“You bloody traitor!” Jongin shrieked. He scrambled to his feet and pulled Kyungsoo out of his chair with him. Kyungsoo’s vision spun. The joyful vibe was brutally trampled in the sound of hooves.

“There’s no point in trying to escape, Alice. I’ll just tell him wherever it is you run off to,” Joonmyeon laughed coldly. Jongin shot a look at Jongdae like he was trying to convey a silent message.

“Caterpillar, what are you trying to pull? Hatter, does this have something to do with this Alice person that showed up to our house?” Jongdae gaped between them.

“You mean he never told you? Guess we have more than one traitor at this party.” Joonmyeon cocked his head at Jongin. The Hatter and the Hare were cleverer than they let on.

“The royal guards are going to come over the side of the hill in a matter of seconds. They are going to take us both,” Jongin whispered. Kyungsoo trembled into his arms, his head light. “There’s just something I want you to have first...”

He slowly turned Kyungsoo around in his arms to avoid attention. He found himself looking straight into Jongin’s dark eyes, and for the first time, could recognize the emotion they desperately spelled out. Kyungsoo closed his eyes. Hot breath grew closer to his face, and two sets of lips quietly indulged, chests pounding against each other in a bittersweet mixture of fear and longing. They parted, the cold air seeping back into the division.

Strong, cloaked arms tore the embrace, and the last thing he remembered was Jongin’s face, visibly bearing a broken heart. They both knew it was futile to resist. A napkin slid over Kyungsoo’s nose. He felt himself inhale a sweet scent, and softly breathed a “Jongin” before his vision melted away.

~~~

It was as if his eyelids had been glued shut.

“Jongin,” he felt his lips whisper out, even though a great force was prying them shut. There was shouting from a great distance, and a mask lifted from his face, the tight pressure still pinning him down. But strong arms tightened their grip, and hurtled him back in.

~~~

Kyungsoo’s eyes fluttered open. A sensation like the wind had been knocked out of him lay heavy in his chest. Gulping in what little air he could, he found himself in a large, stony room. There was a tunneled opening in the ceiling, the only hint of an escape. His wrists were bound to the floor by a red chain, pinned down and helpless. The floor was coated in red marble, although the red stains and the human skeleton strung upside down on the wall seemed closer to the interior design’s intentions. But the ghostly, rhythmic beeps were what really got to Kyungsoo.

His memory stirred, and previous events eased back into his head. Thoughtlessly hurtled through the tunnel by the royal guards, Kyungsoo was beginning to develop a strange dislike of tunnels.Behind him, a bird with a comically disproportionate beak was chained down on a perch. A bell on its left read “Fly him out,” while the one on the right read “Eat him.”

“If you’re particularly unlucky, you’re thrown to the Do-Do birds…” Kyungsoo recalled Tao’s words clearly. He tried to decide if he was unlucky for ending up in the same room as a Do-Do bird or lucky for surviving this far.

“How is anybody going to get me out of here?” He had an epiphany.

“Tao! TAO! TAO! Anybody! Help me! TAO!” he hollered wildly, provoking a few threatening caws from the Do-Do bird. But he didn’t care. This was his last hope if he ever hoped to make it out alive.

He waited for a few minutes, dejection beginning to settle in. He heard a grunt, and turned to see an exhausted Tao crouching on the floor behind him.

“I’m sorry I’m late. Going such long distances drains most of my powers. Although mine are stronger than the king’s, I become weaker when I’m near him.” Even talking seemed to strain Tao.

“Wait, does that mean you can’t get me out of here?” Kyungsoo panicked.

“Teleporting away is out of the question, yes, however, you now have a pair of free hands, and we can tell how close we are to the king if I, well, collapse into a heap, so I’m still of use.” Tao smiled sadly, but Kyungsoo shook his head.

“I won’t let that happen,” he promised. Tao sighed.

“I did feel like something was horribly wrong last night, and it turns out I was right. However, the king was there when they crashed the tea party. I couldn’t do anything to help. He’s out in the garden right now, so I can get in here.” Kyungsoo felt Tao fiddling with the red lock on his chains.

“Thank you so much, Tao, for everything,” Kyungsoo grinned weakly. The lock came undone, and the chains clunked to the floor. Kyungsoo was finally able to stand up.

“You can tell me that later, once I get us out of here alive,” Tao smiled back.

“What exactly do you have in mind?” Kyungsoo turned his head every which way, but the only opening was the tunnel looming overhead.

“It’s written out for us in plain sight,” Tao pointed at the signs next to the hungry-looking bird.

“It’s probably a trap though; it was a little too easy to get those chains off. We should choose the opposite one.”

