Luna pulled the hood off the captor and widened her eyes. "Hold on! You're not the Cheshire Cat!"

The man has a bulldog face, wearing a black cloak. He shivered as he held up his hands. "Please don't hurt me! I'm just doing my job!"

Luna scanned the dog man’s face. His name was Bud Hillman, and he has an unemployment record without a home address. Perhaps he was a homeless mutt until the creep offered him a job at the theme park.

“Who are you working for?” Luna shouted, pulling the dog’s head toward her snarling feline face. “Tell me and I won’t kick your sorry ass from kingdom come!”

Bud gulped. “I don’t know his name! He told me to bring his candidates to his underground Wonderland! That is all I do for food and water!”

So he was only a desperate bum who didn’t care who he was working for. Of course, any poor loser would do anything in Moreau City to survive.

“How do I get into his Wonderland?” She pushed her gun against his temple. “Don’t make me shoot!”

Bud moaned like a frightened puppy. “Through the hidden doorway! There will be a room with a chair where I prepared the candidates for him. But I never went inside his Wonderland chamber. He’ll kill me!”

“Just through that room?”

“Yes, but he will know you are there. His eyes are everywhere!”

Luna smiled. “Good! That will make it easy for me to find him.”

With one swing, she smacked the bulldog’s head with her gun and got up off him. Then she glanced at the open hidden doorway. “I’m coming Rei!”

Through the door, she ran down a stairway, swirling around a cylinder. At the bottom, she reached a dark corridor and approached a room with one chair at the center.

The Cheshire Cat’s faces were all over the walls, smiling at Luna. The chair has two metal braces, but no blood stanched the seat. That gave Luna some relief.

“Naughty, naughty!” A creepy voice echoed from a speaker on the wall. “You are supposed to wait for your turn.”

His soft maniacal tone sent shivers up Luna’s spine although she kept her determined face clear.

“Where is Rei Young?” She pointed her rail gun at the speaker. “She better be alive, you son of a bitch!”

The Cheshire Cat’s voice giggled. “You must be her partner. She did warn me about you. Hehehe.”

“Good, because she knows I will kick your ass when I find you!"

"Do you actually think you will find me? Hehehe. You don't even know where I am."

Luna glanced around, holding her gun up. "Oh, I will find your ass after I find my partner."

"Hmmmmmmmm," the Cheshire Cat muttered with an idea in his voice. "If you want your partner back, then go right ahead. Enter my Wonderland!”

Luna glared her eyes. “Do you think I am dumb enough to fall for your traps again?”

“I cannot free your partner. She is too far into the rabbit hole. Hehehe. Only you can help her if you can reach her past my puzzles. But you should hurry before it is too late. I cannot predict how long she will survive. Hehehe.”

Luna scowled. “You sick bastard!”

The Cheshire Cat laughed in amazement and explained the same rules he told Rei. If Luna read the novel, she would understand how to solve the puzzles without dying. But unfortunately, Luna never read Alice’s Adventure in Wonderland novel. However, Luna planned to break the traps if she makes a mistake. With her gun and superstrength, no trap could stop her from reaching her partner.

“Alright, I’ll play your sick ass game to find Rei,” said Luna. “But don’t expect me to play nice by your rules!”

“There are no rules in Wonderland,” the Cheshire Cat explained. “Only madness.”

*****

The next room has a house shaped like a green top hat with one window and a door on the brim. Like the forest room, the walls and ceiling were black with twinkling starlights, and the grass coated the ground around the top hat house.

Rei pulled open a short door between two white fences around the perimeter and approached the house. She glanced around until she spotted a circular table behind the two-story building.

On the white-sheeted table was a big tea kettle surrounded by plates and cups. Three animatronic figures sat around the table. One was a dwarf big-headed man with a green top hat, the other was a brown rabbit with a blue coat on, and the other was a short gray mouse with glasses on.

Rei recognized them as the Mad Hatter, the March Hare, and the Dormouse who were very iconic from the story. At least they weren’t freaky robotic skeletons.

“Welcome to the Mad Tea Party!” The Cheshire Cat announced. “Please sit down.”

When Rei sat down on an empty metal chair in front of the table, two braces snapped shut on her upper arms.

“Hey!” Rei jerked her arms, but the braces were closed tightly. “Not again!”

“Calm down and listen clearly. The Mad Hatter will give you ten riddles to answer. Do not answer them wrong.”

“What if I do?”

The Cheshire Cat laughed. “Each wrong answer will be very shocking. Get it? HAHAHAHAHAHA!!!”

If shocking meant what Rei thought it meant, then she better answer the best she could for her life. She knew how to answer riddles, but she wasn’t good at answering all of them.

“You will also start all over if you answer incorrectly,” the Cheshire Cat continued. “Do not make the Mad Hatter madder. Hehehe!”

The Mad Hatter robot twitched and turned his head toward Rei. His eyes glimmered red and his disjointed metal mouth opened. “What tastes better than it smells?’

The machine’s electronic voice sounded rusty, but Rei could understand it. “Uhhhhhhhhh, chocolate?”

“Wrong!” The Mad Hatter laughed, flashing his red eyes.

Rei screamed as a jolt shocked her skin from below her seat. It only lasted for one minute.

After the burning pain stopped, Rei breathed slowly. “Ileon jenjang….”

Indeed, her wrong answer was shocking.