The candidates have been chosen. You've been thrown into this Game of Hearts where you must find out what part you play. You play for your soul…
Author's Note: Let it be noted that I do have a large obsession with writing about Alice in Wonderland. This is my second Alice in Wonderland fanfic and it is quite certainly much better than my first (which I do intend to finish, by the way). This story has been influenced by Alice in Wonderland (naturally), American McGee's Alice (plus Madness Returns), Silent Hill, Heart no Kuni no Alice, and my own imagination.
This is going to turn into somewhat of a game. You'll find out what I mean by that. This is only the introduction, the setup. I will get into the more exciting details in later chapters. I hope you enjoy reading this. And once you read, please, please, leave a review. I'll return reviews given to me to the best of my ability.
She was a freak of nature, that Alice.
Sure, she was the most gorgeous girl in that god-forsaken town. Sure, she was the only one who dared smile and skip about the dull cobblestone streets, the only one to dance in the rain that always seemed to be falling. Sure, she looked like a sweet girl.
But everybody who lived there knew the truth. Alice was mad. She was insane, the poor, poor dear. Always talking to herself, talking to people and creatures that just didn't exist…
Alice knew what other said about her. She didn't care a bit. She had more important things on her mind, and she was furious. Or perhaps frumious was a better word, she reflected.
She was sitting on an old holey sofa in a small room. The floor, the ceilings, and the walls were made of a dark sort of wood, as was the whole of the house, and Alice was quite sure the whole thing was rotting and would soon fall to pieces.
She hoped it would. It may seem strange that she would think this way about her own house, but it wasn't strange thinking to her. No.
Escape, escape, escape.
She felt trapped.
She fingered the hem of her dress (sky blue, bright and happy) and thought back to the events that had made her so angry.
It had started with Charlie. Everything bad always started with Charlie, and Alice was quite sure now that everything bad would always end with Charlie as well.
His full name was Charlie Michael Van Peterkin the III. As his long name suggests, he was most certainly a rich young man. Or as in Alice's eyes, a rich pompous brat. He had wavy, golden hair that often swept into his soft brown eyes, and basically he had everything that would categorize him as extremely handsome and overly rich.
His overly large mansion stood right next to her small poor dilapidated excuse for a house, and to make matters worse, he and his family made no secret of how they felt of their neighbors.
Disdain. And how inferior everyone else was to them.
Alice had tried to spend as much time as she could away from that particular family's house. She had tried to spend as much time as she could away from her house as well. The whole neighborhood was hell to her.
Her house was where her mother shouted into thin air at nobody, pretending their father was still there, her house was where the loud clock near the piano would tick off beat whenever her sister played Fantasie Impromptu by Chopin, and her house was where her cat (the only good thing there) never was.
Anyhow, her new neighbors gave her more reason to venture into the streets of town. To escape.
The air had tasted oily and thick, the sky was hazy and grey. Alice's black shoes had made a muffled sort of clicking sound on the streets as she walked towards a merchant who was selling some interesting looking trinkets.
She smiled. She loved the atmosphere here. If only, she had thought, if only I could leave my home. Then everything would be better.
The merchant, a seedy looking slick-black-haired man, attempted smiling sweetly in Alice's direction. Although he failed miserably at doing so, Alice skipped up to the stand and looked at the things he had out.
There were lots of necklaces and things of that nature. That's when something had caught Alice's eye; a bracelet, a simple chain, with little charms hanging off of it—a clock, a rabbit, and a heart. She wanted it badly. She pointed to it.
"How much?" she asked. The merchant attempted smiling again.
"Twenty pounds."
Alice's smile disappeared. She was angry. "That's ridiculous!" she scoffed.
He shrugged. "It's still twenty pounds."
Alice, calm yourself!
She froze. Somebody had called her name. And the voice had sounded familiar.
She looked around for the source of the mysterious voice.
"Did you hear that?" she asked the merchant. He looked puzzled.
"No."
It was then that she spotted a small white rabbit by her feet. Nothing was particularly strange about it—it looked like a normal rabbit—except that it was staring only at her.
"Hello, Alice," it said.
Alice's face broke out into a smile. "Aha!" she exclaimed. "I knew it was you."
The merchant's brows furrowed. "Who are you talking with?"
Alice was positively beaming, completely forgetting about the ridiculous price and the twenty pounds. "The white rabbit," she said. "He visits me a lot, you see."
This was a statement that was quite true. Alice had a bunch of friends who came to visit her. Some of them she knew people would be scared of because they were just so odd. A white rabbit, a cat with a wide grin, a caterpillar, various others… They could talk, of course. They were the ones that would help her when she was stuck inside her house.
The merchant sighed and shook his head. He was familiar with this Alice. Too bad she was insane. She was just so beautiful. Surely, he thought, that beauty shouldn't be completely wasted.
"Sorry," he said. "I don't see him."
Alice narrowed her eyes. "You think me mad, don't you? No matter." She tossed a bit of golden hair behind her shoulder. "I still want that bracelet."
The white rabbit stood on its hind legs and put its front paws onto Alice's stockings. "You could steal it, Alice."
At this point she had glared reprovingly down upon her friend. "But that is hardly right! I will do no such thing."
The merchant was getting quite nervous now. "Perhaps," he said, "you should leave now…"
And that's when it happened. Or perhaps more like he happened, Alice reflected, coming out of her memories for a bit.
