Read Malice in Wonderland Prequel for Free Online Page A

inside to see a square medium-sized room cut from gray stone.
    In the middle of the room was a skeleton wearing a royal gown and crown sitting in a golden throne. Next to the throne was a pedestal atop of which rested a black rose within a flower pot. A glass dome rested over the flower and a note was attached to the inner surface of the dome, with hand written words upon it, but she couldn’t read the note from her distance.
    Alice briefly considered turning back, because this might be a rather precarious situation. But then she thought maybe the Black Rose was extremely lonely, and her heart filled with such sorrow for the rose’s possible distress.
    “Black Rose!” she called out. “Can you hear me?”
    She thought she heard the flower give a muffled cry, but she couldn’t make out the words through the glass.
    “Fear not!” she proclaimed, “For I am here to rescue you from your predicament!” She stepped through the door then rolled on the ground into a crouch where she listened intently and peered around for any threat.
    The door slammed shut behind her and she gasped and looked around. She was trapped.
    “Oh bother,” she muttered to herself.
    Then she heard a kind of gurgling sound. Clear liquid began trickling from the edges of the room from little round holes. With dread, Alice assumed it was acid, because of course it would be!
    The only way to avoid the acid was to stand atop the throne, so she performed three expert cartwheels toward it, then hopped atop the arms of the throne, balancing precariously. She didn’t want to touch the icky skeleton.
    The clear liquid reached the bottom of the throne and the fabric of the gown. A hissing bubbling sound issued forth as the acid began to dissolve cloth and bone and a pungent smoke rose up.
    “Oh, this will not do!” Alice proclaimed, feeling sorry for herself. The acid level was slowly rising.
    “Oh, what should I do, Black Rose?”
    Again, the Black Rose seemed to speak, but again, she couldn’t make out the words.
    Alice hugged herself in terror, as the liquid of burning death approached. She looked around. There was nowhere else to stand. The ceiling was lined with rows of round holes and a larger hole above the Black Rose, but the ceiling was twenty feet above her, so she couldn’t reach them.
    While trembling with fear, she watched the level of acid rise, burning the skeleton and its dress, leaving the throne untouched, perhaps because it was made of gold, she thought.
    “Help! Won’t someone please help?!”
    But there was no response. And then her tears began to flow. She flicked them from her face in frustration. The acid continued to rise, but now, the sizzling and smoke seemed to lessen.
    My tears! A few of them dropped in the acid! Perhaps their magic negates it.
    So she leaned forward and allowed as many of her tears to drip down into the acid as she could. Soon the sizzling and dissolving stopped and Alice laughed out loud in relief. The level of the liquid continued to rise though, and soon it rose over the throne and Alice could no longer avoid being immersed.
    Soon she was drenched in it and had to tread water to stay afloat in the former acid. She suspected the liquid had been transformed into tears.
    It continued rising.
    I shall drown in my own tears, she thought morosely.
    But then thankfully, the liquid began to drain from the room. While it was doing so, and Alice was busy treading in place, she took the time to read the note on the inside of the (apparently waterproof) glass dome over the flower. It read: “Smell me.”
    “Black Rose, can you hear me? I need you to just hold on for me, okay? We’re gonna get you out.”
    The Black Rose shook a little. It seemed kind of like a nod, Alice thought.
    The liquid had all drained. “Well, then. Now that that’s done with, let’s smell what all the fuss is about, shall we?”
    That’s when she heard a loud clamor of clanks from the ceiling. She looked up to see rows of steel