Rabbit Hole

A/N: Sooo. This is my newest fanfiction. Inspired by reading "Alice in Wonderland" by Lewis Carroll, and one too many replays of "Tag, You're It" by Melanie Martinez. Also, "Her Name is Alice" by Shinedown. Everyone should hear that song. It's a great song. Everyone should also listen to Tag You're It.

Now, this is not me knocking the source material, but this is actually only based loosely off the book. The first couple chapters follow the book's events almost exactly, only with a modern spin and a sarcastic, self-deprecating teenager in place of the thoughtful girl who stars in the original book; but after that, it deviates wayyyyy away from the source material, and becomes...um...dark. Really. Really. Dark. Really fast. And, as a warning, this fic places Bunny in a less-than-glowing light. Much as I like Bunnymund, I don't think this fic is actually going to go terribly OOC. Considering his back story, something like this could have happened, had Bunny been a more selfish person. Anyway. Rambles. I won't spoil it. Just read. READ. And please review, so I might be inspired, and write the next chapter, and get to the good (a.k.a. angsty) parts, and destroy practically everything I build xDDDD That's how I roll, graphic torture fics outta controlllll...Ahem. Anyway. Please review?

The day was exceedingly fine.

It was, in fact, the first nice day the little town of Berk had seen in what seemed like years; it was sometime in the first week of April, not quite Easter, not yet full spring but near enough nonetheless, and the warm winds had finally blown away the wet, frigid snows of the previous season. The spring sun glittered brightly, falling in powerful rays upon the grass, which had shed its brown colors for greener hues as of late. The skies were a perfect blue, and there was not a trace of any dark shades within the puffy white clouds rolling happily across the clear azure.

Hiccup Haddock tossed a final longing glance out the bus window, gave a small sigh and turned back to the page before him, showing a half-completed sketch of a mournful-looking hound; the animal's drooping ears and half-lidded eyes gave it a patient, saddened air. He lowered his pencil to the page again, mentally mapping out the rest of the dog, but the bus jerked to a sudden stop; when the driver cut the engine, the vehicle shuddered before falling obediently silent and still.

"Alright, class," the teacher at the front, a brunette woman with an enthusiastic smile, rose from her seat beside the driver, "we've arrived. Please remember that your presence here is a privilege, respect the rules of the museum, and conduct yourselves accordingly. And have fun!"

Hiccup erased a pencil mark before shutting his sketchbook and shoving it in his backpack as the other kids rose to their feet, chattering and laughing. The teacher exited the bus with her students and Hiccup lingered for as long as possible, slipping the backpack over his shoulder before thumping down the dirty black steps and beginning to follow the rest of his class.

Ahead of him, he could hear the Thorston twins grumbling to each other.

"Let's just get this done," Tuffnut muttered sourly. "Like, why do we have to look at art all day? It's so stupid."

"I know," Ruffnut replied mutinously. "And then we have to write an essay about something we saw here that…what was it?" She turned immediately to Fishlegs, a husky blond boy with a squeaky, nervous voice and a shy disposition.

"That made us feel things," he responded promptly, but softly.

"Like, what does that even mean?" Tuffnut almost shouted the words, and the other two shushed him.

"It's to give us an appreciation of art, nimrods," Astrid's cool, haughty voice cut through the conversation. "And to help us realize the power a piece can have over us." She blew a piece of shiny blond hair out of her gorgeous blue eyes, but it fell right back into place.

Upon seeing her, Hiccup's hands grew sweaty on the strap of his backpack, and he looked away, dropping his gaze to the grass under his feet. It was no good thinking about her, not when she barely knew he was alive – the brief interactions they had had during classes had let her know of his existence in the worst possible ways.

"I'll tell you how art makes me feel," Tuffnut shook out his waist-length hair. "Bored!"

"Tell me about it," Snotlout Jorgenson, Hiccup's cousin and least favorite person on earth, joined the conversation suddenly before glancing behind himself. When he locked eyes with his relative, an odd smile, similar to that of a smirk, twisted his lips. He turned back to his friends and spoke loudly enough to be sure the other heard. "Walk quicker, guys – the Useless is right behind us. I hear loser is catching."

