Welcome to Wonderland

“Even broken clocks can conduct time… if the actors forget their lines.”—Kyoshin.

Have you ever felt like your life was already written? Like you weren’t living it so much as drifting through the pages—resigned, complicit, waiting for the fall you knew was coming?

The world smelled like jet fuel and rusted promises.

I stood at the edge of the runway, watching that private plane gleam under the amber sky. Too perfect. Too polished. A lie made of metal and charm. A promise dressed as a coffin.

And there, halfway up the stairway, stood Kyoshin.

One hand on the railing. The other outstretched, like a stage magician inviting the audience into the trapdoor beneath the stage.

“Let’s fall together down the rabbit hole, my dear lost Alice!”

He said it like it was both a love letter and a death sentence. A whisper through a noose.

I didn’t answer. I just stared.

The stairwell creaked beneath him as he turned slightly, flashing that too-wide grin—the kind con men wear when they’ve just handed you a pen and asked you to sign something important. Like your soul—if you still had one worth signing away.

“Just a little trip to an isolated island. Nothing suspicious, of course.”

He patted the stair beside him like he was offering a seat at a family dinner.

My face didn’t move.

"Pass." I said flatly, turning away.

This is stupid. The plane’s a screaming death trap—might as well call it a flying grave. What kind of idiot walks into a setup like that?

My feet moved. Not fast, but firm. Like I meant it. Like I was still sane. My body wasn’t trembling. That should’ve been comforting.

It wasn’t.

Then came the laugh.

Loud. Amused. Theatrical. Like a man genuinely enjoying the show, even if he had to be the villain.

“Your mouth is saying no, my dear friend—but your heart’s already decided where to go.”

I stopped. My pulse hadn’t.

He’s wrong. I’m not like him. I’m not a freak. I can walk away from this if I want.

The thought felt desperate. Like I needed to hear myself think it. Like saying it out loud might make it true.

But even as I tried to turn again, I saw Emiha in my mind—her silence, her smile. The weight of everything she never said. All of it hanging in the air like a blade held by a thread.

And now I know. The thread has started tangling around my neck. Slowly. Deliberately. Inevitably.

Kyoshin might be bluffing. He might be spinning another lie like sugar on a stick. But she’s involved.

And that makes it real.

I sighed.

When I looked back, he was still smiling. Not surprised. Just satisfied. Like this was a rerun and he already knew the lines.

“There we are,” he said gently, like a parent indulging a child. Then he gave a little hum, soft and tuneless, adjusting his hat with the tip of his cane before turning toward the cabin. “See? Wonderland always gets its guests in the end.”

I started climbing the stairs. Each step rang louder than the last, like nails driven into a coffin lid. By the time I reached the top, I wasn’t sure if I was boarding a plane… or sealing a pact.
The metal was cold under my hand, humming faintly like it was alive. Waiting.

The cabin was dim and empty, save for Kyoshin sitting by the window like a kid on his first flight, watching the world shrink beneath him.

There was a smugness to him—not the kind that stems from pride, but the kind that comes from knowing how the story ends.

I sat down. The leather sighed under my weight.

This all feels like a dream.

Or maybe not a dream.

Maybe the moment you fall, everything starts to feel real.
_______

“Who are you dreaming for, my dear sleeper?”

His voice cut through the hum of the engine. Not a question. A knife wrapped in velvet. A tease just sharp enough to see if I’d flinch.

I didn’t give him the satisfaction.
“Can I hit you to make sure this isn’t a dream?”

Kyoshin chuckled low, tapping the head of his cane like a drum.

“Isn’t it supposed to go the other way around? In dreams, they hit you awake. But I suppose when you break your own clock, everything starts moving backward.”

I kept my eyes on the window. My reflection didn’t. It lagged a half-beat behind me, like it was moving on someone else’s rhythm. Agreeing with him, maybe. Or mocking me.

“More importantly—aren’t you going to explain what Emiha has to do with this?”My voice was calm. My hand wasn’t. It was crushing the armrest, bone-white at the knuckles.

Kyoshin tilted his head, birdlike. Curious. Amused.

“Fascinating. You waited until you’re in the sky to ask that. Wouldn’t most people demand the truth before boarding the trap?”

His grin spread.

“You’re like a clock with no hands, my dear Hiiro. Always trying to march with the rhythm, yet never quite fitting into it.”

He reached into his hat—and pulled out a clock. Just like that. Out of nowhere. At this point, I wasn’t even going to ask. With him, sense had already jumped off the plane.

He set it on the table, tapping the glass with his cane. The hands lurched backward. 

“At least a clock with no hands doesn’t lie,” I muttered.

