(This is a cross over for Creepypasta, Gravity Falls, Cuphead, Little Nightmares, Hollow knight, Alice:Madness Returns, My Friend Pedro and Bendy and the ink machine.)(I kinda just wanted an excuse to put my favorite game characters in one book.

• Alice Madness Returns Lost Soul Movie
• Alice Madness Returns Lost Soul Lyrics

Hello, all! Here's the next chapter of the story.

Not much else to say, really, except that we are still in the Depths. I tried to structure this chapter's events into separate smaller scenes, and I hope it makes this easier to read.

This chapter starts off right after the last one, and I'm sorry if this too jarring a transition.

Now, let me give the DISCLAIMER: 'Alice: Madness Returns' and the 'American McGee's Alice' series are owned by Spicy Horse and EA Games, including any beta content. The author owns any custom elements they choose to introduce in the story.

Onward to the Chapter!

The Cannon Crabs fire three shots simultaneously. I teleport out of the way, and crouch behind a rock that I reform by. The Crab's ranged power is too strong for me to get close enough to attack them. At least Alice is safe behind another rock.

The Crabs each light their cannons again, and they all turn to aim at where Alice is. The rock she is behind gets covered in smoke and bubbles from the bombardment. I want to run over and get her out of there, but my gut says she's still alive. But, I can't let her get shelled like this.

'I hope I can distract them.' I think as I try to think up a plan. 'If it doesn't, we're both in deep shit.'

Just as the Crabs launch another volley at Alice, I get an idea going. I run towards their elevated position, stone cracking beneath my feet. When I get close enough, I press my right foot against an angled stone and launch myself up, and above, the Crabs. They look at me with rapid chitters as I fly over them, and then land right behind them.

Up close, the Crab's cannons smell like burnt metal. Combined with their cigar smoke, it churns my stomach. Nevertheless, I continue with my plan. I summon the Ice Wand to my hands and channel its magic into something that, I hope, will stop all of them in their tracks.

I cry out, 'Freeze!' as I release a green arc of ice from the Wand. The Crabs slow down to a literal crawl, but they don't freeze up like the Madcaps or Insidious Ruin did. A second later, one of the Crab's cannon-arms breaks apart from a barrage of pepper bullets. I take a quick breath and switch to the Automaton Hammer to bash the other Crab's limbs in.

Unfortunately, the center Crab shakes off the Wand's cold before I can reach it. It slams me against the wall with its pincer. Blood fills my nostrils as I teleport off the rock, into open air. I fall to the ground below, but the water dampens the impact.

I keep my mouth open to breathe as mist moves around my nose. The Crabs jump from the high ground; one almost lands right on top of me. I dodge that Crab's swing, and bash it onto its back with the Hammer. I then slam the Hammer into its soft stomach, and flick the power switch.

The Crab explodes into several pieces as its blood mixes with the surrounding water. I breathe in a bit of blood by accident, and even taste it. It's actually not that bad; if anything, it's a bit too smoky and burnt.

I turn to Alice. She's already wiped out one Crab, and has the other on its back. She slices the creature to pieces with the Vorpal Blade, and its entrails float up and away.

Alice turns to look at me. Her dress is covered in Crab blood and guts. She doesn't seem to care about that as she points behind me. I turn around to face the center bed, just as a large gray shell floats down onto it. The shell then opens to reveal a human-like creature with fishnet stockings, rich red hair, black ribbon in said hair, and pearls for eyes. The inner part of its shell has circles of various colors, like patterns on a dress.

'You've just interrupted my dreams,' she says with a yawn, her voice a bit too rich for her size. 'Oh, well. Off to the show, I suppose.'

I shake my head as the oyster swims up and away, on the path to the Theatre.

We jump up the stone heads that are here, and walk through a small cave. The other side leads to a long path of the three colors of jellyfish we've seen so far. Large strands of ocean grass wave through the small space, which makes the clear path quite small for us.

We make quick progress, though Alice gets shocked once when she passes a little too close to a red jellyfish. Midway through a field of such jellyfish, I signal the location of a mounted Snout to Alice. She peppers it up, and slices open the breadbasket it leaves behind on a nearby white jellyfish.

