Chapter 4. Mulan, Merlin, Snow White

Back at the orphanage, when people tried to adopt Allison, she would fight.

It wasn't fear that drove her to scratch and sometimes maim people. It was her strong belief that her family, if she had one, was still out there.

"I'm not an orphan!" she would yell. "Orphans don't have parents! I do!"

Allison wasn't sure how she knew to say those words at such a young age. She just knew that eventually the orphanage got sick of her, the young 'tigress', as they called her, and shipped her off to some boarding school.

After that, her life got pretty messed up. She was shipped several times, across the country. She didn't have a choice, even if the staff members were nice. Allison was a perfect pupil on the outside. She was a lioness on the inside, or maybe a snow leopard. Ready to kill if she had to.

"Wha-"

Allison bolted upright. Her throat was dry. What...

"Hush."

Allison turned to her right. A girl stood by the door, her long black hair running down her back, her dark eyes examining Allison like a curious specimen. She wore a white tunic, with leather hunting boots.

Then Allison blacked out.

When Allison awoke again, the girl was there, still straight as a plank.

She was beautiful, a girl of long black hair and dark brown eyes. Her skin was pale, her fingers long. She wore a tunic and a pair of leather hunting boots. Nothing had changed.

"Where...who are you?"

The girl blinked. "I think you know who I am."

"No...I do?"

Even as Allison said those words, she knew who this girl was. Dark hair, dark eyes...it came to her as a feeling of déjà vu. This was the girl from her dreams.

"But who are you?"

The girl's back was turned. "Mulan."

Mulan. Wasn't she that giggly ninja girl from the fairy tales?

"Mulan as in...M-U-L-A-N?"

"Yes. How else would it be spelled like?"

"But isn't that--"

"Wait until you know, Allison. Do you really not remember me? Or your past?"

Her past. In the orphanage? Allison wanted to say. But she had a feeling that this girl was testing her. No, beyond the orphanage. But she couldn't remember anything further than the orphanage.

"No. And I've...never met you."

The second part was at least half true, if not totally true. Allison wasn't exactly sure whether she should share her dream with this girl. Not yet.

Mulan arched her eyebrows. "Never met."

"Yeah."

The tall girl stared at Allison, but didn't say another word.

Allison was saved from the staring contest by a knock on the door. Mulan turned away from her and turned the knob, scowling.

There were soft voices outside, and the exasperated tone of Mulan. "Oh, geez...really...she doesn't even remember me..."

Allison's gaze strayed to the bookshelf next to her bed. They were all fairy tales, children's books...

She glanced at one book in the corner. Snow White and Humpty Dumpty--An Exclusive Tale of What REALLY Happened.

Curious, she brought the book down. Its hard leather cover was beaten in. Why would a book have a leather cover? Must be really old, then. The title was printed along the spine in miniscule writing, the same font and size on the front cover. The pages smelled like old books, like the one time Allison had went to the IBS library and opened the oldest book on the shelf. This one smelled even funnier. The pages were literally crumbling in her hands.

Once upon a time, blah, blah, blah, there was a great big kingdom ruled by a great big king.

Then the kind king died and her daughter took over. She was sorta mean because she liked to steal mirrors. She told her servants that she could look at herself all day. She even built a hall of mirrors, where she would sit for hours and hours looking at herself until somebody told her to go eat dinner.

The queen decided to adopt a baby because she didn't want to stop her habit of looking at mirrors to raise a child. After all, she wasn't married.

When the child came, the queen tossed the baby into a cradle and told her nurse to do the diaper changing and all that stuff. It was a pretty awful life for the child.

On the other side of the world, a dangerous scientific experiment was taking place--to turn man into the world's first MAN-EGG. Something terrible went wrong, and the man, Humptery Dumperty, was turned into an egg.

Humptery Dumperty was very annoying, so everyone was glad to see him stuck as an egg. They taunted him all day, so Humptery Dumperty ran off to the queen's side of the world.

"I have no use for giant eggs!" The queen squeaked. So she made Humptery Dumperty a servant, where he was in charge of serving eggs for breakfast, lunch, and dinner.

