The straps were too tight around my arms and legs, digging craters into my skin. The wheels of the hospital gurney squeaked like rolling, dying mice. “Please,” I whispered, my voice hoarse and my throat parched. “You don’t have to do this.”

Alas, my pleas worked to no avail! The gurney-man merely glared down upon me with a wicked glint in his beady black eyes before inserting a rag in my mouth! Before I knew it, I began to feel drowsy…

When I awoke, my head felt as though it had been slammed into one of the concrete walls of the forsaken building. The stench of mildew and body odor reached my nostrils as I stared at the stark, white walls. I tried to lift my head up, but that was far too difficult, you see.

“Alice, you’ve awakened! Tell me, how do you feel, Dear?” the white coat asked.

“W-who are you?” I asked, frightened beyond belief! How did he know my name? His face was unrecognizable!

“Oh, that simply won’t do.” He shook his head with a frown. “She’s been given too much!” He suddenly barked at the gurney-man, who I only noticed was still there in the shock room!

Oh, to break free! But my armsâ€”my arms! And, oh! My legs! They were still ensnared by the gurney! I struggled within the confinement, but it hurt my chest to try to get up, for I was truly imprisoned under the confines of the blasted belts!

My heart thudded like the stroke of the midnight hour upon the grandest of grandfather clocks! It reminded me of that rabbit! The awful white rabbit! He was the reason for my being at such a terrible, horrible place.

As the white coat yelled at the gurney-man, I gagged from the putrid stench of those who already died under the care of these white coats and hadn’t bathed! Oh, and the stress of it all, too!

“Alice, I’m Doctor Reginald,” he suddenly told me after sending the gurney-man away. “You don’t remember me? We’ve known each other since you were but a small child.”

“Please! Please don’t hurt me!” I screamed.

“Quiet, now! You’ll be put to sleep again if you can’t behave, Alice.”

My neck felt sweaty from laying in one position on the gurney for so long. The lights were too bright as they shined in my eyes. Black dots clouded my vision. Oh, how terrible it all truly was!

“Yes, Doctor Reginald.”

“Very good, do you know why you’re here, Alice?” he asked, grabbing a clipboard.

Oh, indeed I did! “That blasted white rabbit.”

He sighed. “I thought we were making more progress, Alice. You’re regressing.”

“But it’s true!” I yelled. My body would have thrashed if not for the constraints, but instead I merely shook the gurney.

He adjusted his thick glasses. “You had a white, pet rabbit. Do you remember that?”

“He was not a pet!” I proclaimed. The white coat knew nothing! How could he? No one would ever believe me!

He set his clipboard down and rubbed his temples. “I’m sorry, Alice. This will be for your own good.”

I watched as he grabbed a rag and rustled through his desk for that dreaded liquid to put me to sleep. No! Violently, I flailed like a fish out of water—hooked by the belted confinement! Tears streamed down my face. I turned my head ever so slightly and I couldn’t believe my eyes!

That blasted rabbit!

He wore a black suit and a top hat! But the most confounding and terrifying thing about the wretched creature was the blood that soaked the fur of its face! Standing on his hind legs, he grinned wickedly at me!

“Doctor, Doctor! He’s here if you’d only look! Please, he’ll kill us both!”

The white coat turned too late as the white rabbit pounced on him, biting his neck, and tearing the flesh. Blood spurted on the rabbit and me as the white coat slumped in his seat, his spine visible as death claimed him. The hot specks of the crimson liquid burned my cheeks and my arms! Shuddering, I cried more and more!

“Alice…

…Alice…

Alice….”

“No, no, no!” Oh, I was still trapped!

“Why do you think I’ll harm you, Alice? We’re friends, you and me.”

“No, no we’re not!” I cried out!

He bared long, pin pricked teeth in a wide, Cheshire smile. “We are, we are! I’ve always been with you! It was I who saved you from your parents, don’t you remember?”

I was only a child!

“No!” I didn’t want the memories to come back, you see. Oh, but they always tried to push through. But no! They could not!

“You didn’t want to lose me, Alice. It’s okay,” he said matter of factly.

The white rabbit vanished in a poof of lilac smoke. Then, I saw that I wasn’t constrained, but standing up. My hands were bloody and I tasted iron on my tongue. I turned to look in the reflection of the window and saw that it was my face colored sanguine. I tilted my head ever so slightly. Through the same reflection, the Doctor called Reginald was still slumped over; dead. Curiouser and curiouser…

The next thing I knew, a rag was stuffed inside my mouth again as I lost consciousness once more!

