Slipping the bag from his shoulder and onto his bed, Lee Chan made his way over to the alcove in his room and looked out the window. Today mark the anniversary of his brother’s untimely death. Chan just came back from his annual trip to his brother’s grave, his eyes still red and raw from shedding countless of tears. Thinking back to that fateful night Chan still believes that it was his brother that made the ultimate sacrifice. Chan knew he shouldn’t have sneaked out but in the end it was Seokmin whom paid the price.

Before the teenager could continue to depreciate on his past mistakes, a little boy knock onto the door to the former’s bedroom door. “Chan-shi. Dr. Jung is asking for you.”

“Ah, thank you, Jaehyung-shi,” Chan replies automatically.

Standing up from his perch, Chan slowly made his way out his room and to Dr. Jung’s office. For the past ten years, Chan has been living at an orphanage - along with his brother before he died last year, anyways. Their parents were found in a car accident that left the two parentless. Because they didn’t have any other relatives that were willing to take them in, the two were placed into an orphanage. They were never adopted because they didn’t want to be separated, so nobody could take one without the other. Fortunately, the head of the orphanage, a well respected therapist, psychologist, and author, Jung Jihoon took the two boys in with open arms. He help enroll the boys into school and help get over the trauma of losing their parents. And since Seokmin’s death, beginning the healing process over again for Chan.

Walking up the stairs to the doctor’s office, Chan gave a gentle knock on the wooden door and waited until he heard a gentle ‘come in’. Opening the office door, Chan walk over to the ever familiar couch that he has considered a second bed. The man, Dr. Jung Jihoon, was a tall man in his early thirties. His looks though makes people question his age though. Again he was a six foot tall man with broad shoulders and a very well developed body. His hair was well kept and his smile was very charming, hard to say no to. But despite all that he was still single with no hint of wanting a relationship. Might be because of his dedication to his job, Chan thought.

Reclining back onto his seat, Chan look at the ceiling while he waited for the older man to finish whatever he was doing before. It didn’t take long before the latter closed his notebook and turned his attention towards the younger gentleman. “So, how are you doing?”

“Fine, I guess,” Chan answers unsurely. He knew the procedures already, but it doesn’t mean he had to like it.

“Come on, Lee Chan. you know what I mean.” Standing up from behind his desk, Jihoon made his way around and lean towards the front of it. “You and I both know how much your brother means to you. You don’t have to hide anything.”

“I just can’t, okay?” Chan snaps bitterly. “This isn’t like my parents whom I’ve barely knew and died while I was sleeping. This is my hyung. The guy who was always there for me. He basically raised me before and after our parents died. And what made it worst was that I was there that night. I watched him-” I couldn’t finish that sentence. It was too hard. Tears were already gathering around my in eye. “I just really want to forget that night, okay? I don’t want that to be that last thing I remember of my brother.”

Sighing, the older man push off his desk and sat on the plush seat adjacent from Chan while pulling out a ring attach to a long, thin chain. The ring was small with a flat surface. There was an inscription on it but Chan could never decipher it. Not that it matter anyways, just an observation.

“You know that the price to pay is very high for forgetting right?” he asks. “I mean, it is very quite unorthodox to do this. You shouldn’t be forgetting your brother but rather trying to come to term that what had happened, had happened. Nothing can change that.”

“That doesn’t mean that I want to keep that particular memory in my mind.”

With a deep sigh Jihoon leans forward onto his knees. “Well let’s get started then.” Standing up the man walk until he was behind the still reclined Chan. He spun the dangling jewel above the boy. “Alright, Chan-ah, concentrate on just my voice. On my command you will go to your happy place. Alright? In three…. Two…. One….” In a snap Chan was no longer seeing a spinning bauble but darkness.

 

 

---

 

At first Chan didn’t know what to think until he heard it. The sound of trickling water. He was by a river. Opening his eyes, that he didn’t remember closing, he found himself lying on a grassy field. Sitting up Chan took a good look around. Everything around him was strange yet familiar all together. In the sky were what seem to be bubbles flying around with no indication of where it’s coming from. There were patches of flowers scattered around with leaves that extended out to form what look like hands. They were also dancing as if to greet him.

Standing up onto his feet, Chan began walking with purpose to where he heard the water. Nothing seem to faze him, not even the birds with horn like beaks or the clocks randomly hanging from the tree branches. He didn’t know how long it took but he finally found the river. Unlike usual rivers with clear water, this river contain a champagne-like color water with random baubles flowing in it. Still it didn’t seem to faze the young man.

“Where are you right now, Chan-ah?” asks a disembodied voice.

Looking around curiously, Chan asks out loud, “Who’s there?”

“Remember Chan, this is Jihoon, your doctor. I asks you to go to your happy place. Now where are you?”

“I think I know where I’m at….” Chan says while getting a closer look at everything.

“And where is that?”

“I’m back in Wonderland,” Chan say out loud. Yes, that’s where he is. He dreamt of this place ever since he was little. Seokmin hyung always told him the story that he began dreaming about it. This was always the closest Chan can have to actually being there. This was once a place of adventure and confusion for the siblings, and now was a place of sanctuary for Chan.

“Alright, that’s good. Now where are you exactly?”

“I think I’m by the Mad Hatter’s place. He sometimes like to make tea in the river. ‘Just experimenting,’ he says.”

With a chuckle, Jihoon replies, “Alright then. Now look around you. In order for you to forget that memory, we have to discover it in your mind and dispose of it. Can you find it?”

With a nod to nobody, Chan took a glance around before he notices a peculiar clock. Unlike all of the others that are frozen at six o'clock - tea time - this clock was frozen at 10:47. The time of the attack. As if surrendering the clock fell from its chain and floated into Chan’s hands. “I’ve found it.”

“That’s good. Now it’s time to dispose of it,”  the therapist instructed.

Before Chan could follow through something glinted from the corner of his eyes. Taking a closer look, he saw it was a golden button. That’s right, it’s from the Hatter’s coat. But why isn’t it there?

Without noticing the clock fell from his hand while his feet carried him up the river. He continues on before he stumbled upon the Mad Hatter himself, half lying on the ground, half in the river. He was facedown and unmoving. With sudden sense of courage Chan turns him around before jumping back in horror. The Hatter was deathly pale and there was blood everywhere. Most of it was coming from his stomach or rather lack of. It has seem that something has gouged out his stomach. Blood was pouring profusely into the river, staining it the red color when Chan first saw it.

“No. No, this shouldn’t be right,” Chan began to babble.

“What is it?”

Chan couldn’t answer him because the Hatter gave a sudden gasp for air. Grabbing tightly onto the boy's hand, the Hatter gasps out, “Don’t do it.”

“What can’t I do?”

“Chan, what’s going on?”

“Save Wonderland. Protect its secret. Don’t let your brother and I die in vain.”

“What do you mean?!”

Chan couldn’t get an answer because the doctor decided against it. “That’s it Chan. You are out of control. When you hear my command forget this and wake up. Three…. Two…. One….”

“No! No! No no no no!” he protested but it was all in vain.

With no other choice everything began to disappear. The Hatter, the river, the clocks, everything.