She then spots a tentacle-covered seashell keyhole a short way further. We shrink down and go through it to reach a Radcliffe memory.

'Odd indeed,' the doctor speaks to a past Alice as we move back through the keyhole and jump across a few more jellyfish. 'Unusual perhaps. But nearly nothing is unique, Alice. Yours was not the first brick home to be destroyed by fire.'

'Under your watch, it won't be the last.' Alice replies with another dark frown as we reach an open stone mouth. Alice smashes some nearby rusty chests for golden teeth, and I lead us through the mouth.

We end up in another open space, another bed in the center. Insidious Ruin and two Cannon Crabs crawl up, or rise from, the ground to challenge us.

'Stay back,' Alice shouts to me as she cranks up the Grinder. 'Don't get overwhelmed!'

I obey Alice's advice as I summon the Wand, and backpedal away from the scuttling Ruin. I fire bolt after bolt of ice as Alice grinds out pepper bullets at the Insidious, but they just get closer to us. They soon force us against a long curved wall. There's nowhere to run, or teleport, to safety.

I see the Crabs at the back light their cannons and take aim. Alice shouts out exactly what I think at that moment; 'It's a trap!'

The Crabs fire, and we teleport right into the Insidious crowd to avoid the cannonballs. The smaller Ruin instantly surround us, and I press my back to Alice's. I hear Alice grunt in pain as I get swiped by several liquid arms. I stab one Ruin through with the Wand as I hear a shiing of metal from Alice's side. The stabbed Ruin completely freezes up around the Wand.

I channel a burst of power into the Wand, and that Ruin explodes into icy shards. Some of these shards slam into nearby Ruin, which makes them stumble back. I swap to the Hammer and shout for Alice to, 'Duck!'

I then make one long, looping swing. All the nearby Ruin get hit, and I end the swing with a final spin that blows one Ruin's body into chunks of goo.

Then, an explosion blows me off my feet. I land on my back as my ears roar with noise. Did a Cannon Crab just shoot at me? If so, I need to move before it can shoot at me again!

I roll to the side, and teleport to the leftmost wall, before I look back at the battle scene. Alice has moved up to a Crab, and I run toward the second one as it tries to light its cannon.

'Get away from her!' I shout as I leap into the air above the Crab. I flick the Hammer's power switch as I pound the Crab's shell, and the resulting explosion knocks me back through the air. When I regain my senses, the Hammer is out of my hands, the Crab's cannon-arm hangs limp, and there's a large crack in its shell. But, it's still alive.

Alice then strikes with a Hobby Horse-and-Vorpal Blade combo. She moves without pause between the two weapons, neither one slowing her down. The Crab dies before it can do anything. I take this moment to fetch the Hammer from among the grass where it landed, a bit away from where I hit the Crab.

I move beside Alice as the second oyster lands onto its bed, looking just the same as the last one. She intones in the exact same voice, 'We still need the star! The star! The star!'

She then swims away, still shouting those same words. We look around, and spot another stone mouth that's now open. We walk through there, and come upon something completely different.

The oyster here is awake. She also looks different than the other ones; blond hair, blue hair-ribbon, and blue inner-shell patterns. Is she the 'star' the second oyster had mentioned?

'Help me, darlings,' she says from her small clam-seat with heavy breaths. 'This poster for the show, its ruined! If I can't put it back together, Carpenter will grind my bones!'

I look around, and notice four pieces that look like they fit into a large poster advertising the show. Some pieces are already inside the frame, but they seem out of place. A moment later, the pieces outside the frame vanish before my eyes. I look at the multiple paths that lead out of this area as the Cheshire Cat materializes by the poster frame.

'The proper order of things is often a mystery to me,' he says. 'You too?' I bite my lip when he doesn't give a clear task for us before he vanishes off again.

'I know what this is,' Alice informs me, her eyes locked on the poster. 'It's a puzzle. We need to get the missing pieces, and then slide the pieces around to make the correct image.'

'Seems like a waste of time,' I say with a wave of my hand at the poster. 'Why does the Carpenter want us to do these simple tasks for him?'