“Ah, but it never tells the truth either.” His words slid smooth, sharp. “It just stares back—smug and silent—while time drags you along. A coward’s clock. A corpse’s clock.”

The ticking stopped.

So he’s talking about me. He’s not even trying to be subtle.
A clock, huh. Whether it’s missing hands or pointing to the wrong hour, broken is broken. It can’t be used. Can’t fulfill its role. A defective product. A shadow of what should’ve been.
…Now I don’t know if I’m describing the clock, or me.

“You seem to think a broken tool is only ever that—a useless fragment.” His cane tilted, ember-orange light sparking faintly at its tip, like a match about to catch. For a moment his eyes mirrored that fire, smoldering and endless. “That’s where you’re wrong. Rhythm doesn’t care for perfection, my little metronome. Even a broken clock can conduct time… if the actors forget their lines.”

The clock began ticking again—erratic this time. Backward, forward, halting mid-beat, swinging like a pendulum without anchor. A cracked rhythm. A lullaby for madness.

Kyoshin leaned forward, cane tapping once against the floor, preacher-like.

“And in your case, Hiiro… I wonder. Are you letting the rhythm carry you by accident? Or are you offering yourself up on purpose?”

The cabin felt smaller with every word. The air heavier. Like the room itself was listening, waiting, wondering what I’d answer.

The cane clicked again. His smile sharpened.
“It’s almost like you expected this. Like you’ve been waiting for the fall—for Wonderland to open its mouth and swallow you whole.”

The clock’s hands fell off. One after the other.

I didn’t answer.

Am I already following the story’s pace?

Or has the rhythm already taken me over?

The thought clung like static. The longer I sat in that leather seat, the more it rang true. Or maybe I’d just stopped arguing.

Outside the window, the ocean stretched flat and metallic, a silver blade waiting sharp as a verdict. And there—far ahead—an island. Small. Distant. A black smear on a perfect canvas.

Kyoshin rose to his feet.

He spun his cane once, playfully, like a magician about to pull the curtain. Then he glanced over his shoulder.

“Don’t worry. You’ll find all the answers you want on the island.”

He strolled toward the cockpit, steps measured, almost jaunty. Then he paused, turning back just enough for his grin to show—thin, sharp, something between a promise and a curse.

“Or—” the ember at his cane’s tip flared, and the cabin lights guttered out one by one, swallowing the space in shadow—“—you’ll drown in endless questions and forget who you were.”

Darkness. Silence. His chuckle trailed like a knife dragged over glass.

My throat tightened. Sweat gathered at my collar despite the cold hum of the cabin. My fingers twitched, restless, like they wanted to claw at something solid. Anything. But all I had was air—air that felt thinner by the second.

“Isn’t this fun? No? How terribly dull of you.”

He left me with that.

The engines hushed. Pressure shifted. The air pressed harder against my ribs. Outside, the sky dimmed—pale clouds bleeding across the horizon like smoke before a stage performance. A hush before the curtain rises.

We began our descent.

The island filled the window now—jagged cliffs jutting like teeth, forests gnarled into a black snarl, shapes of structures half-hidden in fog. A dream dressed up as a prison.

I didn’t know what I was looking for. Not answers. Not really. But Emiha was down there. That much I knew.

And that was enough.

I stood.
And followed Kyoshin.

What’s the point of running now?

That was the last thought I had before stepping off the plane and into Wonderland.

The instant my foot touched the ground, something shifted. Not outside—inside. The air was heavy, thick with rust and iron, clinging to my throat like a curse I hadn’t earned yet. Blood, maybe. Old blood. The kind that doesn’t wash out—only seeps into the soil until the land itself remembers.

Above me, the sky sagged like wet paper—grey, depthless, collapsing in on itself. No sun. No birds. Not even a shadow dared cross the clouds.

Even the birds avoid this place like it’s cursed, I thought.

Maybe that’s the right choice.

…So what does that say about me?

—----

Kagame Jin’s Commentary :

"Falling down the rabbit hole—though perhaps upward, in reverse. A dream painted like a child’s storybook, but with pages torn and edges singed. The Hatter leaves his cuts behind, burning marks to remind the corpse that time has not stopped. No—time is ticking again. And even when the hands fall off the clock, it will not stop."

Did you enjoy the dance between Kyoshin and Hiiro? Our poor corpse clings to fraying threads of sanity, while Kyoshin delights in setting fire to each one. Playful cruelty, or simply truth spoken with flame? I wonder.

As always, my dear reflections, your thoughts and words are what keep this mirror from cracking too soon. If there was a moment that lingered with you—an exchange, a line, a flicker of shadow—leave it below.

For now, the curtain falls. Until the next one rises, I leave you with silence. May your day not end in smoke and glass.