realizes that the water isn’t as shallow as she had thought—or maybe it had just gotten deeper. She can’t tell if the black beyond all the creatures indicates depth, or is merely the sea ground.

Jia and Min continue to row until they stop at the edge of the river (but there are no banks here, she notes), and then they climb out. Jia watches as Min shoves the black hair out of her eyes, dark in comparison to her pale face.

“Where do you live?” she asks her suddenly, keen on knowing more about her.

Min turns to her with a chuckle. “You’re fucking weird, you know that?” she says. “Don’t worry about it. Come on. I want to show you something.”

They walk along the dirt ground, through some vines and bushes before Min suddenly stops. “Look.” She points to the tree in front of them. Growing off the branches are dark green pine needles sticking in all sorts of directions. They jumble and tangle together; Jia swears that they are alive. Hanging off of some of the ends are apples.

“Hungry?” Min says with a grin, plucking one off and handing it to her. “Here. They’re pretty good, actually. Best food in the forest.”

“Really?” Jia says. She bites off a piece. It’s sweet, a bit minty—but not at all tropical.

“Yeah.” Min bites into her own as well, fumbling with the slice between her bright red lips and pearl teeth. “The food around here is shit, anyways. Especially the crabapples. Totally not worth it to try to catch those things.”

“Oh.” Jia eats her apple again. She wonders what Min tastes like.

Jia feels like something large is rising in her body when she and Min eventually come out of the forest, into a large sea of grass. In the distance, there are yellow weeds billowing in the breeze, forming a hill where white and red palace is.

“That’s where we’re going,” Min says, taking Jia’s hand and pointing to the palace with her fingers. Her breath is dangerously close to Jia's neck and a chill runs down her spine.

“Really?” she whispers to Min, turning her head to face her. Their noses brush, their lips close.

Min laughs and lets go of her. Her hands drop. “Oh, you’re so cute,” she says to Jia, leaning in and kissing her briefly on the cheek. Then she grabs her wrist with the front of her palm and says, “Come on!”

They run for quite a while until Min says, “Stop, I’m running out of breath.” So Jia stops and finds that she’s gasping for air as well.

The two of them flop onto the ground while the bluegrass crumbles and bends beneath their backs. Jia looks through the cerulean strands brushing against her cheek like an ocean’s wind, and sees Min laying beside her, staring up at the sky.

“The world’s a pretty fucked up place,” Min says. Her eyes are fixated on a cloud winking down at them, but Jia can tell that her mind’s somewhere else. Especially when Min turns a little and looks into Jia’s eyes, lips curving slightly. “Isn’t it?”

“I guess.” Jia clears her throat. It feels like there’s a frog stuck in it. She wouldn’t be surprised if there is.

“With fucked up people and fucked up lives.” Min chuckles to herself. “Talk about your world again.”

“Why?” Jia asks suddenly. “I thought you said you’d hate it. Or at least find it boring.” An embarrassed pride swells up inside her at these words.

Min doesn’t move from watching the white puffs drift above them. “Yeah, but it’s so much more different. Nothing I’ve ever known before. I want to hear more about it.” And she nudges her hand against Jia’s.

Jia does her best to ignore the electricity that rushes up her arm, that makes the world stop spinning around them for a moment—but only for a moment. “You’re right,” she says. “It is boring. Nothing makes any sense, the flowers don’t sing, the plants don’t talk, the fish don’t have money... and I have lessons.” She makes a face. Min, who’s watching her, shouts out a laugh.

“But,” Jia sighs, resting her head on her hands, “it’s fascinating anyways. The people there.... No one is exactly like another and you can go places, all over the land, all over the sky... all over the water! You can grow up and do whatever you want and you don’t have to take orders from anyone. All the children there want to be adults. I want to be an adult.” Jia’s eyes glaze over in thought as she shakes her head beneath her cushion of yellow hair. “I remember when I was younger, I always wanted to be a princess...”

Min laughs suddenly. “But you grew out of that, right?” she says. And without waiting for her to answer, she adds, “Besides, I can do whatever I want. I don’t need any dumbass grown-ups to tell me what to do. That should be called child abuse, or whatever.”

“Yeah,” Jia answers quietly. She thinks about her parents who had pulled her out of the streets and yelled at her to never run in front of a car again. She think about how she had dressed up in bright pink dresses when she was younger, twirling around with a sparkling grown on her head. She forces the sad smile off her face.

“Plus,” Min continues, the sound of her chuckling floating along the wind, wrapping around Jia’s ears. “At the castle, the grown-ups take orders from you. They do you what you want them to do. Like balance a pie on their head or wash your feet or take your showers.”

“How do they do that?” Jia asks her, interested all of a sudden. She’s never liked showers.

“Take them away from you, of course. Unless you’re a peasant. But you don’t need to worry about that.”

“What do you mean?” Jia starts, but Min gets up and looks along the fields, evidently not hearing her.

“Come on,” she says, stretching and looking down to Jia. “We should get going.”

It isn’t much longer when Jia feels her stomach grumbling. She knows that she and Min had just eaten those apples, but— Her stomach growls again, and she covers it up embarrassedly. Min still manages to hear, though.

“Are you hungry again?” she asks, amused.

Jia nods. “Yeah,” she says. “Sorry, we don’t have to stop if you want—”

“Oh no, it’s all right.” Min grins as they walk around a tree. “There’s some food around here anyways, I think. Yeah.”

She bends down suddenly; Jia hesitates. What is Min doing? She bends her body to the side a little, to see that Min is examining the underside of a small mushroom growing out of the ground.

“Yup. This is it,” Min says confidently, turning to Jia. “There’s your food.”

“This?” Jia blinks down at the mushroom.

Min nods and moves to the side. “Yeah. Go on then.”

“Are you sure it’s safe?” Jia asks cautiously.

Min rolls her eyes. “Oh please, Jia—” and Jia notices how her name flows delicately on her tongue “—do you honestly think I would try to poison you? Come on, eat it.”

So hesitantly, as Min steps out of the way, Jia moves toward the small plant. It’s just any other mushroom, she notes, and she wonders how it’s supposed to fill her up if it’s so small.

“Oh, and eat from the left side,” Min tells her from behind.

Jia glances to her. “The left side?”

“Yeah—no, your other left side,” Min says exasperatedly when Jia starts to move her hands.

Jia frowns.

“But that’s my right side—”

“Ugh, never mind, let me do it.” Min shoves past her and picks off little pieces of the mushroom head, and then hands one to Jia and grins. “Cheers.”

“How am I supposed to eat this?”

“Put it in your mouth, of course.” And before Jia can do so much as ask another question, Min takes her hand and shoves the mushroom bit in her mouth, before eating her own.

Then all of a sudden, Jia finds everything around them growing larger and larger... and larger... and larger. The trees are suddenly thousands of feet tall and the leaves on the ground come up to Jia’s shoulder. Alarmed, she glances around frantically—to see Min, just as short as she is, standing beside her.

“Wh-Wha—”

“We shrunk!” Min says. “There. Now are you full?”