'He's focused on the grander aspects of the show,' Alice calmly states. 'I don't know how long he's been arranging this, but impresarios like him only see the end results.'

'Yes, yes,' the oyster agrees with Alice. 'He never stops speaking about how we will dazzle the audience with our performance. But, this poster must be done now! Please, help me!'

'We'll do what we can.' Alice states before she turns to me. 'You take the right side, and I'll take the left. We need to do this fast.'

She moves to a path on an upper ledge before I can stop her. I shake my head at how silly this task is, but still go along with it. I jump up to a nearby ledge on my side, and a piece is right here. I touch it to pick it up, but it just vanishes again. I whirl back to the poster, and see it over there like it was before.

'Yes, good,' the oyster excitedly states. 'That's one piece! Now, find the rest of them!'

I jump down without a response, and take a careful look at this space's walls. I soon notice a seashell keyhole covered with tentacles. They vanish when I shrink down, and I run through the keyhole into a small space with another piece. This piece also vanishes when I touch it, and there's also a Snout mounted on the curved wall. I race back to the poster to find the second piece there, but Alice isn't back yet.

'I hope she isn't in trouble,' I muse as the seconds tick by without her return. The oyster starts tap-dancing on her shell-seat. Maybe she's nervous about the show? My gut says I should try to calm her down, but what do I say to someone like her? I don't know how a theater show works!

'Uh… say…' I awkwardly start out. 'How long have you been practicing for this show?'

'Oh, it feels like forever! But, it's been so enlightening for me, as well.' she responds as she wrings her very tiny hands together. Actually, do her arms even have hands?

'You really think the show will go over well?' I ask. 'The Carpenter's asking a lot of things for it.'

I can't help but feel a bit more curious about all this show the more we work to complete it. The individual tasks don't seem like much, but they probably all work together in the big picture.

'Oh, I'm quite sure it'll go over amazingly! Barrelbottom needs a show like this to give it new life!' The oyster claps her… arms together in excitement at her potential stardom. I smile back, glad that she can be happy with her own fame.

At that moment, the third piece appears by the poster. A few seconds later, Alice reemerges from the same stone mouth. Her body is covered in teeth marks and Crab blood, which explains why she was gone for so long.

'Sorry 'bout that,' she says with a straight face. 'Had to quell some critics. Now, let's get the last piece.'

I follow her silently as we move into a large stone opening. We reach a large open space of murky water, with jellyfish and invisible platforms. A Shrink Sense marking, as I see them, of Bumby's glasses leads to the left, while the marking of a Clockwork Bomb leads to the right. We take the left path, first.

After we walk up an invisible ramp, and break through a coral barrier, we reach a small cave with, amazingly, a Bumby memory inside. Alice touches it, and Bumby's familiar calm tone speaks briefly, but with importance: 'Keep troubles and torments at a distance where they may easily be forgotten.'

'Why does that make sense?' I have no answer to my thought as we head back to the first platform, and then move to the right. We cross some more jellyfish, and then reach a pressure pad. I stand on it, and the mouth of a distant stone head opens up to reveal the last piece.

With me standing on the pad, Alice has enough time to navigate the apparently fast-moving platforms. She touches the piece, and it vanishes. We then move back to the main space, all the pieces gathered.

When we get back, the pieces are all inside the poster's border. However, only two spaces have the right piece in place. The rest are all placed in apparently random spots in the border.

'How does this work?' the oyster mutters, as nervous as when we first saw her. 'Where do these pieces go?'

She joins the two of us in silence as we look over the mismatched pieces. I try to figure this out, but all my ideas fall apart after a few moves. Nevertheless, I take a chance by moving a piece down one space.

Alice comes in and quickly moves an adjacent piece to the left. I step back as I see my idea fall apart with that one action, but Alice continues without pause. She shifts a few pieces around, backtracks a step, and then snaps her fingers with a smirk.

She moves the pieces with quick pushes and pulls, like she's assembling some great machine. She doesn't take very long to complete it. The pieces all sink into the poster together, and I get to read the full description.