Poor Humptery Dumperty became something which somewhat resembled a slave in the queen's castle. But he couldn't go back, since his enemies would be waiting for him there. He worked for hours. Hours turned into days. Days turned into weeks. Weeks turned into months. Months turned into years!

Humptery Dumperty thought that the years would turn into centuries, but thankfully they didn't.

By then, the princess, who was named Snow White, was sixteen. Life as an egg went slower than life as a human, so Humptery Dumperty was also around sixteen years old. Snow White was originally named after the brand of diaper she wore when she was a baby: Happy Kisses. However, the nurse thought that the name Happy Kisses was too optimistic for the queen's taste. So she named her Snow White after seeing how pale the baby's skin was.

Humptery Dumperty had a crush on Snow White, or Happy Kisses, or whatever you wanted to call her. So he tried to do many things good for Snow White.

On the queen's birthday, the servants gave her three talking mirrors. The queen decided to hold an official celebration the very next day, so she tried to get the first mirror to talk about her beauty.

However, that mirror not only refused to talk about her beauty, it also insulted her and called her an ugly pig. So the queen smashed that mirror. The second mirror, seeing what had happened to the first one, complimented the queen gorgeously, and even made up a poem to her beauty. The queen was greatly pleased, and, just for the fun of it, she smashed the second.

The third mirror was different. He rehearsed well, and the queen kept him right up to the day of the celebration.

A large crowd was gathered, and they awaited the sight of a mirror complimenting the queen's beauty.

The queen asked the mirror: "Mirror, mirror, not really on the wall, who's the fairest of them all?"

The mirror was startled. He was used to hearing 'Mirror, mirror, not really on the wall, who's the most BEAUTIFUL of them all?'. So when he heard that, he decided to tell the truth. After all, he was a truthful mirror. All mirrors were truthful creatures, unless their life was on the line. But this mirror also had a streak of pride. He would not lie for the queen.

"Uh..."

"Well?" The queen demanded. When the mirror still said nothing, she whispered, "remember? Me! Say you are the fairest of them all!"

The mirror took a deep breath and said, "No, you are not the fairest of them all! The fairest is your daughter, Happy Kisses--er, Snow White!"

The queen was furious as the crowd howled in laughter. "You stupid thing!" She yelled at the mirror. Then she turned to Snow White. "Daughter, I tell you, did you make this mirror say that you are the fairest?!"

"No, dear mother," Snow White said softly. "I did not."

"Yeah, right!" The queen hollered. "I bet my million dollar underwear collection that you did!"

"Mother, I did not!"

The queen smashed the third mirror, and waved the crowd off. Snow White ran inside, sobbing. She locked her bedroom door, and the queen was locked outside.

Meanwhile, Humptery Dumperty had heard what was going on. He was making tomato soup, heard that the queen was planning on killing Snow White, and raced to the rescue with his soup ladle.

Humptery Dumperty smashed open the window with his ladle and said to Snow White, "Hey! Snow! They're gonna kill you! You've got to run away!"

Snow White was shocked. "They're gonna kill me?"

"Uh huh. No go!"

The smashing of the window had caused the queen and the entire army to charge up the stairs.

"Oh, yeah, Snow White," Humptery whispered. "I've always had a crush on you. Just don't forget me."

Snow White was even more shocked that Humptery Dumperty would have a crush on her, but she had to go. She swore that she would never forget about Humptery Dumperty, and bid farewell to him. Humptery Dumperty ran down the side stairs, while Snow White jumped out of the other window. She ran off, and the queen never caught her.

However, Snow White broke her promise. She forgot about Humptery's good deed and settled down with a good prince named William Charming. They had three children and lived happily ever after.

Humptery Dumperty, having run back to his homeland, was now popular for saving the life of a princess. He read the newspapers on one fateful morning and saw the terrible news that Snow White was marrying William Charming. There was even a full-color photo. Having seen the news, Humptery Dumperty jumped off the highest brick wall in the castle and died, pretending that it was a fall. 

The popular nursery rhyme, though it misspelled Humptery Dumperty's name, honors him forever.

Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall.

Humpty Dumpty had a great fall.

All the king's horses and all the king's men,

Had eggs for breakfast, lunch, and dinner again.