Hiccup rather thought that his ears would not have burned; his cheeks would not have turned red; he would not have hung his head and stared at the grass for all the world as if it was the fascinating art of which they had just been speaking…if Astrid hadn't heard. He did not mind Snotlout's insults much; he only minded when the athletic blond girl was in the vicinity when he said them.

The twins cackled, and Snotlout grinned at the positive response; Fishlegs kept silent, as he always had, but Hiccup expected that. If he had a human friend at all, it would be the blond boy.

Astrid was also quiet, not laughing; but far from giving Hiccup hope, this only lowered his spirits further. The focus of his affections had never made fun of him before, like his cousin or the twins; had never kept silent out of loyalty, as Fishlegs did. In fact, she never took notice of Hiccup unless courtesy absolutely demanded; and when it did, she made it clear that she regarded him as little more than a waste of time.

And he rather thought he would have minded this quite a bit more had he not been so used to this feeling.

Sunny April days were almost unheard of in the town of Berk; so when high noon arrived, and the sun had risen higher in the sky and was brighter than ever, their teacher, Mrs. Yates, decided the students could lunch outside. Hiccup was pleased at the announcement, but the groaning of the teenagers beside him let him know that this was an unpopular opinion; he kept it to himself on the walk outside, and once there, he settled himself as far away from Snotlout and the twins as he could get. This meant that he ended up far away from everyone else, possibly out of earshot; he shrugged it off as he pulled out his lunch. He was sitting next to a bubbling, merry brook, and he was happy with the position, so he made no move to get up.

Earlier that morning, he'd sleepily slapped together a half-hearted turkey sandwich with an unidentifiable condiment from the fridge. He'd begun making his own lunches when he was much younger; with a late mother and workaholic father, it seemed it was this or go hungry. He set the brown paper bag in his lap, smoothing out the wrinkles, and took a bite of the sandwich.

As he steadily devoured the sandwich, he watched the creek, bubbling and streaming, silver water turned gold by the noon sun. When about half the sandwich had disappeared, and Hiccup had set the remaining bit down on the paper bag to take a drink of water, he allowed his eyes to sweep the grassy field whereupon they sat; and what he saw made him promptly choke.

After all, it wasn't every day you saw a gigantic, six-foot rabbit bounding with a woven basket on one furry arm, ears positioned to indicate satisfaction.

He immediately looked for a reaction from his classmates, but none of them had glanced up yet; everyone else was focused on their meal. Well…if nobody else had taken notice…perhaps it was nothing…even the basket could be excused, he told himself, for animals were known to do strange things in the name of self-defense.

Even so, he was filled with fascination and excitement at the sight of the animal, and watched it raptly. Ever since he was a small child, he'd had a soft spot for dogs, but it had grown into a love and interest in all animals, and he couldn't help hoping the large creature's journey would take it past him.

Almost as if reading his mind, the rabbit suddenly changed direction, bounding toward the trees, but in doing so, he had drawn closer to the boy, and Hiccup could swear he heard the creature mutter, "I'm gonna be late…" in a thick Australian accent.

Now he knew he was dreaming.

It was quite one thing to see a large rabbit; the bigger ones were not native to these lands, but Hiccup would not have thought the rabbit, even with the basket, such a strange sight on its own, but a talking rabbit?

The animal crossed the brook in an effortless leap, and had hopped away into the woods. Hiccup was left staring at the deserted grass where the rabbit had been, and he stood, squinting in the bright sunlight to try and catch a final glimpse of the furry creature; when his attempts yielded nothing, he glanced back at his classmates; nobody had yet seen him, or the rabbit, hard as it was to believe.

So Hiccup jumped over the creek, too, teetering for a breathless second on the bank; the ground here was slippery with mud, and his sneakers tried to stay behind when he attempted to keep going. He could just see the gray rabbit, a long way ahead of him, so he gave the quarrelsome shoes a tug, dislodging them from the mud, and dashed ahead, very nearly tripping many times in his excitement. The rabbit turned and vanished from view; when Hiccup rounded the corner himself, it was just in time to see the big, furry gray ears disappearing down a rabbit hole.

For a reason he couldn't explain, even to himself, Hiccup took a breath and jumped down the rabbit hole.