The title reads, 'TOTENTANTZ presents THE DANCE OF DEATH', the 'O' replaced with a Snark skeleton. The Walrus fills the center of the poster, a frill around his neck, white braces that look like bones over his tusks, and sporting a small red cap atop his head. Three red emblems at the bottom show, from left to right, the octopus as the writer, the oysters as the performers, and the Carpenter as the director.

'Splendid!' The oyster shouts as a giant fish head nearby lowers its jaws for us to leave by. 'Let us resume our place before our adoring fans at the Theatre.' She then swims off with a final wave to us.

'Before we go,' I say to Alice. 'There's a Snout in a keyhole nearby where we first entered. You should get that.' She nods and races off, which gives me a moment to think about how I really feel about this show.

We've actually done a lot since we got here. The amount of boxes and platforms inside the Theatre itself proves that people want to see this play. Maybe it won't be so bad, after all. Besides, I've never seen a show like this before; it could be a fun experience.

Alice's return scatters that train of thought, and we continue down the fish's mouth without any more delay.

The water here is especially dark. We walk across a thin stone bridge to reach a large metal gate that opens to a graveyard. The chasm we cross is deep enough that I can't see the bottom. Every other time I've seen a dark chasm down here, the Kraken's attacked anything nearby. Could it be waiting for the moment to strike me, and kill me?

We cross without worry, but we turn at the sound of something large approaching. The Carpenter rides the Walrus from the Theatre, who's already wearing what he has on in the poster. The Walrus swims over to us… and rams the stone bridge head-on. The bridge shatters into pieces, and the Walrus doesn't look harmed by his efforts.

'My gosh!' Alice declares, horrified at something I don't yet understand. 'You're not an impresario, you're a killer! The mastermind of a criminal enterprise!'

'This world's not so either/or, Alice,' the Carpenter replies as he looks over one of his large hands. I stay silent and listen to this banter.

'And we've done your bidding!' Alice's accusations continue as the Walrus swims in place and I try to follow the conversation.

'You did a few errands, got your hands dirty. Big deal. The show distracu-lates the crowd, a shame you'll miss it. You two need to deal with these sailors.' He then points to the graveyard behind us with the words, 'It's your time.'

'Time? Time?' The walrus suddenly speaks up, his voice deep and rich. Then, he starts speaking in rhyme as his body begins to wave about with gusto...

'The time has come to talk of many things:
Of shoes and ships and sealing-wax,
Of cabbages and kings—
And why the sea is boiling hot,
And whether pigs have wings!'

'Enough of that, Walrus!' The Carpenter shouts this as he barely holds onto the wiggling creature. 'You start wailing about how there's too much sand on the beach, I'll have your blubber for breakfast!'

That shuts the Walrus up, his brown eyes now wide as he looks back to the man riding him. Did the Walrus almost say something he shouldn't have?

Wait a minute! Carpenter just said something about a beach. Alice had said she'd read a poem involving a Carpenter, a Walrus, and a group of oysters all walking on a beach. It also didn't end well for anyone involved. I recall the images that I had imagined, of oysters being killed. Is that going to happen with this Carpenter, and this Walrus?

If that's so, then these two are really...!

'Monsters!' I shout this in furious anger as the mystery solves itself in my mind. 'Beasts! Killers! Deluded-Depth-defilers!'

The Walrus reels back in surprise at my tone; the Carpenter digs his hands into its fat stomach to stay on.

'I see your game, now,' I continue with a few steps forward. 'You plan to kill those oysters, those innocent performers in your mirth-filled 'Dance of Death'. Those creatures didn't do a thing to you, and you want them dead! Is that really what an impresario would do?'

'The impresario does what the crowd wants, silly boy!' The Carpenter's shout equals mine in volume and anger. 'If they want tragedy, I give it. If they want happiness, I give it. If they want mirth and debauchery, who am I to deny them the delicacy of an electrifying, daredevil, fantastic-ulating dance?! It's show business!'

'Shame on you, all the same,' Alice retorts to the red-haired giant as she steps beside me. 'You made a promise to us!'

'I had no choice,' he spits back. 'One can't always do as one would like. I would have thought you, of all people, would know that by now.' He then taps the Walrus's head with his hand, and the two swim away, free to commit their crime.

