Encountering The Caterpillar

The forest was, indeed, a place of dreams and nightmares. Though Madeleinea hadn't quite figured it out yet, she would soon find the forest to be a place of unfriendly faces and lost souls.
The moss was soft and cushioned, and felt cooling on Madeleinea's worn feet. The air smelled of damp foliage and cocoa, wafting from someplace in the distance. The blue sky dappled the ground below. Madeleinea felt calmed, and at home. Then, she spotted something. There, sitting on a toad stool, was a small bottle of liquid. "Madeleinea..." Came the whisper from its uncorked mouth. She shook her head. She must've been hearing things! Bottles didn't talk, of course. She knelt on the soft earth, and was startled by a wave of frilly white insects that billowed from the ground. She batted a stray one away, and plucked the bottle from its mushroom seat. There, on a small tag, in faint black ink, were two words: "DRINK ME." She lifted it to her lips, then hesitated. What could possibly be worse than drinking poison and dying, forgotten in this strange world? She sniffed the fumes wafting from the top, and her mouth watered. Vanilla icing, spiced chai tea, sugared strawberries, and night-flowering jasmine. She couldn't quite resist the pull of the smells from the liquid inside. Besides, it said drink me. What could possibly be so horrid about drinking something that said to drink it? So she lifted the bottle again to her lips, and was overridden by a barrage of lovely tastes. Suddenly, after she felt the last drop slide silkily down her throat, she noticed the trees were getting decidedly bigger. Even the mushroom that used to be no bigger than her foot could've easily been a lovely vanity for her room. But no, it wasn't the forest that was GROWING. She was shrinking. Which was certainly not optimal. No indeed, it was rather bad news. She was about to cry for help, when she caught a wiff of smoke. A strong smoke, like the plume of a cigarette. Laced with the smell of a musky flower. It made Madeleinea feel strangely sleepy. The smoke was settling on the ground, curling and billowing like sluggish snakes. Madeleinea noticed quickly that it wasn't a regular ugly gray, but blue, and it almost seemed to glitter in the orange light of the sunset.... Madeleinea gasped. "SUNSET?!" She cried aloud to no one. Class was over, school was over, her family was home, and she was missing. She had to get out, had to find her way back, but where, how.... "Yesss. SSunset." Said a slow, pondering voice. Madeleinea whirled around to meet the insect eyes of a caterpillar. A fat blue caterpillar. At least as tall as she, possibly taller. "Which means you, Miss Madeleinea, are very, very late for tea." Madeleinea took a small step back. "Who are you? Do I know you?" She asked, her voice stumbling with nervousness and drowsiness from the curling smoke. "No, you don't know me. Though your mother, and your grandmother, and your great-grandmother knew me.. Alice the fourth." Madeleinea frowned. "My name's not Alice." "No, it certainly isn't." Madeleinea cleared her throat. The great caterpillar took a great breath from his hookah and breathed a ring of the blue smoke in Madeleinea's face. "It is what we call you here, you see?" Madeleinea nodded, not truly understanding. "Whose we?" She asked. "You will find out." Madeleinea nodded again. "Well, how do I leave? I need to go home." She inquired. The blue caterpillar chuckled, smoke puffing from his nostrils. "You can't." He said simply. "But.. but I... I need to.." Madeleinea began to insist, feeling so sleepy she could feel sleep curling its arms around her. The caterpillar chuckled again. "You should find shelter. It's nearly night, and you don't want to be in the forest when the--" Madeleinea fell asleep.

When she awoke, the forest was black. Not black as in comfortably night, the black in which you can't see your hand in front of your face. Madeleinea tried it, no luck. She suddenly tensed, listening. What had the caterpillar been trying to tell her? She sniffed the air for the telltale smoke, seeing her eyes would be useless. Nothing. The caterpillar had left her alone, leaving her to whatever awaited her in the forest.