Alta wakes up and tries to stretch in her cramped cell as best she can, but fails. It feels like a valid enough excuse to go back to sleep, so she attempts to do that as well. Somewhere from within her she can feel that Alice Turnip is distressed about something. Not so much that she would think Alice in danger but just enough to make Alta wonder what it could be to cause her such woes. Imagining the possibilities makes Alta restless.

Alta became aware of Alice Turnip’s emotions a decade or two ago, so not long, but long enough for Alice Turnip to change drastically. They met when they were more or less in the same place emotionally and Alta doesn’t entirely understand why Alice decided to ruin that.

She has begun to notice though that even other elves have changed more than she has but they didn’t have the benefit of having a connection to Alice Turnip as a sort of cautionary tale for what happens when you decide to be no fun and too serious. Which sounds redundant to people who don’t understand the importance of emphasizing the point.

Giving up on sleeping in any longer Alta stretches. The Wicker Golem greets Alta “good afternoon prisoner, you have 3,874 days remaining to your sentence”

Alta returns the sentiment but the Wicker Golem does not comprehend it. He only knows that he will not open the door in his chest for her until the days remaining of her sentence is zero and that he will give chase if she escapes before that.

Once Alta rubs the sleep out of her eyes she is almost immediately bored. It’s the most horrible feeling she can imagine and she’s been stung by hornets as big as her hand. Though, she didn’t get as many stings as Alice Turnip did. After the first two or three, she decided to simply escape by jumping into Alice’s world, which is always balanced by the universe by pulling Alice back to replace her. The two have never actually met.

Alta tries to remember what she was up to last night when she was free, and decides to escape again, once she succeeds in this. The longest she has ever remained prisoner in the Wicker Golem has been three hours. She learned whenever she sits on the commode in her cell, it will squat as to keep the mess from getting on it’s legs. It was quite entertaining to make it stand and squat repeatedly. She even attempted to make it appear as if it were dancing, though being inside prevented her from knowing if she had achieved the desired effect.

She closes her eyes, though it is no longer necessary to do so, and shifts over to the world of internets, advertisements, and other silly things that Alice Turnip refers to as ‘normal’