Rose Blue. - Siagrrl (top reads .txt) 📗

I was beginning to get very tired of sitting on the boss's desk, and of having nothing to do: once or twice I had peeped into the book he was writing in, but every time I did he just moved the book away from my line of sight. He sure does love to take his time

, I thought. When I am supposed to be leaving for my next mission in 15 minutes.

So I was considering in my own mind (as well as I could, for the anaesthetic they had given me for my loosely stitched up stomach made me feel very sleepy and stupid), whether the necklace I was wearing was worth the hundred-and-sixty odd dollars I had spent for it. The jump ring that had held the small heart-shaped pendant, had broken after only two weeks and had to be replaced while the chain itself (which I was forced to believe was pure silver) had now rusted away to a light orange colour riddles with specks of brown. That now reminded me more of a cheap $10 accessory you'd see in a child's magazine. And above all that, it had lost all its sentimental value - whatever that may have been. Nevertheless, I still wore it. It meant something. It means something. The question was - what? I don't remember. Actually, there is a lot that I don't remember.

My likes.

My dislikes.

My past.

My name.

So, they called my Alice.

Funny, right?

Could have been worse, though. They (the C.I.A, whom I like to refer to as 'they' due to major dislike) could've called me Jane.

Plain-Jane. I hate that name. I have no reason to hate it - or at least i don't think i do - but that doesn't stop me.

I was found unconscious at the foot of a set of grand steps outside the only church, in a ghost town one dreary morning in September (when I say ghost town, I mean no other living being was there. And when I say there, I mean Citadel. A small town located in New Jersey.), in a gorgeous Vera Wang wedding dress.

Stained with blood.

All I had on me was a gun and a purse.

A gun.

A browning 9x19mm to be exact. Also known as a GP-35. I remember that

. Of all things, that is what I remember. The contents of the purse were just as helpful as the purse itself.

Completely useless.

A receipt for a heart-shaped-pendant necklace (Hmm. Wonder where that ended up?), a new tube of 'shimmering coral' coloured lipstick and a blue rose. I may have lost my memory, but I'm pretty sure that blue roses aren't found in your average everyday florists. I didn't believe it at first either. I mean, come on. A blue rose?

I remember doing a double-take when reading my file. But it wasn't a lie. Nor was it a misprint. They kept it. The rose I mean. Somehow, after almost two months, it's still picture perfect.

My boss cleared his throat anxiously, without looking up. I snapped to attention and focused on the copper name plate to my left that was embroidering the outer edge of his desk. Kareem J. Cunningham. He tapped his pen impatiently against his coffee mug. Not taking his eyes off the forms he had in front of him.

'...those damn money grubbers! $70, 000! Are they nuts, we don't have that kind of money! How does the government expect us to continue our experiments with the portal when we are constantly paying for personnel injuries, and we are the ones that need the funding!?'

Oh.

Yeah.

I guess I haven't mentioned that yet either, huh? Another unique thing about my situation is that I have the ability to read minds.

NO exceptions.

Kareem doesn't know this. Nor does anyone else at this base. In fact. I'm pretty sure that NO ONE besides me knows. And I would prefer to keep it that way.

"Alice."

"Yeah...?" I asked, lazily. Things had started to get hazy.

"Sorry for taking so long. Your new mission file is over there." That said, he pointed to a large stack of papers stacked on top of a slightly rusting filing cabinet to the left of the office. The three draws were packed so full and disorderly that they could no longer be closed. A few papers lined the floor in front of it. God forbid he ever cleaned up this dump. How he ever got to be the leader of such an important project, I'll never know. I sighed, and made my way over to the cabinet. Dodging strewn litter and papers, which he bothered not to sign, as I did.

"It's on the top. Shouldn't be that hard to find." His voice said from behind, still sitting in his specially made chair. I fumbled around with the papers on top of the cabinet until I found the most recent looking, clean one. Mission 6A

was plastered across the top of the page. Underneath in red was written; Urgent. It was sticking out of the top draw. Has he really neglected cleaning so long that he forgot where an URGENT mission that JUST CAME IN, was?

I scanned the page as I walked back over to Kareem's desk. "This one's in 'Wonderland'?" I said more to myself than to anyone else.

"Uh-huh." He said, this time looking up.

"It's just a recon mission. Why is it labelled 'urgent'?"

'You really have to ask..?'

"It's because it's in 'Wonderland,' that it is urgent.

So by now you're probably wondering what kind of sick joke this is. I'm 'Alice.' And a there is a place called 'Wonderland.' But I can assure you that there is a perfect explanation. See, I wasn't the only thing they found in Citadel. There was something else. An anomaly. A large-80km-crater-that-appeared-out-of-nowhere-kind of anomaly. But aside form the outer appearance, this anomaly had nothing in common with a crater. I can best be described as - and has been (courtesy of the C.I.A) - a dimension rift. This rift, hole, anomaly - whatever you want to call it - was found in the centre of the city, and (as you've probably guessed) leads to a parallel dimension humorously named, 'Wonderland.' I am the only one who is able to go through the rift unharmed (who would have thought, right?) and therefore am the only one who these missions get assigned too. All the smart-arse doctors and scientists that work here aren't any help either.

They have no idea why only I can survive the fall down the large, interdimensional rabbit hole...

Publication Date: 04-09-2012

All Rights Reserved