• “You can’t relive life like in that storybook, Reo!”
    There was a clink of glass against polished wood as Reo’s mother, Agnes, put her glass of water onto the table. Reo felt the serpent of fury wind itself around her heart. She wished her mother would stop using examples from one of the many novels she owned to explain things in real life. Did she not understand that the two worlds should never be mixed and remain as untainted of each other as far as possible?
    “… You see? You mustn’t waste time! Grab hold of every minute you have and do something worthwhile so that you don’t have a chance to regret things in the future!”
    It was not as though Reo did not listen to Agnes. Unlike many her age, she always listened, as she knew a mother’s advice would always be better than the advice anyone else could ever give someone.
    “… I know you’re probably sick and tired of listening to me tell you this, but although I tell you studying is important, you have to enjoy life too. That’s why one way or another, you have to find a way to love studying!”
    Reo nodded. She knew that it would be best if she did, but somehow, she simply could not.
    It was too real.
    0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o
    A good half an hour later, Reo was sitting at the table in her room. It was an elegant thing, with spirals spiraling artistically around each corner, like vines on the verge of turning into mist. At the bottom left corner sat a butterfly amongst the many curls, also an epitome of perfection and grace.
    It was at that table that Reo sat, her fountain pen flying across paper, leaving trails of ink, forming into words, paragraphs, then pages. All of it part of an immense ladder into the world of surrealism.
    Soon enough, Reo was lost in the maze of the unreal, just like Alice, who was lost in a dream, in Wonderland.
    But if Reo were Alice and dreamed of Wonderland, she would never have woken up.
    0o0o0o0oo0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0
    In the morning, Reo was still at her table. She was sprawled across it, her head cradled comfortably in her arms, her pen still in hand.
    The entire table, along with most of the floor around it, was covered with paper so full of words that hardly any white could be seen through the twists of blue.
    The first rays of sunlight shone through a crack in her curtain. The line of gleaming molten gold shone directly at her face, giving it a glow on its own. Reo went on sleeping, her dreams undisturbed by something as insignificant as dawn.
    It was only when her mother came into the room did she wake.
    “Reo? Are you awake yet, honey?” her mother called before opening the door, and seeing her daughter with her head on her table, asleep, Reo’s mother sighed, somewhat exasperated. She put a gentle hand on the teenage girl’s shoulder, shaking it.
    “Time to wake up, Reo! You’ll be late for school!” Agnes shook her daughter hard, knowing how difficult the girl could be when it came to waking up in the mornings.
    Agnes still remembered clearly the first morning after Reo read her first four hundred page novel, Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire , when she was eight.
    No matter what Agnes did, Reo could not wake up. The poor mother had spent fifteen minutes shaking her daughter wildly but did not get even an irritated wave of an arm or a muffled mumble in response. After that, Agnes had panicked and called the ambulance.
    When the ambulance did come, they could not find anything wrong with the little girl, but also had no success in trying to wake her up, and so ended up taking her to the hospital anyway.
    It was in the ambulance that Reo awoke, asking her mother why she had brought her home from ‘Mr. and Mrs. Riddle’s’ house so suddenly.
    Since then, it had been common for Reo to take an hour or so to wake up from her dreams, as though she clung on to them unconsciously.
    Or as though they wrapped dark tendrils of themselves around her, seducing her further into the world of surreality, just like the vines on Reo’s table seemed to be swallowing the butterfly if you looked at it from another angle.
    Just like the rabbit Alice saw, luring her deep into the dark dream.