"Curioser and curioser!"  exclaimed the young Alice as she took in the sight before her.

After falling down a rabbit hole, floating gently through a downward tunnel, briefly hanging upside down by her ankles, running through twisting hallways, and opening doors behind doors (each door smaller than the previous one), the young lady had emerged through a small passageway and beheld a grand hallway.  The floor had checkermarked tiling while the walls and ceiling had a uniform square pattern running continuously throughout the room.

Young Alice found herself in this predicament as the result of pursuing a white rabbit of all things.  But this was no ordinary white rabbit.  He wore fanciful clothes, wore spectacles, carried a pocketwatch, and spoke English!  After ranting about being late for a very important date, he hopped along his way through a meadow and into a rabbit hole.

Stricken with curiosity, Alice pursued him, only stopping briefly as she examined said rabbit hole as her pet cat, Dinah, lingered by her side.  Tempted to discover more, Alice crawled through the rabbit hole until she fell from a sudden drop, waving goodbye to Dinah as she descended into the darkness of the tunnel in pursuit of the White Rabbit.

Which brings us back to the grand hallway.

As Alice examined the room, she saw at the far end a set of violet curtains flittering in the distance as if they were recently disturbed.  The curtains were small, hovering only a foot or so from the edge of the floor.  If Alice were to guess, they were around knee high to her.  Quickly she made her way over towards them, sliding forward and crouched down onto her knees.  She pulled the curtains aside, discovering a small wooden door with a golden doorknob, decorated with a human face.  The eyes were above the round knob, which served as the nose, while a keyhole served as the mouth.  Eager in her pursuit of the White Rabbit, she swiftly reached for the doorknob, grabbing it and twisting hard.

"Ohhh!" shouted the Doorknob in response, face scrunched in agony.

Shocked by the response, Alice pulls backwards, alarm written on her face as she holds her hands over her mouth, eliciting a loud gasp.

"Oh!  I beg your pardon!" says Alice.

The Doorknob straightens his face out, the handle twisting mildly as the face starts to relax.

"Quite alright," the Doorknob replies, "but you did give me quite a turn."

"You see I was following a-" starts Alice,

"Rather good one!" interrupts the Doorknob "Doorknob?  Turn?" as he chuckles at his choice of words.

"Please sir, I-" continues Alice, leaning in to make her case, waiting for the Doorknob to stop talking.

"One good turn deserves another." chuckles the Doorknob, rotating his nose as he cracks a smile.  Straightening out and mellowing his demeanor, he asks young alice with a straight face, "What can I do for you?"

"Well I'm looking for a white rabbit." begins Alice as she leans in closer to the Doorknob, bringing her face closer as she gets on her hands and knees.  "So um, if you don't mind?"  At this point her face is just inches away from the Doorknob.

Figuring out what she desires, the Doorknob opens his mouth, allowing Alice to peer through the keyhole.  She brings her eyes closer and spots her target off in the distance.  The White Rabbit is hopping along the other side through a meadow towards some woods.  Alice just needed to get through this small doorway.

"There he is!" declares Alice, getting back onto her knees and reaching for the Doorknob's nose once more in her haste.

"I simply must get through!" she shouts.

"Sorry," interjects the Doorknob, "you're much too big.  Simply impassible."

"You mean impossible." corrects Alice

"No, impassible," responds the Doorknob, "nothing's impossible" he follows with a chuckle.

Mildly frustrated with both the Doorknob's wordplay and her predicament, Alice considered what he had just said.  It was true that the door to pass was rather small for Alice.  Assuming she could fit through, it would be very, very tight for her to pass.  There was also the matter as to whether or not the door itself was currently locked.  If so, then passing through would be even harder than she thought.

"Why don't you try the bottle on the table?" asks the Doorknob, removing Alice from her thoughts.

"Table?" asks Alice, perplexed.  There was no table in this hallway, only her.  As she turned around, she saw in a flash a fancy glass table materialize, with a small glass bottle gently landing atop it.  Alice gasps in astonishment at how this new object entered the room.  Did the Doorknob somehow summon it into existence at the mere suggestion he gave to Alice?