“I—Oh, I am!” Jia’s delighted to find that her stomach is no longer grumbling, but rather, purring in satisfaction. She looks off to the side where the mushroom is. Two large chunks on the right side are gone.

Min smirks and grabs her wrist. “Let’s not waste time screwing around then. We still have loads to see!”

Jia doesn’t even get to open her mouth before they’re gliding along the forest floors again, still at the same pace though so much smaller. She wonders how Min manages to do it; maybe it’s just the way this world works. Min bounds over pebbles and rocks and large ruts in the ground with mere leaps, as Jia does her best to stumble after her. It seems like the only thing keeping them connected is the link of their hands.

“How—do you—go so—fast?” Jia asks, forcing her body to keep up with the other girl’s.

Min spins her head around, lips curling. “It takes a lot of practice,” she shouts to her over the sound of the forest surrounding them (which is much louder, and much bigger). “Don’t worry! I’ll teach you one day.” And then she sends Jia a smile that reminds her of shining, broken glass.

When they run out of breath, like they always do., Min lets go of her hand and both girls lean over, panting. However, this time, before either of them can get up and look at each other, Jia hears a deep voice say suddenly,

“Who... are... you?”

She glances up, to see a large, periwinkle Caterpillar sitting on a mushroom, blowing smoke out of a large, long stem. He’s staring down at Min and Jia, looking half-inquisitive, half-annoyed.

“Who are you?” Min asks rudely, picking herself up and glaring at the Caterpillar. She puts her hands on her hips, and Jia is distracted for a second (but only a second.)

The Caterpillar brings the end of his stem to his mouth and breathes, before puffing it out again. “I do believe,” he says, rings of smoke coming out of his mouth, “that I asked you first.”

“Like hell I care,” Min says. She turns to Jia behind her. “Come on. Let’s go. This is a bunch of bullshit.”

As they turn to leave, Jia catches a glimpse of the Caterpillar’s face, who looks rather offended at being blown off so quickly. Jia wants to stay back and talk to him a little—but the Caterpillar seems to care about Min more. “Aren’t you going to answer my question?” he bellows. “That’s rather rude, you know!”

Min ignores him; Jia, however, finally turns around. She sees that the Caterpillar had started slithering towards them, and is now only a few paces away. He eyes her as she approaches him.

“Let me tell you something,” he says once she’s close enough to hear him. Ahead of them, she can hear Min call out to her, but Jia stays behind with the Caterpillar instead.

The Caterpillar leans in, his smoky breath strong under Jia’s tiny nose. “You don’t belong here,” he whispers in her ear. “This isn’t your place.”

“Jia, are you coming?” shouts Min’s voice. She suddenly appears between two trees and through the flurry of leaves, to see the Caterpillar hovering over Jia’s head. Min rolls her eyes. “Oh, fuck off,” she says to the Caterpillar, waving at him with the stick. The Caterpillar watches her but slinks off. Then Min turns to Jia.

“Well then? Aren’t you coming?” she repeats. “I swear, you inhaled too much of that old thing’s smoke.”

As they make their way through the wood again, Jia does her best to shove the Caterpillar’s words out of her head.

“What happened to your rabbit?” Jia asks.

“What rabbit?”

“You know.” Jia looks at her. “The white one.”

Min blinks. “What the hell are you talking about?”

“The white rabbit! You said he was your pet!” Jia says exasperatedly.

“When was this?”

“When I first came here! I fell in a hole and I saw a white rabbit, and then you came out of nowhere and said he was your pet, and—”

“I told you you were crazy,” Min says with a grin. She leans in and kisses Jia on the cheek. “Come on. We’re almost there!”

“But—” Jia protests, but stops when she suddenly finds herself being pulled into a bright green carriage that appears out of nowhere.

“We’ll be at the castle, soon,” Min says from looking out the carriage window. “We can rest for now, though.” She sighs and sits on a wooden bench in the vehicle.

Jia sits next to her. Across them is a grasshopper, reading a newspaper. And when she glances out the window, she sees a pair of rocking horses with wings, pulling the carriage along. “Are we anywhere in particular?” she asks Min, nudging her.

“Well of course!” Min exclaims. “The insect house! Which means we’re not far away from the castle at all!”

“How long?” Jia asks.

“I don’t know. Not long.” Min nods her head out the window. “Look! Butterflies!”

Jia looks out and into the air, where two sticks of butter with wings are flying. In the distance, she’s pretty sure she sees a house with wings, too.

“You really love this place, don’t you,” she asks Min, whose eyes are glowing as she stares out the window.

Min nods again. “Of course I do. It’s my home.” She blinks out of her daze and smiles at Jia. “And I’m sure you’ll learn to love it too.” She pecks her on the cheek once more, and for the third time, Jia can feel heat rise up her face as Min’s scent and Min’s taste and Min’s lipstick and Min lingers on her.

It feels like something magical, something unreal.

They arrive at the castle soon enough. The large building looms above them, much bigger than Jia had thought it would—or perhaps it’s because they’re still the size of insects. As they run down the cobblestone pathway, Jia can see two men on the side, one with a 6 on his outfit, the other with a 9. They’re both holding red paintbrushes in their hand, flicking them over a bush of white roses.

“Here.” Min nudges Jia suddenly. “Take a sip.” She holds out a small purple bottle to Jia, which says “drink me.”

Jia drinks it, telling herself that she should trust her. She shoots up suddenly, and the world around her shrinks—until she’s at a proper height.

Min drinks from the bottle and grows as well, and then giggles. “That always gives me the strangest feelings.”

“Why didn’t we just drink it earlier?” Jia asks, frowning. “After we had eaten the mushroom.”

“Well, you’d still be hungry, wouldn’t you?” Min says. “Plus, being small is more fun.” She grins and starts running toward the castle. Jia stares after her, but follows her.

Once Jia enters the castle, she stops. The inside is breathtaking: red walls lined with complicated stone patterns, colorful glass panes decorating the back—shimmering, shining, glowing. It’s vast, even for a main hall, as a long carpet trails along the ground from the throne in the back to the tip of Jia’s shoes. She hadn’t noticed it before, but the doorway she’s currently standing in is about a hundred times her size, all stone and marble. Every black and white tile in the ground has a heart on it.

Min seems oddly at home here, Jia notices, and wonders how anyone can. The palace is cold and proper—Jia could never imagine being completely comfortable. But she follows Min down the long scarlet carpet anyways.

“Mother,” Min says to the woman sitting all the throne (and suddenly, it all makes sense). “The men are painting the roses red again.”

The Red Queen, who has a pale golden grown on top of her head and is dressed in a flowing red and black dress, sighs. “Again?” she says, her fingers rifling through a deck of cards on her palm. Her eyes drift over to Jia. “Who’s this?”

“Jia,” Min answers, dismissively. “She’s my friend.”

