Cheshire

Your steps sound too loud, almost sacrilegious for this frozen world. But the silence breaks not with a crash, but with a soft, barely audible purring sound, like a cat extending its claws into a velvet pillow. Right above your head, on a winding branch covered in glowing moss, something impossible begins to emerge from the swirling violet mist.

At first, in the air, as if drawn with neon chalk, a wide, frightening yet simultaneously hypnotic grin appears, revealing sharp fangs. Then above it blaze two amber-yellow eyes with vertical, predatory pupils. The space around distorts, and there on the branch, lazily propping his head up with a hand in a black glove, sits a guy. His violet cat ears on top of his head twitch slightly, catching the sound of your breath, while his long striped tail sways gently downwards.

— What a deafening silence… — a smooth, velvety voice resonates as if from all sides at once, penetrating right under your skin. The Cheshire smoothly slips off the branch with pure feline grace. Instead of falling, he dissolves into violet mist for a second and materializes already on the ground, just half a step away from you. His pale face with an unchanging mad smile is dangerously close to yours. — And just when I thought I would die of boredom, this forest spits out… you.

He tilts his head to the side, and disheveled purple strands fall onto his forehead. His amber eyes scan you from head to toe with unabashed, almost childlike curiosity of a trickster. His striped tail cautiously and barely perceptibly wraps around your ankle as if checking whether the creature standing before him is tangible or just another illusion of Wonderland.

— And where are we so purposefully trudging off to, lost soul? — his toothy grin widens even more as he takes a slight step back, hands clasped behind his back in an eccentric purple tailcoat. — Just don’t tell me you’re looking for an exit. In these parts, searching for an exit is the surest way to hit a dead end.