Okay, so maybe eating Humptery's remains wasn't the most polite way to treat a hero. But back then, eating a hero's remains was supposedly good for your health.

The End!

Allison looked up, bewildered.

From her knowledge, Humpty Dumpty, or Humptery Dumperty, whatever, had nothing to do with Snow White. The tale of Snow White was not even similar to what happened in this story.

Allison caught sight of the titles of the other books: Prince Charming: His Six Secret Crushes Revealed! Then there was Cinderella And Her Fearsome Battle Against The Bad Queen To Defend Snow White.

Pure weirdness. Allison shook her head, then slid the thin book back into the bookshelf.

Outside, Mulan and someone else's voice--it sounded like a male's voice--rose in volume. Then Mulan grumbled something unheard, then let the man in.

Allison's heart did jumping jacks. The man was tall. He could have qualified easily for the NBA. He had stormy gray hair parted messily to the side, as if he had been combing it, then had rushed away in a hurry after hearing some urgent news.

His face was weathered and beaten down like the leather from the strange book Allison had read, except it wasn't that moth-eaten. He gripped a wooden staff topped with some kind of blue crystal that glowed brightly. Allison nearly laughed at the crystal. If it wasn't for the man's serious expression, she would have guessed it was one of those plastic crystals with LED lights inside them to make them glow.

The man was wearing a coarse fabric tunic, which was peeking out under a dark cloak and...a suit of armor. His boots were all the way up to his knees, buckled down with brass knobs. He had stiff black pants, a little scrunched up at where they met his boots. A large leather belt wrapped around his waist, a sword's handle peeking out of an elegant ivory scabbard. A spear was strapped to his back over his left shoulder, a quiver over his right, a bow tied to his belt on his other hip. This guy was loaded down as if he was ready to go to war. Allison caught sight of two crossbows peeking out of a leather satchel on the guy's back, as well as a set of what looked like bronze knuckles, a canister of tear gas, and several daggers--unsheathed daggers. Allison looked up--way up--and caught sight of his face.

Holy smokes.

The guy had a huge scar running down his left ear into a bushy gray beard. His nose was a little bent, as if he had broken it. His mouth was set in a tight line, his eyes unblinking. His eyes. They looked like they were made out of fire. It was bluer than his LED light crystal on his fake staff, and there were dark cobalt flames lashing across his pupils.

Who has flames in their eyes?

The man looked like somebody who would lead you into a battle without hesitation. He looked like he already had been in several battles. Allison startled to feel a little nervous. She eyed the sheathed sword in the guy's belt, noticing how close the guy's left arm was to the blade. 

"Allison Yin," the guy said. "At last."

His voice was like thunder, deep and thoughtful and waiting. "Hi," Allison said warily. "Is this supposed to be a hospital?"

"Yes, in a way."

"Um...then...why..." she gestured towards the weapons on the man's back and belt. 

"Hmph," the man growled. Allison blushed.

"Never mind."

"Yes," the man said. He settled at the foot of Allison's bed, his equipment clanking. "This is a hospital. And it is much more than a hospital. My name is Merlin."

"Uh--"

"No need. Your name is Allison Yin." 

"How do--"

"How do I know?"

"Yeah."

"I know much, Allison. We've been expecting you and Jason Yang."

"Jason's...in the same hospital?" Allison didn't know what to expect. Frustration? Annoyingness? Exasperation? 

"Yes, he is. Shall I go get him?"

"Oh, god, don't. Don't get him."

Merlin arched an eyebrow. For some reason, Allison saw the sword again. Her mouth went dry. This guy was not someone who you wanted as an enemy.

"Uh, yeah, okay. You can."

Merlin stood up. "Mulan," he said. "Take care of her while I fetch Mr. Yang." He opened the door.

"Oh yes," the man said, turning back. "Get to know each other."

Then he was gone.

Allison looked at Mulan. Get to know this girl? Unlikely. She looked hostile, stubborn, and a little dangerous.

"Uh, so..."

Mulan scowled. She swept her hair over her shoulder. "You really don't remember me?"

Allison compared the girl in front of her to the girl in her dream. They both had an air of authority, but the girl in front of her was made of hardened resolve, while the other one looked broken. They looked the same, though.