Jia’s aware that the word “friend” doesn’t come out of Min’s mouth like she’s just her friend, not like she has kissed her on the cheek, not like they’ve been holding hands all day, not like they’ve known each other for—Jia doesn’t know how long it’s been. She’s aware that Min reaches out for her hand at that moment, and squeezes it; the cocoons in Jia’s stomach explode.

The Queen sighs again as she shuffles the cards in her hand. “Good for you, going out there and making friends,” she says. Her eyes turn wistful. “All my subjects are too scared of me... I wish I could make friends too.”

“Yeah, yeah.” Min pointedly looks upward, avoiding her mother’s gaze.

“Ever since your Father ran away from me... I don’t even know why he did... I just feel like I’ve been breaking piece by piece.” The Queen slumps in her throne, crown toppling slightly.

Min rolls her eyes again. “Stop being such a drama queen, Mother. Is there anything Jia and I can eat?” (Jia suddenly realizes that she’s hungry again. Must be the mushrooms, she figures. They had probably shrunken in her stomach.)

The Queen sighs, for a third time. “There are some tarts there in the corner,” she says, waving her hand to a small table at the side, where a gold platter with small pastries lies. “I think the knave stole another one again.”

The two girls walk over to the small tray. As Jia nibbles on her tart, Min says, “You’ll have to excuse my mother. She’s been kind of bitchy for a while now. Since my father left, as you heard.”

“If... if you don’t mind me asking,” Jia says carefully. “Why exactly did he leave her?”

“Oh, the Queen’s naturally a very violent by nature.” Min waves her tart around. “So after my father had left, she thought she could get him back by stopping all the executions. She calls it ‘becoming pacifist.’” Min stops and munches on the tart crumbs. “I think a little bit of beheading would do good for her, though.”

“Beheading?” Jia says frightfully, but Min merely ignores her as she finishes her food. Then she takes her hand and drags her out of the room, without a word.

“Do you spend most of your time outside of the castle?” Jia asks as they walk through the dark corridors.

Min turns and looks at her. “I guess,” she says. “I mean, it’s not like there’s much to do here, anyways. I’d try to make more friends with the peasants in the village, but you know how they are.”

Jia looks around at the endless maze of halls, where the walls are hidden by the shadows—or perhaps the shadows are hidden by the walls.

“Come on,” says Min, her grip around Jia’s wrist tightening. She smiles. “Let me show you my room.”

She guides them down the hallways a little bit more, occasionally pointing out certain rooms—the Bathroom (consisting of a single bathtub, of course), the Toilet room (which Jia notes as being separate from the Bathroom), the Buttery (naturally, covered by butter) and the Bottlery (to Jia surprise, it doesn’t contain bottles—“What’s the use of empty bottles?” Min points out as they walk past it—but rather, is a giant bottle in itself, holding all sorts of drinks.)

Jia’s about to ask Min how exactly the Bottlery works when all of a sudden, they’re stopped in the hall by a man with the number 10 emblazoned on his shirt. “My lady!” he says, bowing so low that his nose brushes against his knee. “How do you do?”

“I’m great,” Min says dismissively. She points off to somewhere else away from him, and looks at Jia. “And that over there is—”

“Who’s this?”

The man indicates Jia, interrupting her again. Min opens her mouth, perhaps to tell the man off—but Jia speaks first.

“Hello, my name is Jia.” She bows down to the man. Min nudges her side. There’s an irritated look on her face.

The man looks flattered, however, as Jia straightens up. “Polite friend you have here,” he says to Min.

“I know,” Min says, starting to push past the man. “Come on Jia, let’s—”

“You ladies shouldn’t be dressed in such drab clothes as that,” the man interrupts, looking them up and down. “Especially you,” he adds to Jia, eyeing her now-stained blue dress with distaste. “Allow me to give you more appropriate clothes.”

“It’s okay,” Min starts, but Jia cuts her off.

“Really?” She looks at the man, eyes shining.

The man beams. “Of course. There are plenty of dresses in the wardrobes.”

Jia turns to Min eagerly, only to see that the other girl has her arms crossed and is glaring at the man. Her face falls.

“It’s okay, Min, if you don’t want to—”

“No, it-it’s fine.” Min manages to force a smile and glances at Jia, though her expression isn’t completely convincing. “If you really want to, then we can.”

“But I don’t want you to be...” Jia’s eyes linger on Min’s face carefully. “Annoyed.”

“I’m not annoyed,” Min responds. And when Jia continues watching her, she adds, “I’m not! I you really want to try on the dresses, it’s fine with me.”

“But...” Jia hesitates. “Really?”

“Yes, really.” Min smiles, again, this time looking more real. She takes Jia’s hand and starts down the hall, as the man follows after them. “And I’m sure you’ll look stunning in your dress.”

Min is beautiful, Jia thinks, as they step into the white room. Although Min’s bedroom is amazing in itself, Min seems to make everything around her look plain. Her smoky eyes twinkle in contrast to her pale, round face as her dark hair frames the sides gently. The strands brush against her cheeks hinted with a dash of pink; Jia finds herself staring at the other girl far too long. The top of her red and black dress clings to her bosom, showing off her collarbone and neck and shoulders nicely. Jia licks her lips as her gaze travels down to all of Min’s curves, red fabric hugging her sides while the bottom slowly fades to black.

“Y-You look gorgeous,” Jia manages, coughing a little. She’s not even paying too much attention when Min goes to the other side of the room and tears the bright red curtains open, allowing the sunlight to spill in.

“It’s so damn cold in here,” she complains. Then she turns around and smiles at Jia, looking her up and down. “Thanks. You look great too.”

Jia knows she doesn’t look as amazing as Min, but she doesn’t say anything. Instead, she turns her attention on the rest of the room. There’s a large red and white canopy bed in the corner, accompanied by a cherry would table. Two closets are on the far side of the wall, next to a window, while the entire right side is covered by a tall, long mirror.

Jia looks into it. She knows what she sees. She sees a plain girl with platinum blond hair in a plain red dress with plain red straps and a plain red lace and a plain, plain face. Her fingers play with her skirt. She sighs.

She watches through the mirror as Min comes up to her and says, “Oh, you look pretty too.” Her lips graze against her ear.

“I don’t see it,” Jia whispers under her breath, so soft that she thinks that no one can hear it. But Min does.

“Let me help you with that,” she says. She turns around and all of a sudden, her lips are on Jia’s, and she’s kissing her. She’s kissing her and kissing her and sucking all the life out of her, and she tastes like cherries and hearts, all rolled into one. Jia kisses her back and their lips open and their mouths entangle and all of it, all of it just rushes together.

When they finally, finally pull away, Jia looks into the mirror again. And this time, Jia doesn’t see a plain girl. Instead, she sees a completely stunning girl with bright glowing hair and a perfect body, curves in all the right places, colored in all the right shades. Jia sees a stranger, a complete stranger—and she likes it.

Min twists her body around to look at their reflections too. “Aren’t we pretty,” she says with a grin. “Come on.” She turns back to Jia and tugs her towards her mattress, giggling.

Jia giggles as well as she climbs onto the bed, and basks in her scent as their lips meet again.