We turn into the graveyard, and the gate slams shut behind us. Then, a large ghostly man with the same appearance as the Lost Souls rises from in front of one of the many stone slabs. This man is larger than those Souls, his eyes a darker blue against his near-invisible body.

'A Drowned Sailor.' Alice states. 'Veterans in life, now doomed to haunt the seas as ghosts.'

She doesn't get any further before the Sailor dives into the ground and charges towards us from below. A scattering of the surface above him is the only clue we get to his approach.

The Sailor bursts up in front of me; dust fills my eyes as something long and sharp slashes across my chest. I cry out as I stumble back, the pain too strong to focus on anything else. I lower my hands as my eyes tear up, and see the now-solid Sailor head-on. He holds a serrated knife in one hand, the source of my pain.

The Sailor grunts as pepper bullets hit its arms and chest. After a few moments, it returns to its transparent state. It then moves towards Alice, and I wipe my tears away. Alice teleports around the graveyard, lures the Sailor away from me. The Sailor draws bombs like the Lost Souls did but Alice just peppers them until they explode. Just like the Lost Souls, the bombs stun the Sailor when they explode in his hands.

Alice teleports forward, and gets in a few slashes with the Vorpal Blade, but turns back to his ghostly state before he dies. I teleport over, and summon the Ice Wand, as Alice avoids its lunge. The sailor turns to face her, which gives me a moment to fire an ice bolt. The bolt misses, but it gets the Sailor's attention. Its blue eyes lock on me as it growls something I can't understand.

Then, the Vorpal Blade lops off its head. Black blood flows into the water as the Sailor's body, and severed head, sink to the ground. My stomach twists a bit as I see the blood leak out. I manage to swallow the bile down as I see another black gate at the graveyard's back end open up.

'You'll be fine,' Alice says to me as she passes by me to a Snout at the back end of one of the stone slabs. A large stone slab slides into the ground after she peppers it up. I follow her into the keyhole, and we find a Dr. Wilson memory among some teeth.

'Pets are friends, and our secret selves, Alice,' he says with the same tone as every other of Alice's memories of him. 'Your rabbit, too. I'm sure Dinah was a confidant. Always about, wasn't she?'

I suspect the rabbit, and this 'Dinah', were animals Alice kept before her family died. Are they dead, too? I do recall Pris said something about Alice's rabbit, but the only animals Pris had were those pigeons. Maybe someone else in London has them?

We move back through the keyhole, and then through the gate. We pass a few more stone slabs, but these ones have large crosses on them. We also pass by stones that have a strange white substance on them. I don't want to touch it, for fear of it never coming off my hands.

Alice sharply turns to the right, and I see a small coral barrier we almost passed by. I follow her in, and we enter a smaller section of the graveyard. An anchor-fish swims away upon our arrival, its blue eye looking at us as Alice smashes open chests and what look like spiked shells to collect teeth and rose petals. I help her out, and we go through another gate… back into the first graveyard!

'Well,' I angrily blurt out. 'This was a great use of our time. Totally worth it!'

'Oh, shut up,' Alice snaps back. We move through the path we already took, and walk into an area with a large black mark along the ground. It almost looks like a burn mark, but we ignore it as we see what's in the next graveyard.

One central grave is here, fenced off on three sides and with a small throne above it. Other graves, marked with the same stone slabs as earlier, rest to the sides. The gate shuts behind us as another Drowned Sailor rises from the special grave. Alice moves to take care of it while I teleport to the side.

A loud hiss makes me jump, and then cry out as sharp teeth gnaw into my back. I teleport away, and turn back around to see a total of three Snarks now in the graveyard. These fishes were waiting for us!

'Snarks,' I shout to Alice as she peppers the Sailor's bombs while it holds them. 'I'll take care of them!'

I then run, and teleport, over to the Snark closet to Alice and whack it with the Hammer. It burrows underground, but I just bash it back up, and then burst its head open with an exploding swing.

I try to stay focused as the other Snarks move in different directions. Both of them stare me down, and I teleport to the closest one. It releases its icy breath before I can swing, and I feel the familiar cold rise up my body. I switch over to the Ice Wand, my hands shaky as I teleport away. I then fire a few ice bolts at the Snark, but it just burrows underground.

