Stumbling his way through the blackness, Kyungsoo felt the hand’s grip loosen from his own.

“Don’t leave me,” he whined like a terrified child. The hand let go, and he felt a soft finger press to his lips.

“It’s okay, I won’t let him get you,” a deep voice whispered in response, but faded away and left him in the shadows once more. He ran forward, grasping about for some semblance of life outside of the pulsating beeps reverberating through the dark.

“Please, get me out of here, anybody,” he gasped out, feeling the onset of a panic attack. It was getting harder to breathe. He thought he saw something gleam in the dark, something that looked a lot like…teeth. And although he tried to conceal his presence, he could see the smile growing wider and closer. It halted just inches away from his head, and chuckled onto his face.

“Anybody?” a mocking voice asked. His breathing ceased as the smile circled around his head.

With a sharp tug on his collar, Kyungsoo sailed out of the shadows. He shielded his eyes from the blinding light as he fell back into something soft and green. Sunlight streamed through the tall stalks of grass, and pale daisies skirted his vision. White clouds made their slow, sailing way through a light blue sky, a recent sunrise giving the horizon a friendly orange tint.

He inhaled the air in desperate gulps, happy to be given a steady stream of oxygen once more. Stretching his hand out to block the sun, he savored the fresh air and warm light. But his moment of relief was interrupted as a heavy ball knocked right into his face.

“Kris, I’m telling you, you can’t play basketball in the grass,” a husky voice boomed from the other side of the field, “and definitely not with a soccer ball.”

“You told me to dribble it, so I am!” another low-pitched voice proclaimed in exasperation. Kyungsoo touched his fingers to his nose, and drew them back covered in red.

A large figure eclipsed the sun from his view. It was a man with wavy, light ginger hair, and a bowler hat on top. Someone else, seemingly his twin, stood just to the left. Upon closer inspection however, they shared nothing in common besides their tall stature and tone of voice. The one on the left had a sharp, bird-like face while the one on the right had softer features akin to an elf.

“Look, we have a visitor!” the elvish man laughed, scrunching up his nose and eyes.

“Who are you?” a bewildered Kyungsoo asked, trying to stifle his flowing nose.

“I’m Tweedle Dum and this is Tweedle Dee!” the man continued to chuckle. Kyungsoo reckoned that in the outside world, this guy would probably be locked up somewhere. Remembering the outside world gave him a pang of sadness, but wallowing was currently not an option.

“No really, I just heard you call him Kris. Who are you?” The man sighed.

“Fine, break the rules then. I’m Chanyeol,” he said, offering his hand but quickly retracting it when he saw Kyungsoo’s coated in blood.

“Oh no, you can’t be bleeding! The king has banned that color outside of his palace,” Chanyeol panicked, while Kris stood nonchalantly nearby, rolling his eyes.

Before Kyungsoo could even think to ask questions, he was cut off by Chanyeol frantically trying to dab his upper lip clean with a handkerchief. Kyungsoo found it hard to appreciate the gesture when he was just spreading it about the rest of his face.

“Wow, you really are a newcomer aren’t you?” Kris wondered aloud. Pushing Chanyeol aside and bringing Kyungsoo to his feet, he pulled him into his arms and took out his own handkerchief. Kyungsoo blushed when he noticed the stranger was a bit handsome, and that he was close enough to smell whatever fragrance Kris was wearing. After gently wiping all of the blood away from Kyungsoo’s nose and his soccer ball, Kris stuffed the handkerchief under a rock.

“Now if you’ll excuse us, we have a game to finish,” Kris said, brushing him away.

“Could you at least tell me where I am? Or where I need to go? I have to get out of this place!” Kyungsoo tried to not let too much of the desperation in his voice show. Kris shrugged.

“Why don’t you ask your friend over there?” Chanyeol pointed to a man standing at the edge of the clearing.

“Friend?” Kyungsoo turned to see who this friend could be. Squinting in inspection, his eyes grew at the darkly-clothed figure.

“You!” he bellowed. He tore through the grass in the man’s direction and killed a few daisies in the process.

“You’re the one who got me here!” He felt a twinge of anger and blame that went deeper than abandoning him in the dark.

When Kyungsoo grew close, the person his heels and took off. Groaning in frustration, Kyungsoo pumped his arms harder, determined to catch up to his pace.

Nobody ever stuck around for long. He knew his preference for isolation and doing it all on his own would no longer work; he needed someone else if he wanted to get out of this mess. In a desperate measure, he picked up a stone and chucked it at the back of the stranger’s neck, but the man took a sharp turn into the woods.