"Read the directions," instructed the Doorknob, "and directly you will be directed in the right direction." he elaborates, chuckling once more.

Alice approached the table, getting a closer look at the bottle that sat atop it.  It was a small bottle, no bigger than her fist in terms of size.  At the head of it was a rounded piece of cork keeping it closed and around the neck of the bottle was a small pink tag tied to it with just two words written on it, which Alice read aloud.

"Drink me."

Uncorking the bottle, Alice prepares to do as was instructed, when suddenly a momentary hesitation seized her.  Perplexed, she begins thinking aloud as she examines the bottle.

"Better look first, for if one drinks much from a bottle marked poison," she holds the bottle to her nose, sniffing for any odd scent, "it's almost certain to disagree with one sooner or later."

Perplexed by her logic, the Doorknob asks "Beg your pardon?"

"I was just giving myself some good advice," responds Alice.  Deciding that there was nothing ominous about the bottle, she took a sip from it, letting the liquid slowly go along her tongue and down her throat.  The sensation and flavors from it boggled her mind as they seemed to change every few seconds.

"Hmm...tastes like uh...cherry tarts," says Alice.  All of a sudden, in just a second or two, she shrinks down more than a foot.  Unaware of what had just occurred, Alice takes another sip, taking in the new flavors and trying to determine what they remind her of.

"Custard" shrink

"Pineapple" shrink

"Roast turkey...goodness!"

Alice finds herself to be only a few inches tall at this point, holding the bottle as if it were a large container holding several gallons (from her perspective).  The bottle appeared large enough that she could fit inside of it if she attempted to climb into it.  She soon after drops the bottle after struggling to hold it in both arms.  The Drink Me tag gently covers her as she acquaints herself with her new surroundings, now realizing she is much, much smaller than she was just a moment ago.

"What did I do?" asks Alice, taken aback by what she had just experienced.  Chuckling, the Doorknob answers her question.

"You almost went out like a candle."

Quickly regaining her surroundings, Alice makes her way towards the Doorknob, seeing that the door itself was around her height now given her sudden shrinking.  Realizing she is no longer too big to make her way through it, she joyfully responds.

"But look!  I'm just the right size!" says Alice, making her way towards the Doorknob, aiming for his nose once more.

"Ohh!" interrupts the Doorknob once more, "no use...I forgot to tell you, I'm locked." he continues, chuckling throughout his explanation.

Realizing her new predicament, Alice presses her palms into her face in deflated gloominess.  "Oh no!" she mutters.  Though the Doorknob follows through with more to tell her, as she turns around to face him.

"But of course," he says, "you've got the key so-"

"What key?" interjects Alice.

Staring at her briefly, the Doorknob continues, "Now don't tell me you left it up there?".  The Doorknob motions towards the top of the glass table.  As if out of thin air a key materializes on top of the table.  Seeing this unfold before her, Alice sighs in mild exasperation.

"Oh dear."

Making her way towards the table, Alice attempts to climb it the best she can.  However, the curvature of the table's legs and the long, smooth neck of the table makes this a fruitless endeavor.  After a minute of climbing, Alice looses her grip and slides back off the table's leg, getting no more than a few yards (by her standards).  Coming to a seated position, Alice buries her face in her hands once more, depressed by her overall situation.

"Whatever will I do?" she mutters in a deflated tone.

"Try the box, naturally" responds the Doorknob. 

As if on command, a small jewelry box appears before young Alice, just like the key did earlier, between her feet.  Bewildered by what just occurred, Alice hesitantly opens the lid of the box.  Inside the box are an assortment of small cakes, with various bits of writing on them.  Some say "Try Me" or "Take One".  Picking one up, Alice reads the inscription.

"Hmm...'Eat Me'...alright.  But goodness knows what this will do." as Alice takes a bite from said cake, throwing caution to the wind.

