Work Text:
The alarm beeps throughout the room. The clock flashes 8:15 illuminating bits of the room in red light. A hand comes out to hit the alarm clock and after a bit of fumbling the hand manages to turn off the clock and in turn all light in the room. Within the dark room, shuffling can now be heard as a figure searches for a light. Eventually, the figure finds the light and bathes the room in light.
This room happens to be a bedroom. A very plain bedroom at that. For it only has a small bed, a bureau, and a table holding an alarm clock and a notebook. The only figure in the room was one Alice, an old lady wearing nothing but an oversized t-shirt. She did not look particularly good and could have probably done with more sleep. She did not however heed this advice and went right into her morning routine with a frown plastered across her face.
The first step in her routine was taking a short cold shower. After finishing that she approaches her mirror and grabs a razor in case she needs to shave. Instead of finding a reflection of herself, Alice finds a large purple car staring back at her. The cat immediately starts speaking to Alice in a taunting tone.
"Want to join your friends back in wonderland don't cha."
"How bout you rejoin us."
"You can do it with those pills doc gave ya."
"Or maybe with that razor ya got with ya."
"It wouldn't be a big deal ya still got 3 lives."
"Come on we miss ya."
"Return to us."
"Come on Alice join us."
"Ya don't want us to be lonely do ya."
"Return to us."
Alice falls to the floor not saying anything in response. Alice closes her eyes and starts breathing in and out in a rhythmic pattern. After a while of breathing, she lets the razor fall from her hands unto the floor but she doesn't open her eyes or stop breathing. She eventually manages to stand up, return to normal breathing, and open her eyes. Alice was met with a reflection of herself with a forced netural expression donning on her face. She sees whiskers growing from her cheeks. Alice moves to grab the razor from the floor before deciding against it and instead grabs a pair of tweezers. She uses the tweezers to pluck the whiskers which clearly hurt.
Alice returns to her bedroom and sees that her clock now reads 10:00. She dresses herself in a very simple dress from her bureau. She opens the notebook on the side table to reveal her schedule for the day. Alice only had 2 activities on her schedule for today. Grocery shopping and the meeting.
Alice enters her combination living room kitchen. It was very plain much like her bedroom. Blank white walls, a couch, a TV, and the bare minimum needed for a kitchen to count as a kitchen. She pours herself a bowl of cereal only adding a bit of milk. She eats this while watching the T.V tuned to a random channel. At some point, she must have spaced out as now the T.V is on an entirely different t show and the bowl is on the floor with cereal strewn about and milk seeping into the carpet. Alice does not move to clean up, a decision she must have made plenty of time previously as the carpet has numerous stains from previous incidents. Instead, Alice grabs a reusable grocery bag and leaves the apartment.
While out shopping Alice wears the face of a cheery old woman. At the store, she does not buy much. Just some rice and lots of snacks for tonight's meeting. Alice even has a polite conversation with her cashier. Apparently, their cousin returned after being missing for a while. Alice briefly wonders if she should approach the cousin about joining the group but pushes it aside thinking she'll only cross that street when she needs to. When she gets back to her apartment she drops her groceries on the floor not bothering to put them away and her face quickly assumes the frowning one from when she first woke up. Alice proceeds to fall asleep on her couch.
An indeterminate time later Alice is awoken by a call on her phone. The caller ID shows that Dorothy is the one calling her. Alice just stares at her phone making no move from her sleeping position. She lets Dorothy's call go to voice mail. Alice now opens her phone realizing that Dorothy had left a message that joined numerous others that will remain unopened on Alice's phone. Alice briefly opens a contact labeled 'Docter' before closing it and setting an alarm for 7:00 pm. Alice goes back to her nap.
Alice awakes at the appointed time. She starts preparing the snacks that she bought earlier and cooking the ones that need cooking. After all, the snacks are ready she packs them all into a push cart and heads towards the English building. When she arrives in the meeting room nobody was there. She starts laying out the snacks across the tables and arranging the chairs into a circle. Eventually, Alice hears somebody entering so she puts her cheery old woman face back on.
The meeting goes realitvly weel. Dorothy talks about how much things have changed. Luz complains about a Lit class that she's taking. Alice just listens and offers advice which was normal. What was not normal was Anne not talking. Luz, Dorothy, and Ozma leave at the normal time. Normally at this time Alice would be alone and packing up however this time Anne stays behind to personally ask for advice from Alice. Anne starts telling Alice a story about a class where Anne had to interact with toads and one looked so familiar that Anne could not continue class. Alice was going to offer advice however a pair of old men burst into the classroom derailing the discussion.
Late at night, Alice is back in front of her mirror. Both Alice and her reflection sport a pair of cat eyes and a stressed expression. Alice has has these eyes since she had to deal with the two men but didn't adopt the stressed expression until she was safely in her apartment. In front of the mirror, she as been repeatedly closing her eyes taking a breath then opening them only to reveal the cat eyes every time. Eventally after having no luck Alice opens her mirror to grab a bottle of pills. At first, she pours herself an entire handful before returning all but 2 and swallowing them. Shortly after she goes to sleep ending her day. Overall a fairly normal day for Alice.