Hi! I guess you have pretty high expectations for this, but I can't exactly say whether or not those expectations will be reached. As I said in the summary, this story is going to be similar to my last story,except there will be a lot more dramatics in it than the last one. I am hoping it's going to be much longer than twelve or thirteen chapters, and I hope you enjoy it as much as you did my last one.

Disclaimer:I don't own anything, although I must admit, I wish I owned at least a little.

ONE

Wonderland was old, now. So were the people in it. Time had grown bored with staying still now, because when you stay still you aren't doing anything, so it isn't much fun. It just moved quite slowly, being out of practice. Something had changed many, many years ago. The coming of Alice sparked a whole new era. The citizens of Wonderland had begun to wonder what the outside world was like. What it was like just outside the rabbit-hole, or on the other side of the Door. But no one could find the Door. They could only find the hole. Those who braved the long, tiring journey upward never returned, and it's hard to say whether it was because something happened to them, or if it was because they liked the Up There, as it was called, so much that they chose to stay and leave the world they had always known and loved since the day they were born.

Yes, people had left. They had gone Up There. But no one had ever come down. Not for almost thirty-nine years. One more year, and it would be forty. Because no one Believed any longer. Not even the little ones. Times had changed. There were no more rabbit-holes big enough. There were no more children who wished to try to Find them. There were no more parents who allowed their children to try to Find them. Now there were children who wished to grow to go to a school of magic, or children who wished to travel to planets no one had ever been to, and befriend those inhabitants. They wanted to be doctors, they wanted to dance, to sing. They didn't wish to crawl after a talking rabbit and grow and shrink and change and drink tea, or to talk with cats that disappeared on various intervals, or to talk about words with a queen who removed the heads of all her citizens for no good reason. Such things were not possible. Aliens from other planets were possible, faeries in the gardens who played with gnomes and small animals were possible. Going back and forth in Time was possible. Shrinking to the size of a mouse and living in a house made from a mushroom was possible. But climbing down a hole and entering another world that way was not. Why? Who really knew the answer to that question?

Things change. Time changes. People change. Not only do they change, they Happen. Happening was important. Nothing could Begin without first Happening. Happenings always came before the Beginnings. The only people who really knew that, however, were those in Wonderland. They did not have very much to do. They had open minds, and so they Thought. They Considered. They Listened to all their Thoughts. It was the reason so many words were capitalized. The words that have a big first letter are important. There are many important words, you see. But I've gone off track. Wonderlanders Thought. They Thought more than we do. They always have. Probably always will. So it was that someone discovered that Happenings were before Beginnings.

The reason why I bring the Happenings and Beginnings up is because there was once a very important Happening. Her name was Marie. She Happened when a man followed the weak cries of a child to a clearing the forest. There he found the girl. She was very small, and her eyes were large and grey. Here hair was grey as well, but held more of a silver quality that made it shimmer. Her skin was pale. She was wearing a red dress.

She stopped crying when the man came, and looked at him. She looked at everything. She had been crying because her knee was scraped and bleeding. She was surrounded by four of the biggest wolves the man had ever seen. So he considered shooting them. But he did not. Why? The wolves did nothing when he came there. They studied him, and remained silent. Then, one by one they moved away. They sat down a few feet from her, close enough to lunge if necessary. But they were not afraid.

"What is your name, child?" he asked her.

"Marie," she said.

"Where are your parents?"

"I don't know."

"Where is your home?"

"I don't remember."

"Then you are lost?"

"No."

"But if you don't know where your home is, then you must be lost."

"No. I was put here."

"Put here?"

"Yes."

"By whom?"

"I don't remember."

"Why?"

"I don't know."

"How old are you?"

"I don't know."

"Where did you come from?"

"I remember air."

"Air?"

"Yes. Air and hands. They were lifting me."

"From where?"

"I don't know."

"Do you remember anything before today?"

"No."

"Then, so you won't freeze or die, would you like to come home and live with me and my wife?"

"Yes, please."

"Then come. Take my hand."

"Thank you."

"Of course."

And Marie stayed with the man. Judging her from appearance, they said she was seven. So she told all those who asked that she was seven. And she stayed. But as she grew, Marie knew. Marie grew up following the rabbits. She followed them and knew exactly what she would find. Even when she was much too old for it, she followed the rabbits and knew. And one day... One day, she Found them. And then the first Beginning took place.

SHATTERED GLASS

A/N: Okay, I know this ruins the mood, for those of you who decided to read this, but it had to be done, sorry. This is just a quick thank you to all those of you who are interested in this story. Please review, I don't expect a dozen of them or anything before the second chapter is up, but I like a little feedback. Please don't expect chapter two right away, I do have other things to work on, and I need to figure out what is going to happen in the next chapter. I couldn't get this idea out of my head, so I wrote it down. I know what's going on already, I just need to know how I'm going to set it up and get it going. Thanks again, I'll stop typing now. Bye!