This isn’t her bed, is Jia’s first thought when she wakes up. Then whose bed is it? is the following question. She’s also aware that a body is pressed next to her—a cold body. And Jia feels strangely bare.

She rolls over, just to see a familiar face staring at her.

“Hi,” Min says.

Jia holds back her surprise, but says, “Hi.”

Min grins, her eyes crinkling at the corners as she leans in to kiss Jia on the nose with her still, ever so red lips. “You know what I hate?” she asks as she pulls back.

Jia shakes her head.

“Noise,” Min says. “It ruins everything and only ever creates chaos.”

They lay by themselves, in the silence, in the midst of the rush, in the break of the high. Min’s gaze stares deep into Jia’s deep into her and Jia finds that she loses her voice—air, oxygen, something. A finger gently brushes against her cheek, moving a piece of frayed hair from her face—but they don’t move, don’t speak. The world around them is quiet, like it is all quiet, like it’s always been quiet.

They remain like this for a while. Then Min finally speaks.

“Come on, we should get dressed.”

She gets up from the bed, white skin in Jia’s face, and then wanders over to her dresser in the corner. Jia gets up with her but she feels oddly exposed as she watches Min pull clothes onto her naked body. Jia’s aware of her own warm breasts the little trickle of heat between her thighs. She watches as Min prances along, up and about the room, and there’s something captivating from watching her.

Once she’s dressed, and Jia is too, they walk out of the room, out of the halls, out of the castle. Jia’s amazed to see that the sky is dark, though with a slight smattering of stars here and there. She wonders what time it is, and how long she’s been here—it certain feels like weeks. She wonders how long they had been sleeping, and how long they had been walking the day before—she can’t even remember anything anymore. And as she walks along the grassy path now, she can’t remember when they had just been in bed.

“Min,” she says, turning her head.

“Yeah?” says Min, stepping around a large rock.

“How... how long had we been sleeping?” Jia asks. For some reason, she doesn’t even recall being tremendously tired when they had fallen asleep, mostly because it had been daytime—perhaps a little, though, when she and Min had finished. The recollection makes her blush.

“Oh, all day probably.” Min turns and raises her eyebrows at her. “Why do you ask?”

“Yes, but how long exactly is a day?” Jia asks. “It feels like so much longer.”

“Well of course.” Min delicately hops over a log in the middle of the path. “That’s because it’s the summer. We take our days much longer here.”

“So do we,” Jia says, like she’s being challenged. “And then the nights are shorter every day, and—”

“What are you talking about?” Min says. “That’s not making your days any longer. We have more days at a time, then nights, and the nights are much fewer.” Min rolls her eyes. “I hate the night.”

“Wait... so you mean you have like three days and two nights?” Jia asks.

“Only in March. But it isn’t March now, is it?” Min laughs and jumps over another log, before taking Jia’s hand, like she always does. “Come on, we’re needed somewhere.”

They walk through the forest once more, though Jia’s a little disappointed to see that absolutely none of it looks familiar. Or perhaps that’s because it’s the night. Still, she watches with amazement as Min manages to navigate her way around and wonders how she knows. Even if she’d lived here her whole life, Jia knows that she’d never get used to this place.

They arrive at the front door of a house in between some trees; Min goes in without even bothering to hesitate or peek through the windows. “Aren’t you going to knock?” Jia asks, remaining in the doorway warily.

“Why would I knock to enter an empty house? That’s like asking hell to extinguish its fires.” Min chuckles. “Come in here.”

Jia steps in slowly, looking around carefully. It seems comfortable enough, just like any other cottage she had been in before. Wooden, large enough for an average family. Jia wonders who this wooden house belongs to, why they’re not here, and why Min had decided for them to come here.

She enters the kitchen where Min is looking around at all the shelves and picking up bottles and different glasses of liquid. “What are you doing?” Jia asks her as Min eyes the bottle in her hand.

“Looking around,” Min replies. She hands the bottle to Jia. “Here. Drink this.”

“Wh-Why?” Jia asks, startled. “No! I don’t—I don’t even know what that is!”

“Oh, come on,” Min says, smirking and rolling her eyes. “Don’t be such a pussy. You trust me, don’t you? Drink it.”

So Jia takes the glass bottle by its neck, and, without stopping to think, bends her head back and pours a little bit of its contents into her mouth. It tastes like honey, warm and sweet as it runs down her throat—Jia tilts the bottle down further, closing her eyes. Faintly, she can hear Min chuckle and say, “Whoa, slow down,” and then her voice growing more worried when she exclaims, “Hey, don’t down the whole thing!” Then a pair of hands are on hers, stopping her—but it’s too late because Jia’s finished with whatever she had just drunk.

“This doesn’t look good,” Min says, pulling the bottle out of her reach and looking through the glass, eyeing the empty space between.

“What do you mean?” Jia burps, and then blushes and giggles. “Oops, sorry—”

And then in a second, she finds herself growing. The sensation is not at all like the one she had gotten when she had shrunk before; rather, the world (and Min) around her is getting smaller and smaller. Jia thinks, halfway up, that perhaps she should position her body so she doesn’t end up breaking the house, but she thinks a second too late as her head bursts through the wooden roof, breaking the ceiling open.

When she’s sure she’s finished growing, she looks down. Min is staring up at her, grinning, teeth glinting in the night.

“Not exactly how I had planned,” she says, “but there’s no such thing as too big, right? Hey, pick me up.”

“What?” Jia says, just as the front door of the house opens.

In walks a large lizard, standing on his hind legs, green tail slithering behind. As Jia and Min stand frozen in place, he hums to himself and walks along, not paying attention to the two intruders in his house.

Until he sees Jia’s big, buckled shoe.

He looks up; Jia bends down and peers at him to see him better. The lizard’s mouth falls open as he stares at her.

“GIANT!” he screams “GIANT! GIANT! TH-THERE’S A GIANT IN MY HOUSE AND—!”

His voice actually isn’t extremely loud, to Jia’s large ears miles off the ground—but she can see the creature squawking and flailing everywhere at her feet.

Then the lizard spots Min.

“You! What are you doing here?!” he shrieks. “WHY ARE YOU GIRLS IN MY HOUSE AND WHAT, WHAT ARE YOU DOING—”

“Pick me up and run!” shouts Min, whose voice is somehow not as tiny as the lizard’s. And when Jia continues staring at her blankly, she says a little bit louder, “Jia, pick me up!”

Jia bends down and Min crawls onto her palm; then, as she brings her hand higher up, up above the reptile and the chimney and the trees, Min turns around on her hand and looks at Jia.

“Run!” she tells her.

“W-What?” Jia asks, still flabbergasted. She can feel one of the lizard’s slimy hands on the heel of her shoe.

“RUN!” Min yells, and then Jia is running. She tosses Min onto her shoulder where Min manages to grasp onto the strap of her dress, and then Jia sprints across the forest. Her thighs brush against the tops of the trees as she dashes into the night, night sky, and she runs, runs, and runs. In her ear, she can hear Min’s loud laughter.

