This story should never have been told. It was meant to stay buried, hidden among children's fables and nursery rhymes, safe behind painted illustrations and whispered lullabies. Wonderland was always a lie. It was never a dream, it was a trap. And now, thanks to me, Aryn Bats, you hold the proof in your hands. What you are about to read is not a fairy-tale. It is a dissection. A peeling back of bright colors to reveal the rotting muscle beneath. Every smiling face you remember has been carved into something else, something hungry, something waiting. Alice was not supposed to follow the rabbit. She was not supposed to see the roots beneath the oak tree, where a dozen holes yawned like open graves. But she did. And she chose wrong. Through the first pages you will hear the scrape of her nails on stone as she falls, the tearing of her dress on jagged rock, the sharp sting of copper in her lungs when she lands. The rabbit waits below, its watch beating like a second heart beneath its skinless chest. And deeper in, you will meet the hosts of this nightmare. The Hatter's table is set, but his porcelain cups are filled with blood, and his hat is stitched from screaming faces. The Cheshire Cat's grin glows in the dark, stretching wider until gums split and glass teeth rain down. The Tweedle Twins laugh as their cleavers rise, finishing each other's sentences with each slice of meat. And in the throne room, the Queen of Hearts waits, her gown sewn from hides, her barbed crown dripping, her audience a sea of headless bodies propped upright. These pages are not safe. They will not comfort you. They will not give you Wonderland back. They will strip it from you, leaving only the raw bones of a world where Alice should never have gone. You can close this book now. You can set it aside and pretend you never opened it. But if you turn the next page, you take the same step Alice took. Down into the dark. Down into the wrong rabbit hole. And once you begin, there is no way out.
