Beauty In Her Madness (Winterland Tale #3) - Stacey Marie Brown Page 0,99
let you die.”
“Noooo,” she replied, her lids lowering slightly, blood tapping on the ground, coloring the white like a cherry snow cone.
“I’m sorry.” I leaned in, kissing her cheek. “I have to,” I repeated. A few more tears fell as I whipped around, stomping for the entrance.
“Dinah!”
Alice’s cries followed me into the void, gutting my soul as the Land of the Lost and Broken devoured the rest of me.
Even as my boots touched the glowing snow, I had no sense of up or down, my mind already wanting to shatter into a million pieces.
“No.” I bit down, fiercely trying to hold on to my thoughts. My purpose.
The memories of being here before flipped quickly through my head like a picture book, disintegrating at the edges as toys floated closer, stealing my mind. The alien terrain was neither hot nor cold, but I shivered as the grieving toys came for me. Their suffocating woes of being forgotten, replaced, left, burned into me.
The majority of the toys were lost, roaming the endless space for their owner, wondering what had happened, why they were abandoned, with no meaning. But another group had evolved. Developed intent.
Determined to hurt. Kill.
Rushing forward, I fought against the pressure pounding in my head, the misery weighing down my body.
What am I doing here again?
A sob huffed from my mouth as I focused on trying to remember.
“Alice.” I gritted my teeth, pushing on, following an instinct. “Remember Alice. Keep saying her name. Don’t forget!”
Half of a tattered Monopoly board knocked into my shoulder, and a scream tore from my soul as if I were the one being torn in half. I was assaulted with images of people screaming at each other, accusations of cheating. Anger. Greed. A man ripping the board in half and chucking it across the room.
A headless stuffed dog brushed over me, transmitting pictures of an older boy cutting its head off, laughing, as a little girl sobbed uncontrollably.
Pain. Devastation.
My mind blanked as I hit the ground, folding over my knees, gasping for air, my chest aching, my muscles feeling too heavy to carry on. I wanted to curl up here—sleep forever.
Get up. You are supposed to do something… Though I couldn’t remember what. It felt significant, but the more I tried to reach for it, the more it slipped away.
Tired.
Sleep.
My lids closed, welcoming anything to take me away from this agony.
A tapping poked my cheek incessantly, keeping me from diving into the nothing, peace lying on the other side.
Taptaptaptap.
I groaned, my lids fluttering.
Taptaptaptap.
“Stttoooppp.” Irritation grumbled in my voice, and I opened my eyes.
A teeny gray mouse stood on my face, wide eyes, huge ears, one with a cut in it. Its little hands and fingers moving frantically, making me dizzy. Tired.
My lids shut again.
Taptaptaptap.
“Ugh!” I forced my eyes open again; the little guy’s fingers moved even more frantically. He bounced on his toes.
Familiarity, not just with the little mouse, but the way his hands moved, trickled in the back of my mind. My attention focused more on his fingers.
“Get up! You can’t give up, Ms. Dinah.” The shapes he made, I read across, stringing into words. “Please, you must remember.”
Chip. The name bounced on my tongue, a flash of the little guy sitting on my knee, to the blurry moment I thought I saw him in Blaze’s hut.
“You…you came with me?” I stuttered out slowly.
“Of course.” His hands moved. “You are my friend. Friends help each other.”
Warmth in the vacant place of my chest sizzled energy and determination into my system.
“How-how are you not affected?”
“What do toys care about a mouse? I am insignificant to them.”
“You aren’t to me.”
Bashfulness twitched his nose, wiggling his whiskers.
Pulling myself up, clouds tried to pack into my head again. Taking a deep breath, I pinched the bridge of my nose, trying to recall why I was here.
“Alice,” he signed, the name triggering something deep inside me. “You said, Don’t forget Alice.”
“Yes.” I nodded, picking him up as I stood. Alice…my sister. “Alice.”
Chip settled on my shoulder, holding on to my hair as I moved with refreshed determination, a pull leading me.
A wall of toys hovered in a line, and I knew I had reached my destination. Their whispers in my head telling me not to go in continued like a looping record.
“Do not do it, Dinah.”
“No, stop.”
“Don’t let her free.
“Darkness! Doom!”
Chip wiggled into my neck when I crossed the invisible barrier, goosebumps rippling over my skin. The complexities of human emotions pierced my chest.