"I--I saw you in a dream."

Mulan didn't look surprised. "The hospital burned down? That's what all the second-timers have."

"Second-timers?"

"Yes, second-timers. You have a problem?"

"No. But what do you mean by--"

"The ones who have a second chance of life."

"What do you mean? I--this is my first life."

"Well, of course you think it's your first life."

"Hey, I'm not insane, okay? This is my first life. I'm Allison Yang--"

"No, you're not. You're Snow White."

Allison was utterly bewildered. "And I'm supposed to believe that you're--"

"Yes, I am Mulan. The original Mulan."

Allison fought the urge to laugh. "Seriously?"

Mulan glared at her. Allison scooted back on the bed. That girl was scary.

"Yes, seriously."

"Excuse me?"

"I'm not accustomed to repeating myself."

There was a knock on the door, and Mulan opened it up. Merlin stood in the doorway, one hand firmly on Jason's wrist.

"Hey!" Jason yelled. "Let go of me!"

Then he caught sight of Allison.

"Allison! This guy's crazy! He set a bomb in the school!"

"I did not, Jason Yin," Merlin said, though he sounded quite exasperated. "Would you please stop struggling?"

Jason, however, started kicking Merlin's legs.

"Stop," Mulan snapped. She turned to Allison. "That guy's crazy."

"Just figured it out?"

Merlin glared at them. "Stop it, you two. Jason, ow--stop--Jason!"

Merlin pulled Jason through the door. "Now, er, this is complicated. Jason, please stop. No, that is not tear gas. No, Jason, that's more dangerous than tear--"

A mushroom cloud exploded in the middle of the room, leaving Jason screaming and scratching at his eyes while white tufts of powder fell out of his ears.

"Disintegrates the skin," Merlin said, wincing. "Jason got the worst of it."

"Tell me about it," Allison muttered. "He always does."

"Anyways..." Merlin snatched the half-empty vial out of Jason's hands and stuck it back into his satchel. "Anyways, I want to ask you--how much knowledge of fairy tales do you have?"

"What?" Allison asked. "Fairy tales?"

"Yes," Merlin responded. "Fairy tales."

Jason opened terribly bloodshot eyes, wincing every time he blinked. "Ow..."

"Well," Allison said. "Where do I start? I guess I know a lot, maybe kind--sorta? Like...Cinderella..."

"That jerk?" Mulan snorted. "Mention her on the first meeting?"

Allison glared at Mulan. "Then there's you, Mulan, with the fire-breathing dragon."

"The only thing anyone knows about me is Mushu! How about the fact that I risked my life for my father? And my name is actually Fa Mulan. Not just Mulan. But that's what everyone calls me. And I'm pronouncing it in the English way. Chinese is my native language."

"Mushu? That's the dragon's name?"

Mulan rolled her eyes. "Geez. Duh."

The girl snapped her fingers. "Mushu. Out." Her arm started to glow, and there was a flash of golden light.

Allison blinked the circles out of her eyes and examined the dragon now coiled into Mulan's palm. "Okay. Wow. A dragon. Excellent job at the animation...how did you do it?"

The dragon was a bright, blood red, a row of golden spines running down its muscular back. Its claws were also golden, and it was missing wings, yet it could still fly. A Chinese Dragon. Those dragons you saw in those ancient Chinese war books.

"Animation?" Mulan snapped. "No, Mushu is not animation. He's real, alive, whatever you can call a creature that is not animation. Touch him. Don't touch the spines. They shock."

Allison reached out a finger and stroked the dragon's side. It was solid, the bright red scales rippling a bit as she touched it. The scales were smooth, gentle ridges forming where they overlapped. The dragon turned to face her, and Allison nearly yelped. Its eyes were blood red, brighter than its scales, with orange pupils. It hissed and vanished.

"Mushu prefers to stay in dormant form," Mulan explained. "He likes doing that, since there's no need for fighting right now."

"Fighting? Isn't this a hospital?"

Merlin cut in. "As I said, Allison, this is much more than hospital. This is a refugee. A haven for the ones who need it."