Her legs come to a stop once she’s sure she’s out of breath. She pants and grips her hands on her hips, trying to calm her much larger heart down. She hears Min shuffle on her shoulder, and feels small hands gripping on the edge of her earlobe.

“Good, I think we lost him,” she says, and Jia breathes out a sigh of relief. She hadn’t thought the poor reptile could have caught up with them anyways, but the adrenaline plummets to the bottom of her stomach and disappears into a pile of ashes.

“Think you can find an appropriate place for us to rest? Your shoulder’s a bit uncomfortable,” Min says to her. “Not that your shoulders aren’t lovely,” she adds with a chuckle. “But I’m sure you’d want somewhere to rest, too.”

Jia scopes out the land around; it’s not hard to see everything in the area, looking down from having her head between the clouds. “Over there,” she says, pointing and spotting a vast plain in the distance. She starts walking towards it through the forest, stepping kilometers at a time.

When they arrive at the plain, Jia gently sets Min on the ground before letting herself down as well. The small grass blades crumble beneath her weight as she sits down on them, bending her legs before her and curling her arms around her knees. She can see Min’s small body next to her, flopped down on the grass with her eyes staring up at the sky. Min can’t get any more perfect, Jia thinks.

“Well that was fun, wasn’t it?” says Min, turning and smiling slightly.

Jia’s breath catches in her throat. “Yeah,” she says. She glances up to where the stars wink down at them, diamonds in the sky. She holds herself and closes her eyelids, imagining Min’s kisses, like the edge of the moon on the tip of her lips.

“I like being with you,” Min whispers, yet so loud in her ear even though she’s so small. “I like you, Jia. You’re the first friend I’ve made in a while.”

“Am I?” Jia asks, turning to her.

Min’s head nods into the ground. “Yeah.”

“I...” Jia glances away from her. I like you too.”

“Good.” Min’s pink lips flutter into a little smile in the dark, and Jia holds her breath, watching her. Then she casts her gaze back up and wonders what Min is staring at. Her heart stutters.

“Do you know everything that goes on here?” Jia asks, suddenly.

“Here? Oh, not even close.” Min chuckles. “I don’t even know half the things that occur in this whole place. There’s too much, way too fucking much for me to handle. But, you know. Take on whatever the hell life gives you, right?”

“Right.” Jia taps a finger to her lips. “I just... I can’t imagine living here.”

“But you already are.” Min’s eyes glow. “There are no rules here. Whatever happens, happens. No use arguing.”

“I guess.”

“Hey.” Min’s small foot nudges the side of Jia’s shoe. “You’ll stay here forever, right? With me?”

It feels like she’s suffocating because she doesn’t want to lie. But she doesn’t. She wants to go home, she loves this, but she wants to go home.

She wants to make Min happy.

“Yes,” she says, like letting a flower go in the ocean.

When Jia turns, she sees a smile grace Min’s face.

“Good.”

After what seems like forever, Jia feels something prick the top of her foot. She leans her head down to see Min standing at the base of her ankle and holding a large stick.

“Let’s go,” she says.

“Okay.” Jia patiently waits for Min to jump off of her before standing up. She brushes the dirt and a few branches from her dress.

“Here. You’ll probably want to get smaller, too,” Min says with a chuckle. She pulls out two small pieces of what appears to be mushroom heads, and hands them to Jia. “I found these in that lizard guy’s house.”

Jia takes the mushroom from Min’s tiny palm and slips them between her lips, swallowing them instantly. Almost immediately afterward, she finds herself shrinking, and she watches the ground getting larger and larger beneath her feet. Once she stops, she glances back up to see Min grinning.

“Let’s go then, if you’re done!” she says, taking hold of Jia’s hand, cool and familiar. Jia follows her as they run back into the forest.

“Where are we going now?” Jia asks, wondering if they’re even going anywhere in particular. It seems to be this way, anyways. She sees Min turn to her, laughter in her eyes.

“The Jabberwocky! We’re going to see the Jabberwocky!” Her voice echoes in the shadows between the trees.

“Th-The Jabberwocky?”

Something cold crawls up Jia’s spine, but it quickly goes away when she looks back and catches a glimpse of teeth somewhere in the dark wood. She whips her head around. Min is still in front of her. But who was that? Who could it be? She sees another smile floating above a tree branch, wide and bright—another jerk of her head and suddenly a familiar face is hovering next to her.

“You don’t belong here,” whispers a voice, and Jia turns again to the other side to see a cat shifting on her shoulder as she’s running. “This isn’t the place for you.”

“I—”

The moment Min turns back at the sound of Jia’s voice, the purple cat disappears in the blink of an eye. Jia stares at the empty space where he had bee previously sitting in, while Min stops, watching her worriedly.

“Jia, are you all right?”

Jia shakes her head, snapping out of her daze. “Y-Yeah... I’m fine.”

`”Great, ‘cause we’re here!” Min gestures to the land before them, her mouth curling at the sight.

Before them is a large board. The tiles on the ground are checkered black and white, dusty with age and dirt. The sky is oddly darker here, clouds graying over the moon. The large space is empty, with lack of color, lack of life. There’s nothing here. Absolutely nothing.

At least, that’s what Jia thinks.

“What—” she says, but Min cuts her off by placing an ivory finger on her lips.

“Shh,” she murmurs. “Wait for it.” Min glances up toward the darkness above them, and her eyes shine, eager.

Suddenly, there’s a screech. Jia looks up, but nothing’s changed from what she can see. But the screech comes again. It’s faint, quiet, but Jia knows she hears it. A flap of wings sounds in the distance, another loud shriek—she’s sure the noises are coming closer and closer. The screeches get more frequent, until suddenly, she and Min are caught in a whirlwind of debris and chaos.

“Wh-What is that?” Jia yells over the roar of the wind and the bird shrieks. She shields her eyes and tries to look up, but dust gets between her eyelids.

“It’s the Jabberwocky!” Min throws her head back and laughs as everything around them grows darker and darker.

“I-Is it—”

“Look!”

Min points upward and Jia’s gaze follows her. Something is coming near to them, something large, with scale wings and a long, snakelike neck. It looks down, its ugly face scarred and skull-like. Its wings flap downward, blowing the air towards them, slowly descending.

Jia watches as it lowers it head down and opens it jaws, and something snaps inside of her. Before the winged creature can stretch out its claws to them, Jia grabs Min’s hand and pulls them away, fleeing to the wood.

“Are you insane?” Jia throws Min’s hand and down and stops in the middle of the forest. She’s breathing heavily—and she doesn’t think she’s ever run this fast in her life, ever.

Min looks at her and laughs—but it quickly dies down when she sees the look on Jia’s face.

“Oh, come on,” she says, reaching out to her. “Live a little, you know?”

“‘Live a little’?” Jia spins around and glares at Min. “We could have gotten killed! Eaten! We could have died!” Something wanders its way into Jia’s brain, but she shoves it away.