As I came to, hazy voices drifted into my ears.

“The treatment isn’t working.”

“Project Wonderland is a failure.”

“MKUltra as a whole is proving to be a failure.”

Project Wonderland? MKUltra?

I screamed as visions of my past came back to me. More men in white coats surrounded me, but I barely registered them.

“What have you done?” one asked.

“Please! I don’t know! I don’t know!”

“You do know, Alice!” the other shouted.

“No!”

I felt a painful jolt as electricity coursed through my body. This time, I was sure I was incapacitated! Oh, the pain! I passed out for the third time that day.

When I next awoke, the two new white coats sat across from me at a table. When I tried to move, I saw that I was wrapped in white fabric, unable to budge at all!

“What’s your name?” the white coat on the left asked. Tweedledee, I decided to call him.

“Alice Jenkins.”

“What year is it?” the one on the right asked. Tweedledum would be his name.

“1965.”

“Why are you here?” Tweedledee asked.

“I’ve told you all! Because of the white rabbit!”

“The real reason you’re here, Ms. Jenkins.” Tweedledum tapped, tapped, tapped on the desk.

I laughed! It was just so funny, you see? Oh, but they didn’t see the humor of the situation. Tweedledee frowned and Tweedledum rubbed fingers across his closed eyes.

“This isn’t a laughing matter, Alice.” Tweedledee frowned even more, if you could ever believe that!

“We’ve been drugging her for years. It must be a side effect,” Tweedledum whispered.

“She murdered Doctor Reginald,” Tweedledum muttered back.

“I can hear you,” I said.

“Yet, you won’t confess.” If Tweedledee kept frowning, his face would get stuck like that.

“The rabbit did it. I saw it!” I exclaimed.

Tweedledum sighed and rummaged in some bag under the table. He pulled out a folder and slid it to me. “Go on, open it,” he urged me.

Smiling politely, I did as I was told. Opening the envelope, I saw my face as a child in black and white staring back at me. I skimmed through the many pages, horrified! It could not be true!

One, a newspaper clipping:

Alice Jenkins, aged 10, is set to be the youngest person in United States history to be tried as an adult for the murder of her parents; Frank and Judith Jenkins.

Another news excerpt:

The Country reacts to a ten-year-old who murdered her parents in cold blood over a missing rabbit. When Alice Jenkins ran to her neighbors to report her parents deceased, she blamed a white rabbit. It was later found that she orchestrated the killings herself because she thought her parents released the bunny into the wildâ€¦

And another!

Alice Jenkins is the first child to be sent to a federal facility in wake of tragic murdersâ€¦

Then, a file with a red, “Classified” stamp:

Alice “Patient X” Jenkins

DOB: June 27th, 1935

Division: Project Wonderland

Department: MKUltra

Patient Summary:

At age ten, Alice Jenkins murdered her parents, Frank and Judith Jenkins. Upon reception at a federal facility, the Central Intelligence Agency chose her as an Asset in Department: MKUltra for the Project Wonderland Division.

The Project Wonderland Division seeks to develop procedures and identify drugs to use for interrogation purposes.

Study 1: Failed.

Patient X is still suffering delusions and insisting the white rabbit killed family.

Study 2: Failed.

Repeated violent outbursts, delusions, and mania.

Study 3: Failed.

Doctor Reginald notes that chances of rehabilitation for such violent offenders is low based on the behaviors exhibited by Patient X. There may be no chance of getting a confession.

Study 4: Minor success.

Patient X regressed to a child under hypnosis. While speaking to Doctor Reginal under the trance, she entered “Wonderland.” Here, we have attained knowledge on how she created and reverts back to this “other world” in heightened states.

The files went on and on and on! Oh, dear me, I was the mad one, here!

“Do you have anything to say, Ms. Jenkins?” Tweedledee asked.

Oh, I could only laugh and laugh and laugh! It was just so funny, you see? So, so funny! I was as mad as a hatter! Me?! So, I chuckled and chortled in merriment!

Then, through the reflection of the glass window behind the two white coats who sat across from me, I did indeed see that pesky rabbit again! But he was me, you see! You see him too, don’t you?

We’re all mad here.

Project Wonderland

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