"Oh!" Jason exclaimed. "Like, you know, those people on television shows who just can't stop crying--"

"No," Merlin said. "Jason, be quiet. Anyways, as I was saying, how much do both of you know about fairy tales?"

"Mother Goose," Jason prompted. "Then there's Apopp's--"

"Aesop's--"

"--Yeah, Aesop's fairy tales. Then there are Russian fairy tales on Baba Yaga ad how she liked to eat people's meat--" 

"Sure, focus on the gross stuff," Mulan muttered.

"Mulan," Merlin said. "You know this already. Jason and Allison don't."

"About fairy tales?" Allison asked incredulously. "This is a place to learn about fairy tales?"

"No," Merlin said. "This is a fairy tale."

Jason burst out laughing. "Right. A fairy tale. I'm the prince, and Allison's the princess--"

"Shut up!" Mulan and Allison snapped.

Merlin glared at Jason. "Not helping, Mr. Yang. Anyways, this is a refugee for the ones in the fairy tales. Those are the ones who are important. Not the fairy tale itself. The characters are real, as Mulan said, not animation."

"Okay, seriously," Allison said. She was trying to find a way to phrase what she wanted to say without saying that what Merlin was telling her was making no sense at all. "Merlin, you said that fairy tale characters are real. Then you say that this is a refugee for them. That means--"

"Yes, there are fairy tales characters in here. Name one."

"The Ugly Duckling."

"Room 3047, across the building."

"Hansel and Gretel."

"Rooms 3896 and 3897, respectively."

"You've got to be kidding me," Jason muttered.

"We're not," Merlin said. He sounded so serious that Allison couldn't even laugh. "Fairy tale characters are real."

"Hold on," Allison interrupted. "If they are real, why didn't humans notice them yet? Magic isn't real--"

Merlin chuckled. "Allison, magic is real. That is how we conceal our hospital."

"Great job that did," Mulan muttered. "It hid the hospital so successfully."

Merlin winced. "Yes, it didn't work out last time--"

Allison suddenly remembered her dream. "This is so, so, random," she said slowly. "But I've had a dream about the hospital getting burned down. And Mulan, that Mulan, was there, too. And she called me--"

"Yes," Merlin said. "Snow White."

There was a deafening silence. For several moments, Allison could not respond. She was Snow White? But it made sense. Second-timers, Mulan had called her. So that meant she was Snow White, reborn.

"Whoa, whoa, whoa," Allison said. "I cannot be Snow White. I'm Allison Yin. Not Snow White. I came from this orphanage, I was moved several times from school to school, and I went to the ISB. Then there was a bomb, explosion, whatever, and I ended up here."

She gestured around the room.

"Allison, you came from an orphanage?" Jason exclaimed. "I never knew that."

"I didn't want you to know that," Allison shot back. "Shut your yap."

Mulan smirked.

Merlin waved his hand for silence. "Ah, now, Allison, I suspect that you don't remember anything before the orphanage."

"Because I was too young."

"No," Merlin replied patiently. His sword swung from side to side. "Because we purposefully erased your memory so you would be less noticeable to our enemies."

Allison was instantly on her feet. "Erased my memory?"

"No, not in that way. It was for your own good."

Allison laughed. "That's what the teachers at the IBS said. That everything was for our own good. So you are claiming that I was Snow White."

"Yes."

"I was killed somehow and reborn by you."

"Yes."

"You wiped my memory."

"Ah, yes."

"Then you sent me to the orphanage."

"Correct."

"Unbelievable."

"That, I believe, is also correct."

Merlin started pacing around the room. "Allison, you must believe us. You must--"

"And why is that?"

"Because we are your friends, not--"

"Who bombed the school?"

Both Allison and Merlin turned to Jason. "What?" Merlin said gently.

"Who bombed the school?" Jason repeated. "I mean, some kind of--"

"We shall get to that later," Merlin said. He turned back to Allison. "My dear, it is hard to believe at first. You shall. I assure you."

Jason grinned at Allison. "Ooh! You're a princess."

"Shut up," Allison snapped.

Jason started wiggling his eyebrows at her. "Princess Allison Snow Yin White. Awesome."

"What kind of name is that?" Allison muttered. "Stop that."