What happened next occurred in just a matter of seconds, five at the most.  Alice began to shoot up in size rapidly, in hiccup style spurts.  Every spurt that occurred shot her up several feet at a time.  She could barely register just what was happening to her as she ballooned in size, shooting up higher and higher towards the ceiling as she sat perfectly still.  From what she could tell, there were five spurts in growth overall, given her vocal reaction to each one.

"Whoah!  Whoah!  Whoah!  Whoah!  Umpfh!"

On the fourth spurt, her leg slammed hard into the Doorknob, growing in size as it did.  On the fifth spurt, her head slammed into the ceiling of the hallway, shutting her eyes as it happened.  She instinctively placed her hand over her head after registering the impact.  A moment later, she opened her eyes, taking in her new surroundings.  She must have been several feet tall, possibly tens of feet tall if she were to guess.  She was now crammed in the hallway, which she previously considered both long and wide upon entering it.  Now it was cramped and confined, which let her know just how much she had increased in size from just a moment ago.  Less than a minute ago, she was just a few inches high.  Now she was gigantic, probably fifty feet tall or more, given that she was in a seated position, with her head pressed against the ceiling and her feet up against the wall.

"Wfl wyshy whflyt whyntl-" muttered the Doorknob, as he tried to talk with Alice's foot shoved up right against his face.  A second later, Alice removed her foot, feeling guilty for essentially stomping against the Doorknob, with her foot now longer than the door was tall.

"What did you say?" asked Alice, with one hand still nursing the fresh bump on her head.

The Doorknob ruffled his nose briefly before straightening himself out, then responded with his usual chuckling demeanor.

"I said "A little bit of that went a LONG way." chuckling at the end.

At this point, Alice was somewhat torn emotionally.  Part of her wanted to cry about her conundrum.  She was now gigantic, yet literally stuck.  She had power, but was a prisoner.  She seemed to have no way forward, but no way back either.  'Will I remain in this place forever?' she thought to herself.  Wiping away a tear, Alice calmed herself, got her bearings, and scanned the room from her heightened perspective, looking downward with an eagle-eyed view.

"Well, I don't think it's so funny." muttered Alice as she moved her legs the best she could and examined the floor.

She assumed the table was somewhere behind her, possibly under her rump and most likely in pieces.  If she were to guess, it would probably be shattered from her sudden growth and even if it were not, it would be only a few inches tall at the most.  The key would obviously be much, much smaller and hard for her to handle at her current size.  And even if she did find the key and use it to unlock the door, getting through it would be another matter entirely.  Her foot along was larger than the door.  There was no way she was getting on of her legs, let alone her torso through the passageway.

If she could find the 'Drink Me' bottle from earlier, she might be able to use it to shrink down, find the key, and unlock the door.  But assuming the bottle wasn't destroyed during her growth spurts, it would be near impossible to find and handle just like the key, given Alice's gigantic stature.  When she first handled it, the bottle fit comfortably in one hand.  When she shrunk down, she needed both arms to hold it steady.  Now at her current size, she would have to delicately hold it between her thumb and index finger like a set of tweasers.  She wagered the bottle itself was no larger than the furthest digit on her pinkey fingers.  Holding such an item to drink from would be rather difficult without spilling.  She would probably have better luck just swallowing the bottle like a pill.

That left her one last item to look for: the cake box.

Alice moved her legs back as best as she could in her cramped position.  She examined the space between her legs, searching for the box and hoping it wasn't pinned underneath her posterior.  As she brought her hands underneath the folds of her dress, she felt a hard small object, less than half the size of her thumb.  It seemed rectangular in shape from what she could tell.  That had to be it.  Enclosing the item in her fist, Alice brought it out from underneath her dress.  Unfurling her fingers, her prize laid bare before her in the center of her palm.

