Who: Everyone! Open to All. World inhabitants can be npc'd as needed.
What: World Exploration : Suggestion Info here
When: all through November and beyond
Where: Locations in comments, or add your own.

There are whole new worlds out there. Some people know this already, some are learning it for the first time. Tonight, it's a world of mystery where nothing seems to work entirely by normal logic and everything familiar from waking life can become different. Flowers have a temper and may not like being picked, animals wear dapper clothes, and all of them talk. Some of them are helpful.

Whether flitting around the edges of this world at the Rabbit Hole or the Entryway, caught up in the Mad Hatter's tea party, taken to the Castle of the Queen of Hearts, the Croquet Ground, or somewhere entirely different, it's Wonderland. Be careful: The signs shouldn't always be obeyed.

(Notes: This is a log to keep together threads exploring Wonderland. Relevant threads can also be made as separate posts throughout the rest of the month or beyond. Mostly, this is an experiment to see how a mass log will work for world exploring. As usual with OPN, it is entirely optional and creative liberty is fine and encouraged while working within the setting. Feel free to use the location notes as prompts, but also feel free to do something else entirely. More world suggestions always accepted here.)

Hermione is running through a forest, not looking behind her as she races through the trees. She doesn’t know what’s chasing her all she knows is that she has to get away from it and she has to get away from it quickly. This is a dream that’s she’s had consistently but there’s something different about it tonight. She still has her wand in her right hand, the forest looks the same and there are those footsteps behind her getting closer and closer. But this time there’s a second set of footprints running almost parallel to her. She’s not alone. She doesn’t know what it is but there’s something about those footsteps…she’s not scared of them.

But she doesn’t slow. That is until she trips over a fallen branch and rolls down a small hill. She stops herself when she reaches the bottom, getting up as quickly as she can and she looks around, eyes scanning the tree line. The sound of footsteps has stopped. They’ve never stopped before. She also feels a strange sense of calm wash over her like everything is okay and a thought immediately pops into her head. She’s not being chased anymore. Whatever it was that was chasing her is gone. She’s safe.

…Well, this is new. She hears those footprints again though. The second pair. “Hello? Hello, is someone there?”

Just because Howard knows he's dreaming doesn't mean he can wake up. He tries, reminds himself, this is a dream, pinches himself in the dark, but he stays where he is, kneeling in someone's backyard at sunset. Dirt up to his elbows, and he's burying human body parts, except they aren't really body parts. They're more like pieces of oversized dolls than anything else, no blood or anything. But definitely flesh. Clean flesh.

He sits back on his heels and starts to dig the dirt from under his fingernails. His hands hurt, his shoulders are tense, and there are still so many pieces left to bury. He can't quite explain why he's doing it, except that there is some oppressive sense of dread if he stops. It's starting to soak in now, so he picks up a disembodied hand and tosses it into the shallow pit.

There are all sorts of things in the pit; alcohol bottles, baby toys, a t-shirt with a spatter of blood down the front. He squints and tries to remember how all these things got here, then figures it's irrelevant and tosses an anklebone in. The sun's setting, and he has to get all of these covered or else he starts over; the strange logic of the dream dictates this.

It's hard work, and seems an unfair task for someone of his meager stature, and in the dream he's exhausted and starving again. His skin hangs away like the sails of a ship. He sits back on the dried, yellow grass and runs dirty hands over his face - he can feel all too clearly the sockets of his eyes.

But there isn't time to waste energy stressing out about what he can't change (the task, the hunger, the fact that he's not yet awake) and so he gets back to digging.