The second Snark lunges at me, and I barely block its attack with the Wand. It's teeth scratch along the weapon, and my hands, as I hold it back. It then falls back, and I shoot a cone of cold into its body. I then take the chance to smash frozen Snark to bits.

I hear the Drowned Sailor cry out in pain. This gives me the confidence to teleport over to the burrowing Snark. I pound its lure, and it pops up from the ground. I quickly slam it against a stone slab with another swing. The slab shatters, but I keep pounding until the Snark turns into blood, teeth, and bits of flesh.

The scent of Snark blood quickly makes my stomach churn. I move away and rejoin Alice, who is in front of the special grave. White mist trails along my arm, and I also feel its soothing touch on my back.

'Friend or foe?' A whispery voice asks this from the special grave. A ghostly sailor with a more lavish hat, longer beard, and white eyes rises from the soil. He quickly floats like a living person would stand.

'That depends on whether you try to harm us,' I reply as I raise the Hammer for a swing.

'Stop it, Kyle,' Alice says with that intimidating glare of hers. 'That's the Sailor Captain. Show him some respect.'

'Please, Alice,' the Captain says as I begrudgingly lower the Hammer to my side. 'Help me fulfill my pledge. I need my men! They may be hostile at first, but their true souls are trapped. You must release them.'

'Do they want to be at peace?' Alice asks this after a moment's thought. Considering how the sailors we've fought already all wanted us dead, I'd say no.

'They do not know their own minds,' the Captain replies. 'What's true of the living is often true of the dead.'

A large gate shaped like a skull at the back end of the area opens up for us, and I follow Alice over there. When I try to enter the gate behind Alice, something pushes me back. I blink, and try again; the same thing happens. I now run into the open gate, but a group of spectral hands grab me and throw me back a few feet. I land with a grunt of annoyance.

'Hey, Captain,' I shout over to the ghostly man as I try to keep my anger down. 'You have any idea what this bullshit is?'

'My crew hold a strict sense of honor, even if they're currently insane,' he replies. 'It could be that they think you're too dishonorable to help them.'

'Dishonorable?' I scream this as I stand back up. 'What the fuck makes them think I'm dishonorable?! They've tried to kill us, damn it! I don't care if they've lost their heads, they started all this, and they deserve to be punished for it!'

'No, Kyle.' Alice calls this from beyond the gate, at the entrance of one of three brown buildings with skulls on them. 'What they need is forgiveness. Sailors live rough lives out at sea, away from homes and families. They die with no one they love nearby, and that can drive any soul to madness. I speak from experience.'

'But, Alice,' I respond as I point at the three buildings. 'You're going in those alone. You don't know what's in there, and you won't have me to help you get through it!'

'Calm down, lad,' the Captain speaks up. 'I knew Alice when I was alive, and she was just a girl. She's more than capable of fetching my crew on her own.'

'But, I… you… she…' I sputter out, before I just moan in defeat and slump to the ground. When I look up to Alice, she's already gone…

Alright, that's all for now.

As usual, please review, comment, and constructively criticize as you wish. Your feedback is well appreciated!

Draconos is taking off!

A selection of some of the game projects that I've worked on.

Alice Madness Returns Lost Soul Movie

MONUMENT VALLEY

Monument Valley is an illusory adventure of architecture and forgiveness, for iOS and Android devices. It won an Apple Design Award and two Unity Awards.

I was the lead designer and one of the artists on this project, made at ustwo.

'Monument Valley is the most elegant game I've ever played. Every aspect--the presentation, the puzzles, the UI--amazingly elegant! Play it!' -Tim Schafer

ALICE: MADNESS RETURNS

Alice: Madness Returns is a gothic horror adventure game, a sequel to the acclaimed American McGee's Alice.I spent three years as Art Director at Spicy Horse in Shanghai, leading a team of talented artists in creatingthe characters, environments, special effects and other visual assets for the game.

Alice Madness Returns Lost Soul Lyrics

The game was awarded 'Best Graphics, Artistic' by GameSpot in 2011.

HACKYCAT

Hackycat is my first game as an independent, solo developer. It's a little game about keeping cats in the air. With your feet.