Sure enough, there laid the box.  It wasn't damaged from the growth spurts, much to Alice's relief.  Using her thumb to unhinge the lid, she spotted the remaining cakes inside.  It appeared luck was on her side at this point.  What she planned next was a gamble, which could backfire horribly if things didn't pan out as she hoped.  But given the oddity of her circumstances since falling down the rabbit hole, she decided to take a chance and hope for the best.  She held the box towards her mouth and opened wide.  A moment later, the remaining cakes passed her lips and bounced along her tounge and down her gullet.  They were practically specks from Alice's perspective, and barely registered as they hit her tounge and went down her throat, but sure enough they were all swallowed.  There were three or four in box from what she recalled.  If one cake made her the size she was currently, what would another three or more cakes do to her?  The thought made her heart skip a beat as she pondered the question.

"I say, what are you doing up there?" inquired the Doorknob from far down below, looking upwards with curiosity.

A moment later, he got his answer.

The hiccup-like spurts came once again, much more intensely than the first time.  After all, this wasn't one cake that Alice consumed, but at least three in one gulp.  The effects were much more powerful by comparison.

On the first spurt, Alice's body filled the entire hallway.  Her whole body was essentially curled up in the fetal position with her knees pressek up against her face.  Her head was pushed as far as possible into the far upper corner.  Her feet were crammed against the opposite wall, one of them up against the Doorknob like before, only her entire foot now covered the whole door and continued to swell ever more.  Her arms were pinned against her side, her rump squarely filling up more and more of the floor space, her knees making contact with the ceiling in a matter of seconds, beginning to press into them hard.

Regretting the recklessness of her choice, but realizing it was too late now, Alice awaited her fate as another spurt made itself known.

The second spurt caused Alice to enlarge aprubtly once more, with the entire room bulging and buckling to make room for her growing frame.  The walls began to crack and bow.  The floor began to buckle and warp into a bowl shape.  The ceiling began pushing upward while offering what resistance it could to Alice's head and knees surging upward against it.  The poor Doorknob, muffling at his part in this predicament, felt the girl's foot pressing harder and harder into him.  Alice's heel alone was larger than the entire door, and continued to grow even moreso second by second.

The third spurt was the tipping point, when something that Alice was not expecting ended up happening.  The entire room - walls, floor, and ceiling - bursted all at once.  The young woman had transformed from a giant to an outright titan in terms of size.  She had nobody around to do a size comparison, but if she had to guess, she wagered that she was at least a hundred feet tall.  Maybe two hundred even.  Her bearings were somewhat befuddled from the latest round of growth spurts.  It took a moment for her head to clear after literally bursting out of the room.

When Alice came to, she opened her eyes and looked upwards.  She could see the sky, bright blue with a few clouds here and there.  She slowly propped herself up on her elbows to look around and get acquainted with her new size and where she was now.  Before her lay a green field, the one she saw earlier looking through the Doorknob's mouth.  As she slowly got to her feet and began to rise, she felt a momentary sense of vertigo.  She was surprised at just how big she had gotten in the last few minutes.

Speaking of the Doorknob, Alice looked around on the ground for his whereabouts.  Given her rate of growth and what became of the chamber she was in recently, she was curious as to what became of him.

Alice looked around her feet, searching for the Doorknob, hoping she had not hurt him too much from her growth explosion.  Afterall, she did have her foot pressed up on his face just a moment ago.  Hopefully, she had not hurt him too bad, or (Heaven forbid) outright destroyed him along with the walls of the hallway.  She'd certainly feel guilty if it came to that.

"Sir?" young Alice asked as she looked around.  "Are you there, sir?" she continued as she scanned the ground at her feet.

A moment later, Alice could make out slight groaning nearby her left foot.  Sure enough upon leaning down, she could make out both the door and the Doorknob himself, still attached to the structure, though the door was obviously torn away from the wall, now that the wall ceased to be.

"Uhhh...well now...that certainly went a very long way, didn't it." groaned the Doorknob.

"Oh goodness, I'm truly sorry sir." replied Alice leaning down over the Doorknob, surrounding him in her shadow.

