My father passed away when I was 7 years old. It was a day, just like the day before and the day before that. He woke up, woke me and my mother, got ready for work and left. He was a chemist. He used to take me into his lab and show me all the cool things he could do with the chemicals he had. I liked going to the laboratory. We had planned to go together that evening, after he came home for dinner. I waited for him. I waited for 3 hours. He never returned home. I fell asleep that night, dreaming of all the places he could have been. I never imagined it would be in Wonderland. Yes, he was in Wonderland. Not the Wonderland told in the innocent stories of children, but a Wonderland nonetheless. It was a Wonderland for adults. It was the Casino of the Heart. The Casino had it all: the elaborate showgirls, the bright colors, the enticing welcome messages, everything. He had it all. Everything anyone would ever want. Card and slot games were everywhere. It was like any typical casino. There was only one difference: this casino was not for the people of Wonderland. The people of Wonderland didn't care about casino games. The casino was created for humans. The Queen of Wonderland had to steal humans to play at the casino. But why humans? Human beings have emotions. The people of Wonderland do not. The Queen collected these emotions at the casino and sold them to her people. His people paid hundreds of dollars for those emotions. It stole the emotions from the players, leaving them emotionless, dead. Once players were dead, they were sent to the Hospital and others were taken from the human world. The Hospital was not like a normal hospital, just as Wonderland was not your typical wonderland. The hospital was like heaven. When a person was sent to the hospital, they were given everything they wanted and were kept there until they returned to normal human standards and were sent back to the human world to live out the rest of their life, forgetting all about Wonderland. Here's how the cycle went. I was 15 when he came back. He told me about Wonderland. At first I was furious with him. How could he think that I would believe that lie after 8 long years without a father. I didn't believe his stories about the Casino and the Hospital.