The carrige ride from the institute to Dr. Richards home was not a long one. But to me, it felt like years. I couldn't stop myself from thinking of the unimaginable. What if Hatter was fataly hurt? What if he had finally gone compleatly mad? what if they were going to kill him? what if I never saw him again? What if I was too late to save him? I even found myself chewing at my nails, which was an old habit I had kicked many years before.
Riplure watched me like a hawk the entire ride, but I barely noticed, I was too busy watching the land roll by. It had seemed like forever sence I'd seen past institute's walls, so it was a blessing to see so much green, but not even the gorgous blue sky could calm my sparatic nerves.
When we finally arrived at the house, I realized that we were less than a mile from Hamish's estate, but that wasn't what made my heart leap, it was that we were less than a mile from his gardens, which housed the large knotted tree of which the rabbit hole sat under. It would be easy to get there, if we could break away.
Riplure grabbed my arm and escorted me to the front steps and knocked on the door three times. It was oddly quiet for a few long moments, then vary slowly, the door opened and a woman's face appeared in the opening between the door and the frame.
"Dr. Riplure." She sighed in relif, and swung the door open all the way. It waas then that I got a good look at the woman. She was a bit rotund, but she looked strong, even though I doubted she really was. The very first thing I noticed was how dishelved she looked. Her hair had once been tied back, but now small pieces had fallen from the bun and were dangling at strange angles around her head. Her hair was also frizzed up and just messy looking. He wardrobe wasn't much better, and she even had an apron on that was inside out. Another thing I noticed was how nervous she looked as if she a gun was being pointed right at her.
"Mrs. Richard's you look lovely as ever, though your hair could use some work." Riplure pointed out, chuckling slightly.
"Oh! Beg your pardon sir. Just doing a bit of baking." she said, only taking time to tuck one strand of hair behind her ear.
"Yes i'm sure- Tell me, where is your husband?"
"Oh... He went out for a walk sir. Just to clear his head from the noises. He should be back soon thou-... Is this... Alice?" She asked, her brown eyes lighting on me for the first time.
"Yes. Wayne has told you about her?" Riplure guessed, lightly shoving me into the house, and setpping in himself even without invitation.
"Not much, but after all I've seen today and yesterday, I think I know plenty. Come, I'll escort you to the parlor."
"Actually, I was hoping to see the spair bedroom that my patient ravaged this morning." Riplure said casually, not moving even when the lady had been ushuring them to go down the hall.
"Oh. Well, alright then." She sighed, somehow looking even more nervous as she led us to a staircase that led to the upstairs. "I hope Wayne warned you about the noises. They can be quite terrifying, and they've gotten louder and more frequent from when he started. I'm worried that he might be quite sick."
"Well I suppose we'll just have to see about that." Riplure grinned as he kept a hand on the small of my back and led me up the stairs. Finally we reached a white, innocent looking door and we stopped. Mrs. Richards took a key from her pocket and unlocked the door, then she stepped back as if she was afraid if she opened it, a beast would come rampaging out.
"Go on in." She gulped, letting Riplure open the door himself. He reached out and calmly opened the door. But as soon as it was open, he gasped and I nearly burst into tears.
The entire place was destroyed, from the curtains to the matress, and the rugs to the wallpaper, everything had been ripped to shreads or smashed to pieces. The whole room looked as if a hurricane had came through, and then left. The window, which had been smashed, let in a bit of the calm mid-day breeze, causing the curtains to flutter misarably from where they hung in shreads. The matress lay half on and half on the bed, and it had been sliced open and torn apart.
"Oh my poor hatter." I murmured, steping into the room, and seeing a few drops of blood staining the wood floor.
"It was like nothing I'd ever seen." Mrs. Richards recalled, still not entering the room. "It was as if the devil himself had begun burning apart the poor sole from the inside out. His tourtured screams will haunt my nightmares for many a month I'm sure."
"My, I suppose I under estimated him." Riplure thought outloud to no one in piticular.
"He was like a rabid animal. and that look in his eyes, was like he wanted nothing but to see blood spilt. I was terrified. " Mrs. Richards sighed, placing a hand on her heart and leaning against the door frame.
"We all were." a voice said from behind us. We all turned to see Dr. Richards standing forlornly in the hallway. "Alice. Doctor. " he said, nodding his head in acknolagement.
"Richards. Finally. I was hoping youy could tell me what brought this on."
