She didn't know what to think. Even with her most lucid of dreams, they just couldn't match up to the complete tangibility of where she was now. She felt awake, yet she knew herself to be asleep. She even pinched herself a couple of times, feeling the slight stings of pain. There was just no way this could have been "real." Yet here she was again, at least a month or so after first stepping through a window from one of her own subconsciously built worlds.
And she didn't know what to think at first.
The first time, she had been amazed, awed at what she found. It was like the waking world, yet it was nothing like it. Awake while being asleep, like stepping into a fantasy world when you lose yourself within a book. But it didn't fade, or change, or go away. It stayed, it lived, it breathed. And she had fled from it the first time. From the fear that it was just too good to have been true, that nothing as wonderful could have existed and would just crumble and turn into dust and ash around her. Yet, here she was again. Nothing crumbled, nothing fell into a fog or just faded to nothing but a hazy memory as she'd wake up. She was here. And she was awake.
Alice had "awoken" laying on the cobbled streets inside a strange, silent town within a verdant forest. She laid there for several minutes. And it wasn't obscure, undefined minutes. It was actual minutes. She studied the sky above through the canopy of the trees, the branches and boughs moving and whispering from the breeze that passed through them. A constant, quiet hush that served as a peaceful background noise as white clouds high above crawled slowly and lazily though a bright, endless blue sky. She could smell the trees, she wasn't well versed in all the types of trees, but she knew what she smelled. She could actually smell here.
She ran her hands, her fingers along the road she was on, feeling the worn, smooth stone beneath her fingertips, cool to the touch. Her hand brushes against something solid, yet light as it was pushed by her touch. She tilted her head to see what it was, and was met with a dark wooden re-curve bow, already strung and taught. She lifted her hand and grabbed it around the grip, pulling it to herself taking comfort with it in hand. She didn't know why, but she knew it to her hers. And then, she remembered her quiver, and her other two knives and where they were. How did she know without having seen? No, no. She could ponder that later.
Finally, she could lay there no longer and had to see around herself. Slowly, she sat up her back felt stiff from laying on a cobbled road for however long, but rather than be upset with it, she marveled at her actually feeling sore. She stretched her back, pulling her arms up to the air to stretch them out as she turned her head slowly around to observe her surroundings. She already knew she was in a town of sorts. She could see the tops of the buildings within her peripheral vision, but she was taking things in one at a time should she overwhelm herself. It was a beautiful town, in a way. But like how one would appreciate the beauty of, a sword comes to mind. It's a lovely weapon, yet you know it to be dangerous and should handle it with care. She found herself comparing this town to that. The town was like a ruin that nature was already working to overcome and take back within itself. Yet, it also looked as if the town itself was trying to take nature into itself. Some buildings looked to have grown right up out of the ground, bearing bark instead of brick or mortar or clay.
But there was also the darkness about it. The "danger." It wasn't as though the color had been drained from her surroundings, but despite it being day time, which it very much was, everything was cast within darkness; shaded as though it were nighttime. She started to feel that she should perhaps start making her way out before things would take a more nightmarish turn for the worst as dreams generally tend to do when you wander into the darkened areas.
She stood up slowly, carefully. She felt no eyes on here, but didn't want to run the chance that her movements would draw any unwanted attention. What if there were... things within the buildings? Suddenly, a voice called out. It was a sharp contrast to the "moody" looking town of shadows and growth. It sounded friendly to Alice. Her head had automatically whipped around as she spun on her boot heel, the dark green cloak whipping about, hood flopping as her arrows rattle in their side quiver, her earlier caution forgotten. She peered up the street, looking for the source of the voice. She wasn't alone? There was somebody else?
A tickle in the back of her mind. Ignored, unnoticed in light of the possible presence of another. Friend. Foe?
The direction she looked in seemed lighter, brighter and "welcoming" compared to her surroundings. She turned her head back to look up the road leading further into the town and it only got darker from there. She turned her back on the deeper darker parts of the town and decided to chance the decidedly less ominous direction and unseen individual was much more interesting and in need of her immediate attention. So, she started to jog out away from the darker, deeper parts of the town, calling out herself.
"Hey!!!"
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