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When Alice blinked awake, she had several questions. The first of which was where exactly was she? The second, of course, was, how did she get this strange hat off her head? As far as she could remember, she had fallen asleep with Cash's arms around her, yet this place was certainly not their shared bedroom.
For one, the checkered floors were a dead giveaway. For another, the proportions of the room and furniture were more befitting that of a fun house. Still, no matter what she tried, the hat she had woken up in would not come off. As she stared into the mirror, she tilted her head every which way finding the hat more peculiar with each passing second.
It was a maroon top hat that had seen better days as it was lopsided, fraying around the brim, and had several dark spots that Alice was afraid to know what they were from. Several worn ribbons decorated the base, one a peacock blue, another a fiery orange, and the last a yellow that, at some point, must have been more vibrant than it was now. Stuffed within the folds of the ribbons were various playing cards, and if she turned just right, Alice swore there was a small bird attached somewhere along the back, its purple feathers barely visible.
After trying several times to pry the hat from her head with little success, Alice searched for Cash, hoping that since they had fallen asleep together, he was somehow in this strange place too. Her search throughout the home she was in only made her start to panic. There were doors that led nowhere, some that spit her out in a different spot on the same hallway, and rooms that defied all realms of believability.
When Alice finally made it outside, she had yet to find Cash and was starting to get the feeling that she wasn't in Wonderland anymore. The house, and as she inspected it more, it was, in fact, a house, sat in what amounted to a forest of mushrooms and brightly colored flowers. They loomed over the misshaped structure, and as Alice turned her attention to the bits of overcast sky peaking through the heads of foliage, she yelped in fright at the cat sat atop a rather massive red polka-dotted mushroom.
"Hello, Alice." The Cheshire Cat greeted, smile wide as ever as he glanced down at the startled girl.
It took a minute to compose herself, but Alice squared her shoulders and looked the cat in the eye.
"You talk?" It likely wasn't the question she wanted to ask, but Cheshire answered it anyway.
"I would suppose I do. Unless, of course, you've finally gone mad."
"Who are you?" Alice decided to ask instead.
This was not a place she was familiar with, and even though it seemed this cat of all things was at least willing to speak to her. She hoped that it could at least answer some of her questions.
"An old friend met anew. You can call me Cheshire." Alice gasped, looking closer at the cat, and couldn't help but shake her head.
She was sure that she hadn't seen this cat before. Mainly because a talking cat was something bound to be unforgettable. Yet as she inspected closer, he seemed to share similar coloring to her Cheshire. Though Cash was undoubtedly human, he and the cat had the same colored eyes, that unique shade of teal blue that seemed unable to decide whether it wanted to pull more blue or green.
As she looked closer, she also confessed that their smiles were similar. Granted, Cash's smile didn't take up most of his face, and his teeth weren't nearly as sharp, but she had to admit that it pulled to one side more than the other, and both screamed that they were up to no good. Even though Cash had snow-white hair that cascaded down her back, the streaks of colors matched this Cheshire's fur perfectly.
"Have you seen Cash?" Alice couldn't stop the hope from bleeding into her tone as she asked, taking the time to describe her partner yet was disappointed in the Cheshire Cat's response.
"I've not met a Cash. But he sounds swell. It's that who you've followed this far?"
"You know where I am?" Though Cheshire's response wasn't what she was looking for, his answer sent her on another thought path.
"Why, of course. You're in Wonderland." Alice blanched, looking around before a shocked laugh left her lips unbidden.
"I've been to Wonderland before, Cheshire. I was just there with Cash before I woke up here." She paused in her response, realizing that the cat wasn't going to give her the answers she was looking for; instead, he took great pleasure in being cryptic in his responses.
"Can you at least tell me how to take this hat off?"
"Ah. He wondered where that went. Hatter would be happy to know that it wasn't completely lost."
"Hatter? Are you talking about Maddie? She's here?" Alice would kill to see at least one familiar face.
"Ah no. 'fraid not. This Hatter is right mad. The maddest fellow you might meet but helpful, I would say. Your Hatter seems mad enough, though I'm sure if you thought it might be her Hatter's hat, that they might just get along."
"What?" Until that point, Alice could at least understand the general message Cheshire was trying to say with his cryptic response, but this one made no sense at all.
"You'll understand when you meet him."
"Oh. So it isn't my Hatter?"
"Not with a hat like that. No, this one he lost last September. It had a tendency to get up to all sorts of-"
"Where can I find your Mad Hatter?" Alice felt bad for cutting him off, but the longer they kept talking, the more frustrated she became.
The longer she stayed in this bastardized version of her home, the longer she was away from Cash, Maddie, and all her other friends, the more unnerved she became. She had already had to deal with nearly losing them once, she refused to do it again, and this conversation wasn't giving her any more information.
"If you just know-"
"Yes. I need answers." Alice pleased.
Cheshire's eyes shone with a peculiar light as he gave the lost girl instructions, watching quietly as she thanked him profusely and took off down the narrow path without a backward glance. As he watched her small frame disappear into the forest, his mysterious and cryptic smile dimmed for the first time in a while.
"We shall see how far down this rabbit hole you'll go, Alice."