Kyungsoo made the first move. He placed a hand on the “Eat him” bell. The Do-Do’s eyes glimmered with hunger.

“Tao, if this turns out to be the wrong bell, promise me you will teleport yourself out of here with Jongin.” Tao’s face turned grim at the request, especially at the mention of Jongin, ­but he nodded. Holding in his breath, Kyungsoo pulled the bell into position, and let it swing.

The bird screeched at the noise. The chains fell off its talons, and it beat its wings. Lunging at Kyungsoo with its claws splayed, he screamed and waited for the tearing of flesh. But instead its massive talons clenched around Kyungsoo’s shin, and it rose towards the ceiling. Kyungsoo his hand out to Tao. They clung onto each other as desperately as their hopes of escape.

They landed in a dark room. Tao opened a door, and a red hallway lined with doors stretched before them. Names were etched into silver placards, although Kyungsoo’s was golden. It changed to silver when he shut the door, and Kyungsoo grimly understood what these meant.

“We have to find another golden one, one that says Jongin. You read the ones on the right, and I’ll read the left.” Kyungsoo skimmed desperately for any mention of Jongin. He was almost to the end of the hallway, his chest heavy when there were no more golden placards to be found.

“Wait, this one says Jongin, but it’s silver.” Kyungsoo pushed past Tao, threw open the door, and stuck his head into the tunnel. In his narrow view, he could see a giant Do-Do bird, a wine-colored top hat jammed onto its beak. It stood calmly, and Kyungsoo nearly thought it was dead, until a man lunged onto the bird’s back. Thrashing upwards in a fit, Kyungsoo jumped back just as it tore through the door, and crashed against the wall with…

“Jongin!” Kyungsoo screamed, rushing over to the glassy-eyed man splayed upside down against the wall.

“K-Kyungsoo?” he grunted out, most of the wind knocked out of him. The giant bird wrestled away and flailed down the hall.

“Oh my god, please tell me nothing’s broken,” Kyungsoo begged, his eyes welling.

“I-I’m fine.”

Tao and Kyungsoo set him upright as Jongin heaved for air. Kyungsoo a thumb against his soft hands, and felt something wet. He looked down to see both of Jongin’s hands covered in blood.

“Jongin! What bell did you ring?”

“Neither, I clawed out of the chains, which weren’t that hard to break, although I think I might have cut myself up a little in the process…I stuck my hat over the bird’s eyes and broke his chains too. He freaked out for a good ten minutes before he was calm enough to ride,” Jongin gave a wheezy chuckle and a proud smirk.

“You idiot! And now look at you!” Kyungsoo planted his fist on the wall.

“What about the way I look?” Jongin gave a cocky grin, making Kyungsoo turn pink. “I don’t exactly see you worrying about yourself,” he pointed at Kyungsoo’s pant leg, the baby blue fabric now bloody and scratched.

“A little blood’s the least of our worries,” Tao interjected, awkwardly staring at the pink handprints where Kyungsoo had firmly clutched his wrist, “Right now, we have to focus on our escape.” The Do-Do was too pre-occupied with the hat to notice the escaped prisoners, and they quietly bolted past it towards the stairs.

“Funny, the Red Guards aren’t here like they usually are,” Jongin mused.

“Usually? What, do you come here often?” Kyungsoo asked, eliciting a toothy smirk.

“You haven’t figured it out?” Kyungsoo raised an eyebrow at him.

“There’s a reason why we hold tea parties in the dead hours of the night. Another one of the laws of the land. The king prohibited tea outside the castle walls, and drinks his problems away instead…”

“Problems?” Jongin nodded.

“Most of the tea here is made from the special Do-Do flower, eaten by the Do-Do birds. It can give you a kind of buzz. That’s why the Do-Do bird was going so ballistic over my hat. Jongdae and I started using my hats to grow the flowers in the closet, and throwing late night tea parties, all to stay under the King’s nose. Occasionally though, someone will snitch.” Jongin crinkled his nose, and everyone knew who he was thinking of.

“So does this mean you know the way out?” Kyungsoo perked up.

“Kind of…if the Red Guards aren’t around, that means they’re out playing croquet in the Garden. I think Tao would know the way.” Jongin grunted awkwardly.

“You think, Hatter?” Tao scoffed. Kyungsoo didn’t question their cold interaction. This was not a time for personal issues.

They ran through countless hallways, the color red overpowering the interior design. They encountered few people, and the ones they did were just pitiful servants who paid them no heed, silently painting the white roses in the golden vases a despicable red.

“I don’t like how empty this place is,” Tao whispered as they barely avoided crashing into a young woman carrying a large bouquet of roses, her lips smudged red and her gaze empty.