Kyungsoo had run deep into the brush before he realized the man had disappeared once more. Cursing, he stomped on a twig. The green of the forest grove spun before his eyes, and he found himself dangling three feet above the ground by his left ankle. Before he could cry out, a hand clamped over his mouth. This hand, it’s… His deer-like eyes grew large, and he squirmed about restlessly.

“Tsh, hush. I don’t think you want to bring attention to yourself now. The Red King’s men are all over. Fortunately this seems to be an old trap. Let me just get you down.” Without a face, Kyungsoo knew who the voice belonged to. He felt a long arm wrap around his legs, and listened to the rope at his ankles being whittled away by something sharp. The force of suspension grew lighter and lighter until…

“Ungh!” Kyungsoo grunted, landing on something soft. At first he thought he had landed on the patch of moss below, until it moved. Feeling the fabric of the man’s clothes on his cheek, he quickly got up, flustered at the contact. The disgruntled stranger also stood, his back still to Kyungsoo.

“A-are you okay?” Kyungsoo squeaked out, reaching out to touch the taller man’s back. The man slowly turned around. He was met with a stern jaw and piercing black eyes. The man gave him a toothy smile and his sharp eyes lit up with a hint of friendliness.

“Hello. We’ve already met, if you remember. I’m ‘anybody.’” Kyungsoo chuckled but then sighed.

“No really, what is your name? No one here seems willing to share theirs.”

“Well, I would tell you that I’m the Cheshire Cat, but you don’t seem to be in the mood. My name is Tao. Hardly anyone here calls each other by their real names anymore, ever since the King ordered it. I guess it gives him a sense of control.”

“C-cat?” Kyungsoo’s eyes widened when he noticed a pair of raven-black ears peeking out of the man’s hair of the same color. The man laughed at Kyungsoo’s expression, and playfully flicked his tail. He wondered how disoriented he could be that his mind tuned out these curiosities.

“Well then, Tao, it’s nice to meet you, but could somebody, anybody, tell me how I ended up in this place?”

The man’s smile widened in a failed attempt to hide his unease. “You know, I’ve been meaning to ask you the same thing. I can tell you’re not from around here, but it almost seems like…” Tao got quiet and furrowed his brow.

“Like what?”

“Like you’re also part of it. Like it’s a part of you.”

Kyungsoo couldn’t disagree. He felt like he was in a puzzle completed on the wrong side, in the midst of a nonsense that at the same time carefully fit together. A faint memory of kimchi spaghetti shot through his mind.

“And that’s why I’m worried about you. I’m afraid that the king might sense this and feel a threat to his power. Luckily, you fell through on the royal guards’ day off, and I was able to materialize us both out of the dark.”

Tao faded into the air, and Kyungsoo jumped at the sight of Tao directly behind him.

“Fortunately, my senses are better than the king’s, and I was able to save you before he noticed the intrusion.”

“But, what exactly is this place?” Kyungsoo asked. Tao shrugged.

“Nobody knows for sure. But we mostly agree on one name.”

“And what is that?”

“Wonderland.”

~~~

Tao transported them to the bank of a river. Strolling alongside the bubbling water, he laid out grandiose tales of the land, Kyungsoo smiling and nodding along. He was told of a smoking caterpillar frustrated with his short height, a white rabbit that was always rushing to meet a date, and a man in a tall hat who threw mysterious tea parties in the dead of night. His stories were grand but at the same time quite vague, and although Kyungsoo found himself more confused than before, he was happy to finally have some normal human interaction. Well, something close to it.

“Say, how did you even get in here in the first place? This land is nearly impossible to penetrate,” Tao questioned. Kyungsoo thought back to yesterday. Or at least he tried to, his mind turning up blank. He could remember darkness, a stranger’s caress, and a grinning savior, but everything before that washed into a blur.

“I-I can’t remember,” Kyungsoo whispered, becoming afraid that he was, in the literal sense, losing his mind.

“Well, however you ended up here, I think I know a way for you to get out.”

“You do?” Kyungsoo perked up immediately.

“Yes, well, assuming he’ll cooperate. I hope you like tea.”

~~~

The sky slowly faded into a light blue, the faint orange making a futile attempt to illuminate the white room and clouds with a warm atmosphere. A pathetic sleeper lay on the morning paper, stained in a bitter pattern of coffee and tears. The smashed vase on the floor bled into a puddle of daisies and water.

August 16^th, 2013. Gangnam-gu’s Yeoksam-dong district reducing speed limits. More details to come.