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This event seems like it will take some time to complete but oh well it sounds like a lot of fun.
Scholarship searches are hard a rule of thumb is out of every scholarship you hope to get you should apply for at least 10.
I have a present because one of my friends encouraged me to type. I'm not sure where I left off so think i might post the whole thing.
Alice woke up on the cold, hard ground. She raised her head and looked around but could barely see anything because she was surrounded by dense fog that obscured her vision. The ground was cold and she could feel hard packed dirt under her hands. She had had enough of lying on her back and stood up. Once she was standing, Luna brushed off the back of her dress which had gathered dirt from lying on the patch of moist soil surrounded by grass on two sides. She turned slightly and faced the direction where the dirt wasn’t bordered by grass and tried to focus her eyes. She could only see faint figures in the fog so she decided to follow the path created by the bare soil.
Taking steps towards the figures made them clearer. One small mass stood out from the larger masses behind it. As she got closer she realized the smaller mass was a sign of some sort and the larger ones were trees tangled in vines. The sign read “Wonderland Wood” and had a club in the top right hand corner which had been ruthlessly crossed out, and underneath this mangled club sat a heart. Alice had never heard of such a place before. “How the hell did I get here?” she whispered to herself in confusion.
Then it hit her; she was following a large white rabbit. She remembered sneaking off from her aunt’s baby shower to find something more interesting and spotted him wearing a fancy vest and hopping to the deserted part of the park. She hoped to catch him because a rabbit wearing a vest must have had a rich owner, and rich owners give the best rewards for their returned pets. She followed him to the deserted area of the park. Then she remembered spying on him from behind a tree, and he reached into the pocket of his vest and pulled out a playing card. The card was an Ace, to be more specific, the Ace of Hearts. He muttered something that sounded like the word “home.” As if the talking rabbit wasn’t shocking enough, the card glowed and a yellow and green ripple formed in the air in front of him. It expanded a little and hopped in, and intrigued by what just happened, she remembered running in after him just as it was closing. She tumbled downwards for a period of 2 minutes and that was the end of her memory.
She guessed that her long tumble must have been the last thing that happened, and when the mystery seemed solved in her mind, she came back to reality and realized that she had been pacing while in deep thought. Alice’s thin legs had brought her into the wood along the trampled path while she was preoccupied by her memories and she know had found herself deep enough that the sign was barely visible in the fog. The fog was thinner in the wood but it was still enough to shroud the true forms of the plants and possible animals on the sides of the path. This instilled fear in Alice, but she decided since she was already walking that it would be best to continue.
The corner of her right eye caught movement and she turned to see a dragon fly with wings the size of her face fly down onto a plant that looked like a lily pad with a strong stalk that could support its thick, fleshy flat leaf. The dragon fly wasn’t on the plant for more than two seconds when the flat leaf folded itself in half and crushed the dragonfly within it. Alice jumped back avoiding what she would call, “dragonfly guts,” and was hit with pure, immobilizing fear. She lowered her head and then shoved her hands into the pockets in front of her dress and debated screaming for help so she could go home. Her hand brushed up against something in her pocket. She pulled it out and was surprised to see it was a card similar to the one the one the rabbit had earlier. There was one difference though, it was a Joker. Her eyes widened and she thought this could be her ticket home.
Remembering the display she saw earlier, Alice held the card in front of her firmly with both hands and then straightened her arms so it was as far from her body as possible and then in a demanded voice shouted, “HOME.” There was a small pause that frightened Alice and then the card began glow and a crack formed in the air in front of her. The crack expanded to form the portal she saw earlier. The air was surprisingly calm in front of it but the portal itself looked violent as waves of orange and green tumbled over each other inside. Alice stepped in and found herself tumbling once again for two minutes until she hit the ground. This time she was awake and devastated to see she was exactly where she landed earlier.
Alice pried her body off of the cold ground once again. She was still confused, but her spirit was broken as well. The air around her felt warmer than it did only a few minutes before hand and she saw the fog was slowly lifting. The sun was now visible just above the outline of the wood she had wandered into earlier. She refused to reenter the creep woods so she decided to search for another route now that she could see the path up to ten feet in front of her. Scanning the area around her, she another path jutted off from the original route she took to the woods. This one broke off from the main path only about six feet in front of her and on the right and seemed to travel in that direction for quite a distance. Alice marched down this new path constantly aware of her surroundings out of fear from earlier. After a minute like this with the path showing no signs of changes ahead, Alice let her guard down and began to walk normally.
Her muscles tensed again and her focus strengthened when she saw another slip in the dirt path. One way continued straight ahead and the other one jutted to the right and disappeared into the fog. Alice decided to stick with the path in front of her because it seemed more trampled than the other which had small weeds poking through the once packed dirt. Confident with her decision she made her journey through the fog walking with one foot directly in front of the other like a cat. The fog thickened as she continued on this path until she could barely see five feet in front of her face. The ground began to feel spongy as she continued on which made her tense up and worry. Soon this spongy earth was replaced by a cobble stone path which she almost tripped over and made her steps sound like loud “clacks”.
