Odd Prompts: Wonderland

I will sometimes get little flashes of fiction, scenes without any real setting or place. This one, I know belongs to Wonderland. But I don't know where it goes in the story. My muse is being shockingly reticent these last couple of months. 

***

“Hey, Carroll...” 

The captain had opened the door to her office and walked in, as was her right. But whatever she was starting to say to her young detective was bitten off. 

“You ok?” The older woman asked instead. 

“Mmhmm.” Shelby didn’t lift her head from the desk. “I feel like my brain has been scooped out with a melon baller, mashed up like baby food and then poured back in my skull.”

“That’s not really ok.” The captain’s voice was pitched softer, though. She sounded like she was standing right above Shelby. 

“Beats dead.” The detective mumbled into the battered particle board of her desk. “Beats being in the hospital like Johns.” 

“Yeah...” Shelby felt the captain’s movement. She had settled into a crouch so her head was on a level with Shelby’s. “About that.” 

“Uh?” Shelby turned her head, pivoting on her aching forehead. “What, I shouldn’t blame myself for my partner being nearly killed and me along with him? When we were totally set up and trapped because I was having a lightbulb moment? Ow.” 

That last was because the captain, in a merciless betrayal, had shone her little pocket penlight into Shelby’s eyes. 

“You have a concussion, Shelby Louise.” The captain stood back up. “C’mon, you’re going to the hospital, too. They told me you’d refused to let them look at you on scene.” 

“Ugh, no.” Shelby sat up. That was a mistake. The world spun, and her stomach wanted off. “Hurck...” 

“Oh no. Not in my house. Get your ass where it belongs or I’ll call a bus on you. I’m driving.” 

Shelby got a little fuzzy, about then. Later she was told she’d been a docile little lamb, and had politely heaved her guts only outside, on the bush by the side door. 

***

My Odd Prompt this week came from Kat Ross, with "I feel like my brain has been scooped out with a melon baller, mashed up like baby food and then poured back in my skull." 

I prompted Fiona Grey with: "Not particularly evil, just… not quite right." 

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