mad hatter; melanie martinez

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𝐂𝐇𝐀𝐏𝐓𝐄𝐑 𝐎𝐍𝐄:

𝐭𝐢𝐜𝐤 𝐭𝐨𝐜𝐤

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𝐓𝐈𝐌𝐄 𝐌𝐀𝐊𝐄𝐒 𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐖𝐎𝐑𝐋𝐃 go around, back and forth or split and flipped on its axis like a god playing with a blue and green coloured tennis ball. There are millions on billions of theories of time, gravity and the world but none are entirely accurate or false. For one to understand the truth about time, one must know the extent of the universe and beyond. Despite its complexity, everyone had a microscopic understanding or as they thought, it was a force that had surrounded us for a millennium, from the moment we first opened our eyes. It begins with our first greedy breath of air and continues without a grimace as we take our last.

Most people think it's the glaring digital numbers on a clock or the incessant tick of a circling clock – that's what time was, the perfect and exact measure. But it wasn't bound by such limited constructs, like light and gravity it can be warped, harnessed and played with. Each moment can bounce forward as far as you can through a paddle ball but it can snap back just the same. Or each ball can create its own pathway and never come back the same as it stays stranded in its own timeline.

It's a complex and ever-changing thing that most people can't even begin to wrap their little fragile minds around. But there are some perceptive enough with the keen ability to notice the differences and those who move along with life as if someone hadn't gotten their grubby hands on it. One very person, from an outsider's perspective, was not perceptive, just simply crazy but like time, craziness and stability were a matter of perspective.

Life as we know it is made of infinite choices, and each choice no matter how good or bad can lead us onto a new path, straight, curved or skewered it matters not. There is always a definite moment in a person's life when they discover whether to walk down the line laid out before them or be the one to take control and draw it no matter how messy it is.

There were two moments in Maleficent Wrywood's life she would call utterly life-changing, two events that would alter the very path she would walk. One came in the dead of the night and took her entire family and at the source was Mal's very own hands. The other came in the form of a large wooden double door, white stone bricks stacked upon each other around it with magic holding it by its very seems – not that she could see it.

A thick black silk blindfold sat tightly pressed against her dark skin, encasing her world of vision into an eternal darkness. Most would think the girl was blind but she was anything but, she had a clear vision that any would wish to have. She could peer into the very fabric of magic and time – she was what one would call perspective or as she would say damaged enough to see time and it's infractions.

Maleficent had seen a multitude of lifetimes where she had loved, lost and died but no matter what lifetime she was in, fire and her younger brother still haunted her. Even without her sight, she could still feel the presence of her young brother by her side and the lick of fire against her skin.

Her ability wasn't kind to her and overwhelmed her a lot especially when she was younger still reeling over the murder of her family. She gently touched under the blindfold where a small white scar rested near her left eyelid. Without meaning to she had closed her eyes and flashes came flooding through.

It was a week after the death of her family by her own small hands no less when she found herself under the guardianship of her slightly estranged Uncle, Henry Fogg - who had thrown the Wrywood away. After he heard the news of his brother's death and with it his wife and youngest child he rushed over to bring his now orphaned niece home. He sheltered the mute girl, gave her food, a loving hand and access to his own home and it's grand library - something she enjoyed immensely. It was the least he could do for his once happy and bright niece who was now touched by death and fire.

It wasn't a common occurrence in the shared home to be woken up by the deathly shrieks and gut-wrenching screams of apologies in the dead of night. Maleficent had awoken to her own screams for days now and knew it would never change no matter how many medications and potions she had to ingest.

It was a dark and seemingly quiet night as soft rain pattered against the glass windows and the breeze was cold and hard, rushing into the open window of Maleficent's dark room. She had found herself out of the soft confines of her double bed and her knees dug into the red rug as she cried and yelled out to her family as if they were really there and for her they were.

They had appeared the next night after that fateful night and would continue to haunt her for years to come. Even in their death, their faces taunted her day and night. But her dreams were plagued with visions of the future, she had lived and died multiple lifetimes in moments of minutes and she hated what she saw.

She clawed at her eyes, hating seeing her brother in pain as he was engulfed in flames but there was no scream of pain passing his lips just the kind look he reserved for her but the words pouring out overwhelmed her.

Then he was gone, as quick as he appeared and then new yet familiar faces taunted her, she could name them all, map out every choice they would make. Moths then invaded her blurry eyesight, fluttering their dull brown and beige wings in her eyes and whispering the same mantra over and over again until she repeated them as if she were in a trance.

Then everything quietened when the coldness of the metal slipped into her own hands and she felt as if she could breathe, even if it was for a moment, she felt in control and tethered.

