[ EU ] H.P . Lovecraft 's `` Alice in Wonderland ''

Alice walked not very surely across the gleaming, quite impressive, black marble floor. Along the shadowed edges of the room were countless playing cards, quite beastly in appearance. Black and red, black and red, alternating colors, each was holding an impressively convoluted weapon in their twisted and twisting limbs. Her big blue eyes kept slipping off of the creatures as she tried to look around, it did n't make sense but she felt as if they were made of ice that her mind could not, did not want, to comprehend. Oh, Alice very much did wish she had n't followed that little rabbit into this deep and dark hole. 
 
 She kept walking, that nasty cat had told her that she should act more herself in this place but she just felt so little like she did back at home. Her eyes naturally drifted down towards the floor and away from the too many everything things that peered at her curiously from around the peppered granite pillars in the room. 
 
 Ever since she had plunged down below that old weeping tree Alice had been scared, nothing made sense in this place and she just very much wanted to go back to hugging her little cat, Dinah. Dinah at least had limbs that she could count, limbs that did n't move around in such a frightful manner. 
 
 Alice had been told that she was to meet with the Queen but she felt very unprepared. She looked down at her soaked and dingy dress, not having been clean and dry since she had swam in that great dark lake made of her tears - that lake that had been full of those things that she would rather not think about. Alice did n't have much time though, she was quite out of it in fact, when her walking came to an end in front of the jagged cliff of a throne. 
 
 Rising straight out of the marble, it looked as if it had been organically grown; perhaps coral dredged up from some deep, dark, and muddy place in the sea. Alice's father had once told her a story of a sea that was suppose to be dead and Alice very much felt as if this throne might be from there. 
 
 Sitting on this very unorthodox chair was a very unorthodox queen. Perhaps she was once beautiful, perhaps she was n't, Alice could n't quite tell. While she knew that what was sitting in front of her was large, and that what sat in front of her was there, she did n't quite know what it looked like. Looking at the Queen on the throne for too long just hurt her head and Alice settled for looking down at her own two feet instead. 
 
 Even looking down though, Alice could feel the Queen's burning gaze on her. Just barely, out of the corner of her eye, Alice could still see the dark thing that was the queen, playing on the edge of her imagination. Perhaps the Queen was very old, she thought, perhaps she's one hundred and one, five months and a day and she's very self conscious. That must be why I do n't quite want to look at her, Alice thought. After all, Alice was a smart girl, her father always told her so, and she knew that, as a very smart and very nice girl, she must n't stare when someone does n't wish you to. 
 
 It was then that the Queen spoke, seemingly as if she could read young Alice's mind, `` I'm much more than one hundred and one, five months and a day.'' A voice that was both beautiful and ugly, crisp and hoarse, it played on the edges of her mind and Alice could n't quite pick out which because of the nasty headache that sprung up seemingly the moment that the ambiguous Queen spoke. 
 
 It took Alice a second to understand what had been said but once she could comprehend once again, she could n't quite believe that anyone could be any older than one hundred and one, five months and day; but when she went to open her mouth and tell the Queen her thoughts, she felt as if perhaps she was underwater or that the air had grown much to heavy for anyone to speak. 
 
 The Queen continued on, almost as if she could read Alice's mind, `` Ca n't you?'' the Queen said in what may or may not have been a pitying tone, `` Try again: draw a long breath, and shut your eyes.'' 
 
 Alice very much did want to shut her eyes due to the pounding in her head that seemed to be getting worse as the Queen talked, but she was much too frightened of all the eyes peering at her to close her own. 
 
 Again the Queen continued on, not taking any notice of whether Alice had responded or not, `` I daresay you have n't had much practice,'' said the Queen. `` When I was your age, I always did it for half-an-hour a day. Why, sometimes I've believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast.'' 
 
 Alice very doubted that there was anything so impossible for the Queen to disbelieve, let alone believe.