She had been so focused on the ground that, Alice had not noticed that the trees that occasionally appeared on the side of the path were now bordering it. They had closed in on her without her notice and had now formed a tunnel with their branches. They were only slightly more spread out than the trees that lined the path through the woods, but they seemed to form more of a barrier than the ones in the woods when coupled with the thickening fog. She lowered her shoulders in fear, but pressed further. A rustle came from the branches far above her head, and her eyes searched for the source as her legs pressed forward. Something bumped into her shin and she tumbled forward with a shriek. She realized what she landed on was a set of wooden stairs and bottom step was what she ran into. Confused, she stood up and climbed the five steps that made up the entire stair case and looked forward. She could only see four feet by this point but it was enough to tell that there were long vertical planks connected to the stair case formed some sort rail-less bridge.
Before she could question why this would be here, her eyes caught the glimpse of a sign next to her. This sign looked like the last but was taller so it could be read from the top of the stairs. It read, “Wonderland Swamp and River” and in the top corner was a heart left perfectly intact.
Alice thought for a moment, she had never been in a swamp before, and in fact, she had rarely even been out of the city. The park and the failure of a camping trip her family took her on when she was six were the only signs of nature she had ever seen whole growing up. Her being alone for this long, and it being this quiet were also new things for her. What she wanted to find were people. People would know the way home, or at least a way out of this place. She thought about what swamps were supposed to look like. She knew she must have heard of them at least once in school. Then she remembered how her teacher told her they looked like flooded woods with mud and bugs. Alice shuttered at the thought of that lying ahead, and couldn’t imagine anyone living in something like that so she quickly turned away, walked down the stairs, and jogged down the path.
When the trees backed off and the fog became less dense, Alice slowed down and returned to her normal pace. Her eyes searched for the other, less traveled path, and when she spotted it she took it immediately and followed its slight twist and turns. Trees began to become scarce as she traveled down this route and were replaced by shrubs and tough weeds and grasses that created and uneven blanket of green. The fog seemed to almost disappear entirely and she could feel the warm sun on her back as it continued to rise in the sky. After five minutes of walking she spotted a sign in the distance and carelessly walked towards it.
This sign stated, “Wonderland Industries” and was marked with a crossed out diamond in the top right corner with another heart placed under it. This time Alice believed she found her break. If there is one thing home taught her, its if there’s and industry, there’s people running it, working in it, and buying from it. Excitement took over her body and she began sprinting down the path.
Alice continued running for about three minutes and then her lungs began to fail her. Her body crumpled as she began coughing, and her lungs felt like they were on fire. Her throat burned, and the adrenaline rush she was on did little to help it. She took in a few breaths and quickly gained her composure back and began walking. Her lungs didn’t improve as she continued walking, in fact she felt like they were getting worse. She knew she over exerted herself by sprinting for that long, but the punishment felt vastly unequal compared to the crime.
She pressed forward like this for what felt like an eternity but was probably only ten minutes since the sun barely moved in the sky. The path had become more treacherous by this point and large rocks were lodged in it. Some were clearly visible while others were hidden in patches of weeds that had managed to grow where they were unwelcome. This forced Alice to pay attention to the ground as she continued walking and coughing. After a small coughing fit, Alice lifted her head and saw the first major landmark she had seen since the sign. The trees which had seemed to go missing along this pathway seemed to reappear on hundred feet ahead. They looked like they had formed some kind a barrier for what was to come because of their sudden appearance. There was one opening between the wall of trees, and this was where the path cut through them. In this opening, blocking the path was a chain-link fence.
Alice continued taking steps towards the fence with a feeling of panic overtaking her body. Her steps slowly became faster until she was running full speed once more at the ten foot fence topped with razor wire. She threw her body at the fence that bended backward slightly on impact but refused to give in. Alice’s fingers curled around the metal links and she quickly scanned both sides of the path. The fence continued through the trees for as far as she could see and showed no signs of openings. The light at the end of the tunnel had disappeared and she dropped to her knees, with tears in her eyes and her fingers still entwined in the fence. Her body suddenly fell into a violent coughing fit. Instinctively her left hand released the fence, curled into a fist and she began to cough into it while her other hand gripped the fence still to support her body.
Alice’s eyes had been closed throughout the entire fit, so she was surprised when the fit was over that the palm and fingers of her left hand were almost black. She released her other hand from the fence and realized they were both covered in soot. That was not all, the ground seemed darker than it did on the other paths, and the plants seemed less green. The fence itself was covered in a layer of the stuff as well. Disgusted, Alice wiped her hands on the grass and then on her knees when the grass did very little to clean her hands. She stood up and coughed once more. Alice knew she needed to find a way out of this place and this isn’t it so she slowly walked back to where she started, disappointed and coughing along the way.
By the time Alice had made it back to the area she landed on earlier, the coughing fits had subsided and the sun was almost in the center of the sky. The fog was gone entirely and was replaced by strong sunlight that hurt her eyes. She could now see that the path extended in the opposite direction of the woods as well. This route seemed like her last hope so her tired legs carried her body down the path in hopes of finding a way out of this crazy place. This particular path seemed to have been traveled less frequently as well because weeds poked through just as they did on the path to Wonderland Industries.
Suddenly the path changed to cobble stones without reason and a sharp right turn occurred in the path ahead. Alice continued and ahead and a sign could be seen in the distance. She held up her pace until she came to the sign and began to read it, “Wonderland Shores” and the top, right corner had a diamond on it that had been crossed out and replaced by a heart. Alice looked up ahead and saw a fence in the distance. It seemed never ending and stretched as far as she could see in both directions. Her eyes widened in frustration and then quickly shut, and she clenched her fists, screaming into the sky. When she reopened her eyes, she saw two figures in the distance walking towards her.
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