"A nightmare I assume. "He sighed, stepping into the room.
"No it wasn't!" I found myself shouting.
"What?" Riplure asked, stepping toward me.
"I- I ummm... I don't think this was a uhhh.. a nightmare... I don't." I tried to defend myself.
"And why not?" Richards asked, leaning toward me just a slight.
"Well, I uhhh-..." Just then, a horrid screatching filled the whole house from the basement to the attic. The sound was like nothing I had ever heard, and it chilled me to the bone and it clawed at my very sole. Mrs. Richards cupped her ears to block it out, Dr. Richards grinned wolfishly, Riplure stared at him in amazement, and I just stood there stunned. eventually, it stopped, and we were surrounded by scilence once again.
"Was that-?" Riplure asked in amazement. Richards's grin widened and he nodded his head slowly.
"Indeed. He's in the cellar." the man chuckled softly. I gaped at the man I had been led to think was my ally, now I realized it was all a trick, a good-cop bad-cop sort of system.
"You horrible MONSTERS!" I screamed, my whole body aching to lunge at them and use my nails to claw out their eyes.
"I want to see him. Right now" Riplure demanded eagerly, compleatly ignoring me.
"Of corse sir." Richards complied, leading his boss to the cellar. "Alice dear, while were gone, do try to clean up the mess your little pet made." He sneered. Once they were gone, I turned away to look at the room again, there was no way to clean this. but that wasn't what made me tear up by far. I suddenly felt a pair of arms wrap around me. I looked to see Mrs. richards hugging me to her bossom, and suddenly, it was as if everything came crashing down on me at once, and I just lost my composer.
"There there dear. I understand." She whispered, stroking my hair and whispering softly into my hair in efforts to calm me as a bawled. I cried for what felt like forever, feeling comforted by another woman for the first time in ages.
Just as I thought I was calmoing down a bit, and my crying was begining to lessen, when another horrid screach peirced the air all around me, and brought on a whole new round of tears.
As Richards and Riplure reached the door at the bottom of the stairs, they turned to eachother and just stared at eachother throught the darkness. The single candle they brought down providing plenty of light to see by in the pitch darkness.
"You should probably brace yourself sir. It's not a pretty sight."
"I can handle this Richards."
"I suppose so... What are you planning on doing?"
"Just talking at first, but If he's still defying me, I will have to beat him."
"And if he doesn't fight? If we've finally broken him?"
"... I'm not compleatly sure. It's a delacate situation."
"I know sir."
"..."
"..."
"Richards?"
"Yes sir?"
"Does he love her?"
"...I'm certain of it."
"Does she love him?"
"Most likely."
"Do they know?"
"I don't think so sir."
"Perfect."
"What are you planning?"
"You'll see in good time Richards. Just wait and see." And with that, Riplure opend the door.
!
Latin: sanctus crap quod iustus factum!? *** English translation: HOLY CRAP WHAT JUST HAPPENED?!
I can not believe how long it's been since I've worked on this?! Luckily I actually know where this is going now so WHOO! The other night I was reading some of this it it hit me! I was like: CRAP! I need to finish this or die! So I will try my best to focus!
I am SOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO OOOOOOOOOOOOO sorry! I am a horrible person, but I will try to get better about this... Words can not describe how sorry I am that I left this hanging for so long.
Tarrant: WHERE THE SHUCKUM HAVE YOU BEEN YA' TURD?!
Me: Well I uhhhh-...
Alice: You've been watching other fandoms haven't you?!
Me: Uhhhhhhhhh-...
Tarrant: UGH! MY LITTLE PONY?! WHAT THE HECK?!
Alice: And what's this ONCE UPON A TIME show?
Tarrant: And Thor of all things?!
Alice: WHAT DO YOU HAVE TO SAY FOR YOUR SELF?!
Me: ... Loki is awesome cuz he does what he wants, Mr. Gold/Rumplestiltskin Trolls like a boss and, Discord is voiced by Q from Star trek!
Tarrant: ... Point taken.. Heeeeyyyyyy? Do you have some kind of thing for villains or something
Me: Well as Ferb said: "A hero is a hero but everyone loves a good villain."
Alice: Seriously? Phinias and Ferb? You spend to much time with your brother.
Me: I also have the date set on my callender for the day the Hunger games comes out on DVD...
Tarrant: Your pathetic... But so do I.
Alice: Yah.. Me too...