“Excuse me, miss, you don’t know where we could find the entrance to the garden, do you? You see, we were invited to play croquet here and…” The woman didn’t seem to care for explanations, giving a dull nod in the direction they were heading. He nodded his thanks and sprinted down a final flight of stairs.

They found themselves stumbling into a large foyer with four grand staircases, a red carpet trailing down each. On the wall above the second story balcony, three massive portraits stared ominously from their golden frames. One depicted an older man with a long, white beard. He had a ruffled red collar around his neck, and a similarly-styled crown atop his head. His pointy features reminded Kyungsoo of a raven. His expression had a glimmer of playfulness, unlike the woman’s portrait to his right. She was around his age, her hair dyed black and pulled into a bun as tight as her smile. A smaller crown sat on her head. Below those two portraits was someone with a resemblance to the woman above, and a bitter expression that wasn’t softened by delicate features. A red crown sat atop wavy blonde hair.

“Is that the king?” Kyungsoo asked in a hushed awe, intimidated by the size of the portraits, even at their distance. Jongin nodded.

“I didn’t know there were a queen and princess,” Kyungsoo scrunched his brow. Jongin doubled over in laughter, and Tao gave a quiet smile.

“No, Kyungsoo, there aren’t. The old king and queen have long since passed on their crown.”

“You mean the bottom one is…?!” Kyungsoo gaped, causing more laughter, until Tao finally pulled both of them through a large door. The green labyrinth sprawled before them, dim as the early morning sunlight skimmed over the tops of the hedges.

“How big is this maze, exactly?” Kyungsoo asked.

“Um…big,” Jongin didn’t seem very certain. Tao scoffed as Kyungsoo followed Jongin with blind trust. Tao took an oddly confident position at the front of the group.

Something rustled in the next row. Jongin pressed a finger to his lips and backed into the growth, signaling for the others to do the same. Tao dared to peek around the corner, and jumped at the sight.

“Ah! A rabbit!” he hollered. Kyungsoo lit up and stuck his head around the corner.

“Minseok! What are you doing here?!” he exclaimed as he was hugged by the orange-haired man.

“They took me in. I’m not sure who else they took. They were going to take Jongdae, but he had been in here too many times…”

“But how did you get away from the bird?” Tao asked. Minseok shrugged.

“I strangled it with its chain,” he said, looking down at his feet like as if it were another menial task. “Anyways, I had almost made it to the center of the maze, when I heard your voices over here. I came back to get you all so we could finish it together.” Minseok smiled as if he hadn’t just murdered a creature twice his size.

The jittery Minseok denied Tao’s steady leadership, and they ended up sprinting half of the maze. By the time they reached the main clearing, they nearly collapsed onto the terrace without noticing a certain someone sitting high upon a large-petaled flower, filling the courtyard with a foggy layer of smoke.

“Now that we know who he’s working for, I think it would be a smart idea to just sneak by while he’s distracted and not—”

“Damn it, Suho! This is entirely your fault, you smoked up caterpillar! Did you really betray Wonderland for a quiet place to smoke in the king’s garden?!” Jongin yelled at the man swaying on the petal. Suho inhaled long drags, his expression completely passive.

“Ah thank you, now I can spare you all an explanation,” Suho chuckled in his breathy voice.

“Hey, be nice, this is the first time Suho’s ever been able to see above anybody’s head,” Tao sneered. At that, the caterpillar stopped producing tendrils of smoke.

“Was that an insult to my height, kitty cat?” he asked in a whisper tainted with offense.

“Are you that dull that you need to ask?” Tao and Jongin were enjoying their petty jabs at Suho, until he slowly raised his pipe. Kyungsoo punched Jongin in the arm.

“Well, I’m sure you can save your childish taunts for the king at the chopping block,” Suho laughed, his features twisted in glee. Pushing the trigger, he sent out the same bright flare. The garden became silent as the flare’s squeal died out. All the leaves around them rustled, and figures in white hooded cloaks appeared. They outstretched their arms towards the four escapees, a bold card pattern on their clothes.

“Jongin! I’m starting to think Suho has better logic than you!” Kyungsoo shouted. He was grabbed by the hooded, faceless entities, and helplessly watched their group be pulled apart into the bushes. The branches poked at his insides and the leaves tousled his hair. He couldn’t move or breathe.

~~~

“If he keeps doing this on us, we don’t know how…”

“You can’t. He can end this nightmare, I’m sure of it! Please, I’m begging you. You heard what he said the other day.”

“You just be glad you got off with a warning, unlike the other guy. He was going to get a lot of time, you know.”

“The only time I’m concerned about is his.”