The Museum.

The building was colossal. It was designed with Greek aesthetics, yet like the castle, its interior was pitch black, making it impossible to see anything within.

"What is this?" Alice whispered.

"Maybe our next destination," I said.

I began walking toward it and ascended the stairs. Alice watched my back for a moment, hesitating, before finally following.

I reached the doorway. It had no handle, no lock, or anything, just a smooth surface of pitch-black wood. I placed my hand against it and pushed.

Alice didn't say anything, but I could see her grip tighten around her notebook.

The door opened silently.

And as we entered I could hear the ambient noise of the town, the chatter of the animals, and the soft wind from behind me but those noises felt like static now.

The door shut behind us, and all sound ceased to exist entirely.

The atmosphere shifted to a jarring degree; I couldn't describe how exactly. As there was no smell or anything pressing about it, I couldn't help but feel something had changed, just like when I first entered Wonderland.

The layout of the interior was shockingly simple, smaller than the outside would suggest. It was a single, long hallway that stretched forward until the perspective line vanished into a point of absolute darkness.

Leading us to the infinite end was a red carpet, clean as if it were readied for our arrival.

The right wall was an unbroken stretch of stained glass. It depicted no kings, no saints, and no recognizable scenes; instead, it was a violent, abstract clash of colors and shapes. The light coming from it filtered through the glass, casting long blades of colored light across the polished floor.

Dust motes hung in the light, suspended and motionless.

The left wall was the opposite; it was shadowed, lined with a continuous sequence of square recesses set into stonework.

They were paintings, exhibits behind thick, pristine panes of glass.

"It’s a museum," Alice whispered, her voice low.

The colored light from the right wall hit her face, painting her pale skin with colors of violent red and soft violet.

"I guess we have to see what's buried here," I replied, looking down the hallway.

I walked to the first painting on the left wall.

It depicted a small scene. The level of detail was hyperrealistic; of a street at night. The watercolor work was fine, its focus was the yellow color of a streetlight.

I stared at that one streetlight; for some reason, I felt I recognized it.

I had no emotional reaction to the image, yet I knew it was important.

"..." Alice looked at the picture beside me, then looked at me. "What is it?"

"Just a street," I said simply.

I moved to the next one.

She followed without comment, though she folded her arms, pressing the notebook against herself.

The second painting showed a park path at dusk.

Ground-level lights ran along the edge of it at regular intervals. The trees on either side were very tall and slightly blurred at the top, and the path itself curved out of frame.

The third was a bakery. The storefront was in darkness, the CLOSED sign turned inward, but in the front window, the display loaves of bread were arranged with care.

"Are you cold?" I asked. I noticed she had been walking with her arms folded, clutching the notebook to her chest for some time.

"No," she said softly. "I just—" She stopped. Started again. "I don't like how quiet it is in here," she said softly. "It feels like we aren't supposed to be looking at this."

"It was put on display," I said. "Therefore, it is meant to be seen."

She didn't answer. We kept walking.

The colored light from the wall shifted as we moved. For a stretch, there were no new paintings. The recesses in the left wall were empty, just shadows behind the glass.

Then a corner appeared.

I stopped.

A hallway like this shouldn't have had corners. I had been watching the furthest point, where there had been no wall only a moment ago, yet suddenly one appeared.

I turned the corner without remarking on it.

The hallway continued exactly as it had before. The same scenery.

After a bit, the paintings resumed.

The fourth showed an apartment interior. A single window caught the afternoon light that reflected on a coffee table.

The fifth was a stairwell; the perspective was from the bottom, looking up, and the spiral of the stairs narrowed into a grey dot at the top.

Alice had not spoken since we turned the corner.

She was walking slightly behind me now, which I hadn't expected. In the valley, she had kept pace, drifting only when something caught her attention. Now she stayed a few steps behind.

I kept walking.

The sixth painting. A park in winter.

The seventh. A bus interior, late at night.

A kitchen in the early morning.

I felt like I began to understand what I was looking at.

These were someone's days, ordinary in nature, a life that was small yet full of fulfillment.

I didn't say anything as we continued to walk.

At the fifteenth frame, Alice stopped entirely. I had walked several paces past her before realizing she was no longer with me, so I turned around.

She was standing in front of the painting with her arms at her side now. The notebook had dropped to hang from her left hand. Her face held an unreadable expression.

I followed her eyes to the painting.

It was a park in winter. Enclosed by a wooden fence, in the foreground lay a path of lavender.

I returned my attention to Alice. She hadn't moved. She didn't really have any extreme expression or emotion shown. It was a quieter emotion.

I turned back to the paintings and continued walking.

So far, there had been twenty-two paintings, each one depicting something different yet mundane; no person was drawn, only scenery at different times.

At the twenty-third frame, something was different.

Every other painting had been illuminated by the stained glass; each one held the quality of the colors that came to it. But this one was different.

A black curtain covered it.

The fabric was heavy, so it blocked the light completely; it hung from a brass rod at the top of the paintings and fell straight down, perfectly still.

I stood in front of it.

Alice caught up a moment later. I heard her footsteps quicken as she hurried to reach me.

I walked forward, my hand ready to uncover the painting.

I extended my hand.

Suddenly, both her hands clamped around mine. Her notebook hit the ground with a dull thud, her grip surprisingly forceful.

"Don't," she said simply.

Her voice was even. That was the strange thing; she didn't plead or panic. It's as if she had known she would do this before arriving here.

I looked at her hands on my arm, then at her face.

The curtain was in my hand; with one sweep, I would be able to open it. Yet the force of her hands on my forearm was something new.

The colored light from the stained glass covered both of us. Her eyes were on the curtain, not on me; no, not even on the curtain but on my hands. As if she's not afraid of the painting, or what was behind it. But maybe what would happen if I saw it?

I found this amusing.

I looked at the curtain and considered it.

And I lowered my hand.

I wasn't sure what had prompted my decision. I thought of it briefly, looking for the logic behind it, and found none. Something about the way she moved up, not wanting me to uncover it, made me see it as interesting.

"Alright," I replied.

I turned and continued walking through the hallway.

Alice didn't say anything and just bent down to pick up her notebook and walked forward, this time keeping her pace with me. There were no other paintings after the one covered behind the curtain.

After a while, we reached the end of the hallway, where a door that looked the same as the one we entered through appeared in the wall ahead. Alice stopped beside me for a moment.

Then we stepped through.

The red hue of the sky returned, and the environmental sound of the town did as well. I looked back to see a mundane building; it looked no different from the other structures inhabited by the animals.

The museum was gone.

I saw the road; it continued stretching forward, leading the path to the White Rabbit.

We walked without speaking a word. Forward on the End Road, and as we slowly progressed, the town began to fade out.

"You’ve been to that place before," I remarked.

She didn't answer. The pencil appeared in her hand from somewhere, and she turned it between her fingers.

She nodded.

I didn't bother questioning her further about the curtain or her strange reaction. I had an objective to reach, and no matter what happens in between, nothing will stop me.

Through our walk, I felt as if she wanted to ask me herself why I had listened to her and didn't ask about it.

The stone path continued.