There wasn’t a single person in the asylum who didn’t know of her.

The raven haired girl whose parents were mercilessly murdered in a wave of bullets… and then she killed the murderers herself. That little girl.

Her pale skin, her fragile frame, morbid imagination… She was all grown up, yet still a child.

She was only 10 when it happened. Now she was 14, and was forever trapped in that day…

The doctor sat in a chair, looking at this young girl who sat on the bed. He then looked back at his clipboard.

Her name was Elizabeth.

He looked back up. She looked so lost; her eyes looked dazed, vacant. She clutched her Santa plush close, clinging to it like it was a life preserver of sorts.

It was then that she spoke.

“Do you know what it’s like to die?”

He looked up. He was surprised, to say the least; his patients usually never started the conversation. That’s his job, you see. Counseling and treating the most desperate cases.

“No,” he replied, “I can’t say that I do. Why do you ask?”

She looked at the doctor, her eyes flickering from blue to purple.

“Where did they go? My mommy and daddy?”

“They’re in heaven, I’m sure.”

She looked at the Santa plushy in her arms. “Mr.Clause thinks that they went to Wonderland…”

That was unexpected. The doctor leaned back in his chair, clueless as to what was coming. “Where is Wonderland,  Bethie?”

The young girl looked up at him, her eyes deep cobalt. “Let me show you…”

The nurse was too late.

She walked into Elizabeth’s room, medicine on a steel tray. She opened the door, saw the scene, and the tray dropped.

Elizabeth stood there, walls painted crimson. Blood covered her  clothes, and the Santa plush lay face down on the ground, white stuffing spurting from its back. The young doctor’s corpse lay on the ground, stabbed and headless. Elizabeth walked over to the body, the glittering dagger in her hand dripping blood along the way.

She looked down at it, then back up to the horrified nurse, a look of serenity on her face.

“All I did was invite him for tea…”