[Cecil is pretty used to nightmares, even community-wide nightmares, but this one should probably be addressed.]

Twas brillig and the slithy toves did gyre and gimble in the wabe. Welcome...to Wonderland.



Hello, listeners. You know, being from Night Vale, I'm sort of an expert on disruptive shared nightmares. They are almost always one or all of three things: a glimpse of future events, an important news broadcast or Sheriff's Secret Police announcement that can't wait until morning, or a friendly reminder that we have all collectively left our ovens on. Since there is still no formal police force around here, let alone a secret one, I think it's fair to say that this one is the first and third things. Do check your ovens regularly, Wonderland! A house fire is very dangerous, expensive and inconvenient.

The holidays are coming, and that means it will have been one year since the ghosts of Christmas future came to warn us about the Jabberwock. For those of you who weren't here for that, or weren't here for the other, more recent reminders, let me fill you in. Basically the Jabberwock is a huuuuge monster of Wonderland that eats everything in its path and acquires the abilities of whatever it eats. So, if it ate toxic waste, it would become a toxic omnivorous monster, and so on. It died long before I arrived here, but apparently it will be coming back to life sometime soon, or perhaps already has. There's a big old scar out on the hills where it died. I suppose that's what we saw in our nightmares. I went out earlier to see if anything had changed, but it looks the same as always. Not that that ever really means anything, right?

Well, we've known about this for awhile, haven't we, listeners? We've known the Jabberwock is coming, we just don't know when. Much like the average person knows that one day they will slough off their mortal coil of flesh and blood and connective tissues, but doesn't know when that day will come. Death, like the tide, taxes, and the Jabberwock, is inevitable. You can't outrun it or reason with it or avoid it. All you can do is prepare yourself for it.

I hope that we have prepared enough, Wonderland. I am not sure that we have. We certainly don't have the Sword, though maybe it's enough that it's not lost anymore? I know there have been plans to trap it or slow it down, but I don't really think any of those plans have actually been put into action. It's hard to prepare for something when you don't know when it's coming. It's hard to stay on guard when all you do is wait and wait. I don't have the answers, listeners. I wish I did. I can't tell you what to do or how to prepare. All I can tell you is to keep an eye out. To be vigilant. To have an escape route. To have an easy way to contact and coordinate with friends and loved ones. And to hold tight to the people you care about. To stay warm as the days grow colder. To drink plenty of hot cocoa. And to enjoy the days here when things aren't terrible. We don't know when those days will end, after all.

Goodnight, Wonderland. I leave you now with...the weather.