Jason winked at her. Then he grinned again, his cheeks reddening.

"Ah, excuse me," Merlin said. "Jason, Allison--"

"What am I doing?" Allison responded.

"Who, me?" Jason exclaimed.

"Allison, Jason, I just...oh, well. Anyways, you must be wondering how our fairy tale characters have been able to hide. There are certain powerful sorcerers, Morgan le Fay, Arielle (Snow White's mother), the witches from the Wizard of Oz, Baba Yaga...we can go on all day naming them. They formed a temporary truce and combined forces. They cast a spell--ah, we cast a spell--and made certain parts of the fairy tale world simply disappear from sight, wiping any hint of it from the mortal mind. Then we made havens, sanctuaries, in those areas, where the fairy tale characters, Fairians, we call them, could hide. You see, the human kind just despised us. We were too much for them--men who could fly, pigs who could talk. They wanted to get rid of us. They were killing many of us. The human kind reproduces too quickly. We had no choice but to hide."

"Uh--" Allison interrupted. "Very quickly...was I killed in that time period?"

"No," Merlin responded. "You were not. You were killed for a much nobler reason. And that leads me to my next point." He stood up and surveyed Allison. "There were some who did not support the Vanishing, as we called the separation between the human and Fairian world. They thought that we, with our supernatural powers, could overtake them any time. They refused to live in isolated areas, while the human population grew and reproduced. There were first disagreements, then battles over what our next course of action should be. Our side, this side, wanted to stay like this. Human technology, it seemed, would overcome any magic. That was proven when we sent a few people out into the human world. They were quickly caught and killed.

"The other side wanted to regain access to the outside world. We reproduce, too, and we have much less space than the humans. They thought that they should have the right to more space. We held meetings. Meetings after meetings on what we should do. By that time, a leader of the other side had rose to power.

"He used to be a young man, going by the name of Bobby-Joe, but stumbled across the path of a wizard trying to combine and tree and a wolf. He was then turned into the Big Bad Wolf. From then on, he would not call himself Bobby-Joe. He was nine feet tall, more cunning than any snake, stronger than any tiger, faster and more agile than any leopard. He had a band of five-thousand fellow wolves behind him--created by magic.

"The Wolf would only have his own way. The tension between our two sides grew, until, one day, his right-hand deputy attacked--"

"Me?" Allison asked.

"No, my dear, I do not see why you are so eager to know why you were killed. He killed one of our scouts, and, we, in turn, captured him and killed him.

"Of course, the Wolf was furious. He sent a band of fifty wolves to attack our villages, stirring up dread throughout our regions. We were forced to fight, and that was what we did. It was World War I."

"World War I?" Allison exclaimed. "But...that's..."

"Impossible?" Merlin filled in. "No, that is not. Some wolves, fearing our wrath, escaped to region of Germany. By a reason unknown, they found their way to Turkey, and, pretty soon, they were all over Europe and some of Asia. They disguised as humans, and attacked the Americas and France and Russia and Italy...it was a long and tiring fight. You, Allison, were a diplomat. You communicated between our two sides. Then you became a soldier under the name of Robert Clark. And it was then, in 1917, when you were killed."

"Oh," Allison said. "You seriously expect me to believe all of that?"

"No, not now," Merlin responded. "Not at this instant. But you will."

"Yeah, sure!" Jason shouted. "And how did those wolves disguise themselves as humans? Magic?"

"Yes," Merlin said, as if it was the most obvious thing in the world. "Magic."

Allison snorted. "Magic, huh? Keeping them hidden? Impossible."

"Wait," Jason said suddenly. He seemed extremely fearful of both Merlin and Mulan (undoubtedly because of the tear gas and Mushu). "Where are we?"

"The hospital--"

"No, where is the hospital?"

"Arion Vilonia Mountain Range."

"There's no such thing!" Allison blurted out. "Arion Vilonia Mountain Range does not exist!"

"It does," Merlin said with equal placidness. "It is part of the magic world which separated from the mortal world."

"No. That can't be possible," Allison muttered. "Send us back. Send us back immediately."

"No," Merlin said softly. "You cannot go back. That would mean death. You see, Allison and Jason, the Wolf has already found you."