“Okay, okay.” Min laughs again. “I get it, Jia.” She remains smiling. Jia wants to scratch it off her face.

“You get it? H-How can you get it, how—”

“I know, Jia. Come on. You know me.” Min takes her hand again and leans in, brushing their lips together. Jia stubbornly keeps her mouth closed, firm; but when Min’s tongue presses against hers, ever so persuading, she can’t help but give in.

Min pulls back again. “See?” she says. “I know. And you know, too.”

“Y-Yeah.” Jia’s teeth fall together. “I know.”

“Of course you do,” Min says, smiling again. “Come on. We have places to be.”

“We’re pretty far away from the castle now,” says Min, her fingers still wound around Jia’s. They’re not running anymore, and Jia likes it; Jia likes this peace, only with them and the forest.

“Are we?” she says.

“Yes. The white castle is coming up, actually.” Min chuckles. “But we probably shouldn’t go in there.”

“Why not?”

“You think it’s really a good idea to go to another palace on this land when we’re clearly wearing royal clothes?” Min glances to her. “Besides, the White Queen’s a bitch. And kind of ugly, too.”

“Oh.”

“We can go into the village, though, if you want,” she adds. “That’s usually okay. Plus, there’s croquet!”

Jia’s about to ask what exactly croquet is, but Min pulls on her and they’re running again. They fly past trees and bushes and animals and Jia isn’t quite sure how fast they run, or how far they run.

They stop at the edge of the wood, where the trees become more sparse and the earthy path beneath them has turned to gravel. Jia can see, far far away, that there are hard white buildings and houses, and people running back and forth between them. The sky is also as white as the town around them. Jia realizes that it’s day again.

She’s about to ask Min about it, but Min starts off, saying, “This is going to be entertaining.” Jia’s words die in her throat as they continue walking.

The journey goes on silent and unwarranted; strangely, they don’t run into any odd creatures or places. Jia briefly forgets where they are, what they’re doing, why they’re going into town and how long they’ve been walking in this direction. She forgets why her feet are sore and why it’s suddenly bright and why, why she’s not saying anything.

The only thing she doesn’t forget, in the moment, is Min’s hand, and Min’s smile when she turns to look at her.

“Look!” she says. “Isn’t this cool?”

Jia blinks and looks around. They’re standing on a cobblestone road, pebbles lining the sides. The houses are white and concrete, with wooden roofs for protection. People are yelling everywhere; this town is clearly less secluded than the Red Castle.

“It’s fascinating!” Jia breathes, She can faintly recall what it’s like, being like this, being with people—but it all disappears suddenly when Min jerks on her hand and points to the center of the town.

“See that?” she says, and Jia sees. In the middle of the square are a large lion and a quick, slender unicorn. They’re fighting, though Jia’s not quite sure how it seems to be a mix of sword-fighting and mindlessly running into each other. People are cheering on from the sides, though more for their battle to continue rather than rooting for one or the other.

“They’re the White King’s,” Min says gleefully. “The only think I really like about this town. Though I guess the quail eggs are pretty good too.” She spits to the side.

Up ahead, Jia can see a white carriage, pulled by white horses and led by knights dressed in white. In the carriage is a queen with shockingly bright hair and bright eyes and bright skin, wearing a glittery, blinding dress along with a shining crown atop her head. She’s looking around and waving to the townspeople, her face glowing with pleasure.

Jia frowns. “Hey Min, didn’t you say the queen was—”

“Hey look! Croquet!” Min interrupts, and grabs her hand before heading toward a small grassy area somewhere else in the town. Jia follows her, against better judgment.

When they arrive in the small park, Min drops her hand and heads towards where a group of men are, eagerly. Jia stops and looks at her surroundings. It’s all grass, aside from the little ruts in the ground where apparently the croquet balls are supposed to hit. Off near where Min had run to, there’s a stand with a group of flamingoes standing on one leg. Next to it is a crate full of small round galls—though when Jia looks closer, she realizes that they’re hedgehogs.

She catches up with Min in time to hear the Man who seems to be in charge of it all say to Min,” But you’re a girl! A child, no less!”

“So? Grown-ups can do whatever the hell they want, so children can too!” Min says fiercely. “Just ‘cause you’re old doesn’t mean you can do more than me! In fact, you could probably do less!”

“Well, I never!” The man folds his arms and huffs at Min. “For your information, young lady, I am an archbishop and we archbishops can do whatever we please!”

“Bullshit,” Min sneers at him. Then she turns to Jia. “Come on, let’s go.”

“G-Go? Go where?” Jia asks, running to follow her. Min stomps her way through the park, black-heeled shoes occasionally hitting too hard against the ground.

“I don’t care. Anywhere.” Min doesn’t look at her. “Fucking stupid... Who cares that I’m a child? I was the best croquet player back at the Red Castle!” She picks up a pebble and throws it at the road angrily. Jia doesn’t know what else to do, than watch.

They end up sitting next to a wall at the edge of town. Min had gotten them a slice of pound cake from a street vendor, which they eat as they rest their feet.

They’re suddenly interrupted when they hear a noise above them. At first it is soft, but after Jia’s sure she’s heard someone clear his throat for ten times already, she finally looks up.

Above them, sitting on a wall, is a large white egg. He’s dressed in what appears to be a jester’s outfit, with a cravat wrapped around his waist. He’s looking down at Min and Jia, almost expectantly.

“Yes?” Jia asks politely. Min looks up as well, and sees the egg.

“I’ll say,” the egg does indeed say. “That looks mighty delicious.” He licks his lips, staring down at the pound cake.

Min regards him coldly, but Jia picks up her own slice. “Would you like some then?”

“Jia, what are you doing?” hisses Min as the egg nods his head enthusiastically. Min’s eyes are dark, narrowed. “You don’t’ just give your food to random strangers.”

“Yeah, but. He looks so lonely and hungry up there. And besides, I’m not hungry anymore.”

Jia looks at her pointedly, but Min still looks upset. “But you can’t just—”

The egg shoots his white hands out at that moment, and in one swift motion, scoops up the cake above Jia’s head. He tosses it into his mouth in a millisecond, and then licks his fingers, making a satisfied noise.

“Mm. That hits the spot,” he says, sliding a finger out of his mouth with a loud pop! “I’ll say, where are you girls heading?”

“I—”

“Nowhere in particular,” Min says to him shortly. She finishes the last of her cake and then looks to him. “We’ll be going now.”

“Oh no—but wait!” the egg calls out as they get up and start walking away. “Wait—”

“Shouldn’t we do what he says and wait?” Jia asks, looking at Min. She doesn’t even know why she’s following her because she wants to stay behind—but perhaps there’s something about the way Min’s hand pulls her along.

“No,” Min says. “We don’t have to do what he says. You don’t even know him, Jia.”

“I know,” Jia says. “But I think, I think we should stay with him—”

She’s cut off when there’s a loud shatter behind them. Both girls turn around to see large white pieces on the ground, like egg shells, and a cravat in place of where he had been. Men on horses led by the King ride toward the wall, and they quickly rush down to try to put the egg back together. Min and Jia remain standing, watching.