Opening his eyes, the Doorknob took in the sight before him.  The young woman hovered over him, her long blonde hair surrounding him like curtains.  Her lovely features took up his entire sight.  Her big blue eyes, larger than the door he was attached to focused on him intently, worry written all over them as she analyzed him for any damage.  Her full, red lips slightly parted open, shortly closing as she gently bit her lower lip in concern.  Her rosy cheeks, her elegantly defined chin and cheekbones, her light thin eyelashes furrowed in concern, her rounded button-like nose...her elegance so defined upon her face.  She was just so much more now than before.  It truly was a sight to behold.

Without giving it much thought, Alice gently scooped up the door, standing straight up once more and bringing the Doorknob closer to her colossal face for closer inspection.  He laid facing upwards in the palm of her hand, her fingers surrounding him like thick pillars.

"Are you hurt sir?" asked Alice, looking down at him.

"Oh...a little rattled, but I'm alright all the same," replied the Doorknob, "I must say you certainly 'kicked the door down' so to speak with that little trick." He followed chuckling, still keeping his sense of humor.

"Though I suppose there was nothing particularly little about it so to speak." he continued, chuckling all the more.

"I'm sorry about before, especially with the wall," responded Alice, "I just had a feeling that the box would help me again, given the circumstances.  As you yourself said, 'Try the box' and all that."

As she examined the Doorknob, she took in her newfound size better.  When they first met, his nose was big enough to fill her hand when she tried turning it.  When she strunk down, his face was around the same size as her whole body.  When her first set of growth spurts was over, her whole foot covered the surface of the door completely.  Now at her new size, the door was around the size of a crumb before her, covering no more surface area to her than one of her fingernails.  It really was profound just how big she had become.

"Again, I'm really sorry about the damage," replied Alice, looking back at the room she was trapped in.  The hallway (or what was left of it) looked as if a large bomb had just gone off from within.  The ceiling was destroyed, the floor caved in, and the walls cracked heavily and bowed outward.  In a sense an explosion of sorts did occur there just a moment ago, Alice though to herself.  If she were to guess, she wouldn't get more than her head and maybe her shoulders back into the hallway.  The rest of her body was outright impossible.

"I must say," began Alice, "I didn't expect to grow this large.  I admit I was hoping I'd be big enough to make my way out of there, but this seems like a tad much.  I must be at least a hundred feet tall by now."

Turning back around, Alice faced the field where she saw the White Rabbit head off through before making his way towards a forest off in the distance.  Alice could see the same forest beyond the field, the tallest trees no higher than her waistline by her calculations.

Looking down into her hand, she examined the Doorknob once more.

"Sir, given that you're no longer anchored to that wall, so to speak, would you like to come along with me while I look for the White Rabbit?" she asked.

"Well, I suppose I could tag along for a little while, young lady," replied the Doorknob, "see the world, so to speak.  It does get a bit dreary staring at the same three walls and ceiling all the time."

"Alright then," says Alice with a light smile.  She figured the Doorknob could keep her company as she continued her journey looking for the White Rabbit.  After all, travelling alone could be somewhat depressing when loneliness gets to you.  It would be nice to engage in conversation now and then during her travels.

"Now where to put you," pondered Alice aloud as she checked her person, "Ah! Here we are, this should do for now."

She proceeded to gently slide the door into the front pocket of her white apron tied to her blue dress.  Given her new size, there was plenty of room for the Doorknob to occupy.

"I'll walk carefully so as to not jostle you around too much." said Alice looking down her pocket at her new travel companion.

"Appreciate it, miss." replies the Doorknob, slightly muffled in the folds of her apron.

Looking back upward towards the woods, Alice begins the journey through the field, covering several feet of distance with each step.  The ground mildly shook with each footfall she created, leaving impressions from the imprint of her shoes into the grass as she walked.  It would only be a minute or so until she reached the forest.  Hopefully she would be able to catch up with the White Rabbit, especially since her larger size allowed her to cover far more ground than she would at her original size.

Whatever other obstacles or persons she would bump into on her adventure, one thing was certain at this point:

Wonderland was in for a big surprise.