20. My muse is temporarily blind.
Alayna had been visiting Heart Castle's territory with her mother. She had inadvertently snuck away from Alice, distracted by a noise that drew her attention. Before Alayna got relatively close, something suddenly exploded, throwing her backwards and she hit her head hard on the paved sidewalk.
Alice, already in a slight panic for losing track of her daughter, was definitely in a full-blown panic seeing the rising flames, then finding her unconscious daughter lying on the pavement. Alice immediately tried calling out to the faceless around her, but none of them wanted to get involved. With no other choice - it didn't look like Alayna's head was bleeding - Alice picked up her daughter and asked directions for the nearest hospital.
At the hospital, the doctor said that Alayna sustained a head injury, but it wasn't life threatening because they got to her in time. There might be temporary side effects, though, to watch out for. One of which was blindness. Which, when Alayna finally woke up, proved to be the symptom she happened to have.
As Alayna's father, Nightmare should've been informed, and since it was at least five time periods passed when they should've been back, he was probably worried by now. However, due to the monitoring Alayna required, Alice just couldn't very well leave to tell Nightmare. Besides, they were all the way in Heart Castle territory. It would take too long.
The next best thing was to tell Nightmare via dream. That is, if he was slacking off without them there. For the first time ever, Alice hoped he was slacking off in dreams. She let her exhaustion pull her under and found herself in the dream realm.