The silver letter opener glinted in the darkness of the room as she muttered, "Tick tock." Her voice sounded as if it was rooms away and the metal slid against her skin with an eerie ease.

Blood oozed out of the wound as if it was trapped and simply waiting for this very moment, it swelled up against her wrist until it slowly but surely tipped over, dripping onto the red rug. She watched in fascination as it trailed off in multiple different directions, her finger followed one specific trail down her wrist like it was Alice falling down the rabbit hole.

She was too entranced by the quietness of the moment, the peace the dark red liquid offered her that she didn't see, hear or feel her Uncle had rushed into the room and let out a horrified yell at the scene in front of him.

"You don't need eyes to see," she heard her brother's soft voice whisper of corruption in her ear. She couldn't feel his breath linger over her cold face but she knew it was real.

She brought the bloodied letter opener up with two hands and with a smile she stated, "No eyes and I'll see. I'll see everything!" Then she closed her eyes and pushed the knife towards her left eye and before she could push it all the way in and unblind her eye Henry had reached her and stopped her but the sharp metal was still too close not to do damage. As he pulled it out of her reach, it scraped under her eye, missing it's target a centimetre away.

She finally looked up to see the worried and fearful look of her Uncle who fell to his knees seeing the damage.

"Mal! Are you okay? I'm so sorry." He said, his nut-brown eyes watered at the utterly broken girl before him. He reached to her face to see the red trail of blood down her cheek but she barely flinched at the pain and he realized she wasn't present at the moment, she was far away like she always seemed now.

"Do you hear that?" She whispered as if she finally noticed his presence and Henry looked around the room trying to find anything that was making a noise, thinking it was the cause of her meltdown. He looked back at her and she just placed her head in her hands and rocked herself back and forth.

"Tick-tock before he eats us all." She sang and watched the blood drip down her arm and watched each drip of a crimson red slap against the floor. She reached out to it and drew.

"Tick tock," She repeated over and over again. She then stopped, her body froze and worry overcame Henry for his niece. Then a manic smile crossed her face as she lifted her head and he noticed that the image on the floor mirrored it.

Henry would never be able to look at something as innocent as a smiley face ever again. Fear had crippled Henry and he hated seeing his niece like that and swore he would do everything in his power to get her help.

The next day for exactly seven years to this day, she wore a black strip of lace fabric around her eyes. She never took it off and she would ignore Henry's verbal attempts to get her to take it off and she would turn violent when he physically tried. After a week Dean let it go, hoping the blindfold would not encourage her to pull out her eyeballs.

She shook her head, brushed the depressing thoughts away and opened the door with a flourish. Her black Mary Jane clicked against the tiled floor as she made her way to her Uncle's office, she knew the entire Brakebill campus like the back of her hand. She spent most of her time there since her guardian was the Dean of the magic university.

But soon she would walk the grounds for the fortieth time as a true student and she was excited to start taking practical lessons but it was overshadowed by the grim events that would soon follow with her admission, like clockwork.

The door opened with a twitch of her finger and without a word, she sat in the comfortable leather chair in front of Henry's desk.

"Ah Mal, it's been so long," Henry said, his voice dry and bored but Maliefent could hear the teasing in his voice.

"It has and it hasn't," Mal answered, crossing her leg over the other.

"Will you be alright to see the others once again?" Henry gently asked his niece, he knew how difficult her powers were for her and having to start over and over again and trying to save everyone and always failing.

"Yes...I've missed them, I'm happy to see them but that sense of loneliness and inevitableness always stays. The last try was difficult but I feel this time will be different," Mal stated, she tightly shut her eyes trying to rid the memories of death away.

Henry hummed and suddenly felt melancholic at her reply, as he always did when they spoke of the past.

"So you're ready for the exam then?" Henry asked, abruptly changing the subject as he stood up with a glass of bourbon in his hand, from the smell of it. It was the only way he could cope with everything magic seemed to damn him with and the memories that forever haunt him.

Mal hummed, her fingers taping over her thigh and she replied, "I don't know why I have to take the exam. I've been acing it for what feels like years."

Henry chuckled as he walked towards her, patting her shoulder and said, "I know but I can't be favoriting my favorite niece, can I?"

Mal rolled her eyes behind her blindfold and stood up, "I'm your only niece," she deadpanned.

"True," Henry hummed and they made their way down the hallway towards the testing hall and Mal had her arm tucked into her uncle's as they walked.

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So if you haven't seen the show, I recommend you do it's great. This is kinda a spoiler but the first chapter has already spoiled it basically. Essentially everyone is stuck in a time loop and Henry and Mal are aware of it and they remember the past timelines. But Mal saw some of them before they began when she was young, she can see into the future. The timeloops start when Q (the main character) gets accepted at the school. This happens because 'the Beast' kills them and basically takes over the world.

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