“Great. Come on, Jia. Let’s leave this place,” Min says in her ear. She heads down the cobble stone path, with Jia trailing behind her. A part of Jia feels guilty, feels like something’s not right.

It seems like adventure after adventure, everything is fading away, like a mist. And little parts of Jia’s brain are cracking and cracking, and she can’t remember anything or remembers too much or perhaps, perhaps it is just a dream. But everything is a dream (isn’t it?)

And then for some reason, she’s sitting on the shore of a beach, cross-legged along with Min, across from a large sea turtle and a large, lion-like bird. The turtle is singing (though it sounds like wailing) and the bird looks entertained. Min does as well, despite her wincing every once in a while.

When the turtle stops, the bird beats his wings together. Min claps as well, grinning.

“A wonderful ode, my dear Mock Turtle,” the bird crows.

The turtle, if possible, grins. “As you should think, Gryphon. Would you like me to sing another one, girls?” He turns to the two humans in front of him.

“No, it’s all right,” Min says with a laugh.

“You see?” the bird says, turning to the turtle. “Even they don’t want to hear your horrid singing no matter what the song is—”

“You just said that my singing was lovely!”

“Yes, the song, not your voice—”

“My voice is quite lovely as well—”

“In all my ears of knowing you, my ears have never loved your singing—”

“What are we doing here?” Jia whispers to Min as the two creatures argue. Min turns from watching them bicker, and turns to Jia, looking amused.

“Don’t you remember? I wanted you to listen to the Mock Turtle’s story about his lessons.”

Jia suddenly feels cold, even though they’re sitting on a beach under the dim light of the sun. She feels scared, like the sky is about to collapse all around the, and crush them beneath the rubble.

“I-I can’t remember,” she barely manages out. “I-I really can’t—”

“Oh Jia.” Min merely laughs and turns to look at her. The light dances in her dark irises. “I told you you were crazy. But that’s what I love about you.”

She leans in to kiss Jia on the cheek. Jia’s vaguely aware of her blood red lipstick sticking to her skin, leaving a mark.

The bird and the turtle turn to them at this. “Oh,” the bird says, smiling—if bird could smile. “Aren’t they endearing?”

“Makes me want to go out and find a mate of my own,” the turtle agrees.

“Thanks guys,” Min says, getting up from the sandy ground and dusting her dress off. She reaches out to help Jia up as well. “It was nice talking to you. We’ve got to get going now.”

“Okay!” The bird and the turtle bid them good-bye.

But Jia turns to Min.

“Where are we going?”

“Oh look, she doesn’t even know where she’s going!” the bird hoots. “Tell me, little girl, do you know where you are now? Where you come from?”

Jia tries to pull something, anything—but gets nothing. “N-No...” She searches through the depths of her mind. There’s a hole, a long, long hole... perhaps some light, and a small, white rabbit.

Jia doesn’t know what any of it means.

The animals laugh harder than ever, and Min just rolls her eyes. “Ignore them,” she says to her, “they’re batshit crazy. Do you want to go to the castle now?” Her eyes turn soft, caring.

“Yeah.” Jia nods numbly. “Let’s go.”

Days pass—or perhaps it is just Jia. Regardless, she doesn’t feel tired at all and the sun stands still in the blue, blue sky.

They go past grass and trees and land and towns, not stopping long enough for Jia to find something to remember, not short enough for Min to make a crude remark. They walk and walk with Min’s fingers snaking around Jia’s, firm and cool. Jia doesn’t pay too much attention to the world around them as her feet thoughtlessly follow the other girl’s.

And then the next thing she knows is that she’s in a large room, and Min is pushing back a billowing green velvet curtain, revealing the wooden inside. The floors are tiled, square after square, white and black—for some reason, they seem familiar.

“Where are we?” she wonders out loud.

Min turns to glass at her. “What are you talking about? You’ve been here before.”

“I have? Did we go through here last time?” Jia glances around. She doesn’t recognize anything. Any of it.

“Of course.” Min raises her eyebrows and gives her a funny look. “The first time we came to the castle. And exited it.”

Jia tries hard, tries to bring back the memory. But she can’t remember. In fact, she doesn’t even coming through this building earlier when they had left the palace, at night.

Min goes over to a small golden door at the far end of the room and bends down. She grabs the doorknob, but suddenly, it moves. Two eyes appear on the doorjamb, above the handle.

“Let us in!” Min urges, jerking the knob harder.

“O-Ow, that’s not going to help!” the doorknob says, and thrashes around so hard that Min retracts her hand back. “No!” He moves the handle—his nose—pointedly out of Min’s reach.

“Fucker,” she mutters. She turns to Jia, who’s still standing by the curtain. “Look for a key, will you?” she says to her.

Jia stays frozen in her place, but when Min calls, “Jia!” again, she snaps out from staring into space.

“Sorry,” she murmurs, and then joins Min to looking around the room.

She glances around; something glints in the corner. Taking a closer look, Jia realizes that it’s a small glass table, where sitting on top of it is a golden key.

“I-I think I found—” Jia clears her throat. When Min turns to look at her, she points to the table.

“Oh! That must be it!” Min runs over to her. “Thanks,” she says, and kisses Jia on the cheek before taking the key.

She goes and relentlessly opens the door up—but then steps back and frowns a little. “Of course,” she muses. “We’re too big!” As she shuffles through the pockets of her dress, Jia wonders if the door had been this stubborn before, if they had been too big before. Her head feels light; her heart, heavy.

Min nudges her hand with her own. Jia turns to see that she’s holding a piece of a familiar mushroom. She wonders if she’s supposed to remember when they had gotten that, too.

She takes the food without speaking and swallows it; immediately, she shrinks to a size suitable for walking through the door. Min does as well, though is a little shorter. She smiles at Jia and takes her hand, and they silently go through the doorway.

It’s dry: a desert, actually, without a single plant or building in sight. All Jia sees when she looks to the side is a large blackbird on a wooden table—or maybe it’s just a mirage, because it’s gone the next second. Jia looks all around. Everything is large, spacious, empty.

Goosebumps run down Jia’s arm.

They walk along for a while—actually, Jia isn’t sure where exactly they’re going. The warm sand beneath their feet seems to run along under their heels, making Jia feel like they’re walking around in circles. But they’re not, she reasons to herself. She trusts Min. Min must know.

But the thought doesn’t stop bugging her. She glances around even more, like the emptiness, the nothingness is suffocating her. Of course, that’s impossible because it’s spacious here and there’s plenty of room for her to breathe; but something is gripping on the inside of her chest and squeezing her, making her feel smaller and smaller. She reaches deep into her thoughts, trying to make sense on all this—but grasps onto nothing but air.

Her hand grows cold and clammy. She looks to Min, to Min’s pale, carefree face, with bright eyes and full, confident lips.

“Hey, do you know where we’re going?” Jia says, for perhaps some sort of assurance as she becomes more aware of her surroundings and the vast whiteness encasing them.