It was Charlie. He came up from behind Alice and laid down quite a bit of money for the merchant to see. More than just twenty pounds, Alice remembered. But what really stuck out was how confident he looked, and how heroic as well. Or at least he had been trying to look heroic.
"This will do, correct?" he had said. The merchant blinked, then proceeded to slowly nod.
"Yes," he said, still completely surprised. "What did you say you wanted?"
Charlie flashed a grin of perfect pearly white (Alice wanted to gag) and said, "I didn't. I would like to buy this, please." He pointed to the bracelet that Alice wanted.
Oh dear, Alice had thought. He's stealing the bracelet from me. The one I wanted to buy. How rude. She looked down towards the white rabbit for help, only to find that it had disappeared. She gave a slight frown. Naturally. It did come and go as it pleased, as did all of her friends.
A hand on her shoulder brought her back to reality.
"Alice." She blinked. She looked into the eyes of Charlie. "Did you hear me? I bought this bracelet for you."
It was her turn to be surprised. Her mouth opened, then closed. Finally—
"Since when are you nice to me?" she asked. Charlie took her right wrist and clasped the bracelet there. She couldn't help but momentarily smile. It felt so right, and she liked the weight and feeling of it. Charlie smiled back at her, thinking she was being swayed by his charms.
"It is a man's duty to do nice things for his fiancé, right?" he said.
Alice at this point had not been able to process the words that had come out of his mouth. But… but that would mean…
Alice stood up from the couch quite abruptly. She refused to relive the moment yet again. Yes, so it turned out that she was engaged to Charlie and that she was to marry him in the coming months. Apparently Charlie had said something to her mother. Something along the lines of how he very much liked Alice because she was so pretty… and how he would send their family quite a large sum of money if he were to marry her.
Alice seethed.
So that was it. Charlie wanted to marry her because she was pretty and her mother wanted her to marry Charlie because he was rich. It was all wrong. And now she was waiting for Charlie to come and visit her because that was what all proper future husbands were supposed to do.
Escape, escape, escape.
Now more than ever before, Alice felt trapped. She wished and wanted to escape, but it appeared that escape was completely and utterly futile.
In the room next to her, Alice heard her sister get on the piano. Fantasie Impromptu. The only song that her sister ever played. And that damn clock ticked off beat to the music the whole time. She forced herself to sit back down onto the sagging couch.
She heard the front door open and in swaggered Charlie. "Alice! I'm here!"
What a way to make one's presence noticed, Alice thought.
"Yes, yes, I heard you come in," she said as Charlie strode towards her. He got rather close, took her hand, and planted a very gentlemanly kiss upon it. It took all of Alice's will power not to recoil.
"Let us sit down," she said. They did so, and Charlie sat as close as he possibly could to her. His hand rested on her thigh and—
Alice stood up. "I have a better idea," she said quickly. "Let us play a game."
He looked confusedly up at her. "A game?"
Alice nodded. "Yes," she said. "A game. A game of chess, perhaps. I'm feeling quite up to it, aren't you?"
Charlie didn't look too happy at this turn of events. "My mother always told me that chess was a childish game."
Alice gave him a fake smile. "Well your mother was very wrong and mislead when she told you that. I find it very interesting and even challenging at times."
She walked away to get the chess board. He grabbed her wrist.
"I don't want to," he said. She tried to pull away but found that he wouldn't let go. She clawed her fingernails into his wrist.
"Let go of me," she said firmly and looked over her shoulder at him.
"No." His eyes burned into hers. The off-beat ticking and the playing of Fantasie Impromptu was beginning to get on Alice's nerves…
She clawed her fingernails in deeper until he dropped her hand. She backed away from him.
"Stay away," she said. "I don't care whether I am to marry you or not, you will not touch me." He advanced upon her and her hand reached behind her and found something hard and heavy. She threw it at him. He ducked and the object soared and hit the window behind him. It shattered. She ran past him and picked up a shard of glass.
Charlie straightened up. His eyes were angry and seemed to say, "You will be mine."
Alice… Alice… do you want to be free?
Alice suddenly rushed forwards and sliced at Charlie's stomach. Red blossomed. He fell to the ground and looked up at her, shocked.
She threw the piece of glass down.
"Goodbye, Charlie," she said. "I'm going to Wonderland."
He laughed. "They're right. You're mad."
We're all mad here.
Alice shrugged. "I don't care what they or you think. I'm leaving." She walked out the door. It occurred to her after she crossed the threshold how she had said some very strange things without realizing it. And done some strange things. Like injure Charlie and declare that she was going to some place called Wonderland. And now she had nowhere to go. She stared out into the familiar cobblestone streets.
Alice… Alice… follow me.
There was a flash of white. Alice caught sight of the white rabbit and took off after it. Townspeople stared at her, wondering what that silly girl was up to now.
She found herself going down a narrow alley way that she never knew existed and turning left. There was one of those manholes on the ground, and it happened to be open. The white rabbit was standing next to it.
"Climb down, Alice," it told her.
She did so without hesitation. It was quite dark and damp smelling. She climbed further and further down and wondered how long the ladder went; she could hardly see the light from above anymore.
That's when she lost her footing and she fell.
Terror coursed through her veins. A voice came out of nowhere and echoed all around.
Welcome, Miss Alice, to Wonderland. It's time to play a little game…
A/N: Yes, it took a while to set up. I hope you guys are still interested. I wrote this in the course of a couple hours. Inspiration suddenly struck. No doubt there's some typos and spots where the writing is rushed. I hope you like it though. Do give me a review and tell me about it.