“Nope,” Min cheerfully replies.

A sinking feeling starts in Jia’s stomach. “What do you mean you don’t know where we’re going?” she says, a little too loudly. “Isn’t this your castle?”

“Well yeah.” Min looks to her, alarmed at her increasing volume. She stares at Jia, confusion clouding her eyes.

They stop walking.

“Then you should know where we’re going,” Jia says, voice trembling.

“Whoa, calm down,” says Min, putting her hands up. “You weren’t like this when we first came through here.”

“That’s because I don’t remember coming here for the first time!” Jia cries. Everything shatters around her and she’s blind, so blind. Min blurs in front of her for a moment. “I don’t remember any of this—I don’t understand—I don’t even know who I am anymore, Min! I don’t know anything, and we-we’re the only ones here—It doesn’t make sense, none of it makes sense! We-We’re in a place where we don’t even know where the fuck we are or where we’re going and—and I’m scared!”

Min asks, “Are you okay?”

Jia breaks down and buries her face into her skirt, sobbing. Tears start pouring freely from her eyes as she rests into the sand, shaking, holding herself. She feels trapped, feels something pressing against her chest, not letting her breathe.

“N-No I’m not okay!” she says. “I-I’m scared a-and frightened and we’re lost, and—and what if I never get home? What if we don’t get anywhere, we can’t go anywhere, we’re stuck here forever? We-We’re lost and there’s nothing, nothing we can do, nothing—” She wants to throw her limbs away, to slip between each tiny grain in the ground underneath her legs.

“Oh—Oh Jia, don’t be like this.”

Min’s hand touches Jia’s shoulder. Jia sniffs.

“Come on, Jia.” The other girl’s voice is weighed with something, perhaps guilt. “Don’t say that. Come on.”

She pulls Jia’s hand up and guides her along the desert; but Jia’s eyes are too blurred to pay any attention. They walk along in silence, with Jia’s occasionally sniffles as she wipes her eyes and nose with the back of her palm, still crying. The sky all around seems ten times bigger and ten times brighter, wrapping around her, squeezing the oxygen out of her.

Soon enough, they arrive at the palace’s front hall. Jia doesn’t even care how they’d gotten here, she doesn’t care anymore. And as Min hands her her bottle to make them bigger, Jia continues crying, because nothing has changed.

“There. Do you feel better now?” Min asks her worriedly as she leads them into the large room and putting the potion back in her dress. Jia’s aware of the men behind them, wondering what is exactly is wrong with her—but none of it matters.

She sniffs. “I want to go home,” she says, voice muffled into her sleeve.

Min’s expression turns to one of fright.

“What?”

“I said, I want to go home,” Jia says, a little louder this time. “Where—Where everything makes sense and I actually understand what’s going on, not th-the nonsensical stuff that goes around here.” She waves her hand around, a little madly, and tries to keep her voice steady.

“What? N-No, you can’t,” Min stutters.

“I can.” Jia looks at her defiantly, with tears burning in her eyes. “Now tell me how to get home.”

Min clenches her jaw and her eyes narrow at these words. “No.”

Jia looks into her gaze and sees that there’s something hidden behind it, something she doesn’t know. “Fine,” she says. “Then I’ll go find out myself.” She turns on her heal and heads towards the castle halls, not looking back once.

“Wait!” Min calls, and Jia’s hands down at her sides curl into fists. “Wait, Jia, you—you don’t know what you’re doing!”

There are footsteps coming towards her, gaining speed, becoming faster and faster; Jia’s heartbeat quickens as she starts running as well, skirt flying behind her, her feet carrying her somewhere, anywhere.

“I know perfectly well what I’m doing!” She throws her words behind her, everything behind her.

“What happened to staying here forever then, huh?” Min yells. “With me! What happened to me?”

“You don’t know what you’re talking about!” Jia shouts back, sprinting and panting as shadows flash past her face. She doesn’t know what she’s doing now. She goes from corridor to corridor, losing herself in the endless maze, in the darkness.

“I know damn well what I’m talking about!”

Min’s footsteps sound like they’re getting closer, and Jia feels fear take on her whole body for the first time. “I know you, Jia! I know you, I know everything about you—I thought you trusted me!”

“How am I supposed to trust you if you don’t even know what you’re doing half the time?!”

Light flashes back and forth again, faster.

“Get back here!” Min screams, just as Jia turns the corner. She skids and looks around, and then bursts into the first room she sees.

For some reason, it’s familiar—it’s Min’s bedroom. It looks oddly a rest, peaceful with dim rays of sunlight flickering through the windows. Jia brings herself to a stop, stunned—but the panic inside of her starts again when she hears footsteps shuffling at the door.

“What do you think you’re doing?” Min breathes, panting as her hand grips to the side of the doorway.

Jia spins around, but finds that there’s nowhere else for her to go. And now she’s facing the far wall, the only place she can see staring back at her, the last place she wants to be. But she doesn’t have a choice, so she runs towards it without a thought in mind, bracing herself for nothing, for nothing but the pain and fear already enveloping around her.

“Jia, what are you—”

is all she hears before her body meets contact with the large mirror, with herself, breaking through. In the distance, she can hear a shatter, and Min’s voice continuously shouting, "Jia! Jia! Jia!"

—but none of it means anything anymore because she’s falling...

falling...

falling...

falling...

“Jia. Jia. Jia!”

She jerks her head up to someone shaking her awake, shouting her name. She opens up her eyes to see Fei and Suzy hovering over her, staring down at her, concerned.

“You hit your head on a log and passed out for a few minutes,” Fei says, eyebrows scrunching up in worry. She puts a hand to Jia’s forehead. “How do you feel?”

“I... I feel fine. I guess,” Jia says, getting up and shaking her off.

She rubs her eyes and looks around. They’re in a grassy field, and a tree is a little ways off; when she shifts, she sees that she’s resting on a log. Nothing seems to have changed at all.

“Hey, what’s that?” Suzy says suddenly, pointing to Jia’s cheek.

“What’s what?” Jia feels around her face.

“That.” Suzy leans down and peers at her. “There’s a red smear next to your mouth.”

“Oh,” Jia says. “It’s probably blood from when I fell.”

“It doesn’t look like it.” Fei bends over to examine her as well. “It looks like lipstick.”

Suddenly, all of Jia’s memories of Min come back and hit her like a tidal wave, striking her and slipping off—but not completely, never completely.

Fei and Suzy continue to stare at her.

“Oh well,” Suzy says, shrugging. “Come on, let’s go see if lunch is ready!”

As the two other girls start to leave, Jia picks herself up, still lost in a daze. She turns around briefly and moves the log aside, looking deep into the rabbit hole behind it.

“That wasn’t very nice,” she says to the hole. “And I was so sure that everything really did happen.”

She stares into the hole a little bit longer, waiting for a response—but gets nothing. Yet, as she turns around, she swears she catches a glimpse of shining black eyes staring up at her, so real that they make the world around them look fake.