Matthew didn't like this. Not at all. He knew the faces, he knew the people, he'd memorized everything about everyone that would be attending this party for him. But he hated them all. The fake smiles plastered on their faces, the random gifts that they had someone else wrap for them, the idle chatter as none of them looked at him. Matthew hated it. He hated parties, he hated being forced to be the center of attention, and his family knew that.

But they still conducted a party for him. His family was important, one of the top manufacturers in North America, and so all kinds of dignitaries from around the world came to this stupid party because Matthew was turning 21. Alfred, Matthew's younger brother by two years, loved these kinds of things. He basked in the attention and laughed and smiled with everyone, making idle chatter with the knowledge he had memorized just like Matthew. There were always long guest lists and they had to do their research. Know about that girl's dog and that guy's sick parents, and then start conversations. Matthew hated it, Alfred loved it. That was always the core difference between them. They looked almost exactly alike, but Matthew liked to be quiet. Alfred loved to be loud.

And so, Matthew stood near the table, not caring to look around at the meaningless faces around him, holding onto a his cup of punch tightly, but not tight enough to break the glass. Alfred was aimlessly conversing with everyone, talking about their kids, talking about their goals after they graduated college. It was all the same conversation to Matthew. It didn't mean anything.

Matthew yawned. He hadn't gotten any sleep the night before, he'd been so nervous for this. He hated these events, mostly for the people that tried to converse with him. He didn't like to talk to people he didn't know, but everyone wanted to talk to him. Especially if it was his own birthday. Matthew yawned again and fell back slightly onto the table. He was definitely sleeping well that night. He could already tell.

He sighed as he looked around the crowd, forcing all of them to be faceless aside from his brother. He wished his brother would stay close to him so he wouldn't be bored all of the time during these parties while Alfred ran off to talk to everyone. He was the one person he didn't mind talking to. But, no, his life just couldn't be easy, could it? Someone started walking up to him. Matthew offered a shy smile before darting in the other direction, leaving his punch glass on the table to be forgotten.

He looked around for Alfred again, but his brother was nowhere to be seen. Matthew sighed heavily, where could his brother have gone? All of these people were putting him on edge, maybe he just needed to go and cool off. The party was already outside, close to the maze they had made in the garden out of rose bushes. Before anyone else could look at him and try talking to him, Matthew left the area laid out for all of their guests and went into the maze.

He sighed with relief as he walked and the music of the party slowly drowned away from his hearing. He smiled at the beautiful rose bushes and sighed happily. This was nice, this was okay. A chance for him to be alone. He was happy when he wasn't pressured to always talk to people. His parents just didn't realize this. Alfred sort of did, but he never did anything to help Matthew out.

Matthew turned a random corner, not even sure where he really was anymore, and saw something…strange. It was Alfred, but something was off. He still wore a suit that nearly matched Matthew's own, but now he was holding a pocket watch, something Matthew had never seen him wear before. And then there was his ears. Matthew had to blink and rub his eyes to make sure he wasn't seeing things. He had…bunny ears on top of his head. Pure white.

"Alfred?" Matthew asked and Alfred looked back at him with a smirk and a wink before running off. Matthew was left really confused. His brother was always up to something, but never something like this. Especially not in the middle of a party he was obviously enjoying just a moment beforehand. So, Matthew did the most logical thing he could think of. He chased his brother.

Alfred lead him through many twists and turns of the maze that they both knew extremely well. The more Matthew followed him, the more he noticed about those ears. They…twitched and moved with the wind and moved his hair with them. How did Alfred find something like that? What possessed him to want rabbit ears, of all things?

Finally, they ran out of the maze and Matthew stumbled to a stop. Right in front of him was a huge hole, so deep it looked pitch black all the way down. Matthew stared at it with wide eyes as he regained his breath after running for so long. He was really confused, though. Where had this hole come from? This was all really weird…He couldn't understand. Where had Alfred gone? Did he fall in the hole? No, Matthew would have heard him yell in surprise.

"Wow, that's some fall there," Alfred laughed behind him and Matthew jumped to glare at his brother, who just laughed.

"What are you even doing? Shouldn't you be at the party?" Matthew snapped.

"The party down there?" Alfred glanced behind him. "I'm taking you there right now, silly."

"What?" Matthew asked, shaking his head. How had Alfred even gotten there? None of this made any sense!

"Have a nice trip!" Alfred winked and pushed Matthew backwards. Matthew immediately wheeled his arms around and tried to grab onto his brother, but he had already fallen too far. He plunged into the hole, screaming for his life.

He could feel his heart in his head as he screamed, trying desperately to grab onto something, but he couldn't reach the walls around him. Wind rushed past his head and he could hardly hear his own screams. He could hardly breathe.

And he just…continued to fall. Matthew slowly regained his wits about him and he was still falling. The feeling in his gut slowly dulled, the blackness surrounding him. Just as he almost grew comfortable, he landed onto something, hitting it only as hard as if he would have fallen from his own height. Matthew stared ahead, watching the black slowly morph into a bright, clear, blue sky. Clouds moved easily in front of him.

Maybe he just passed out from being tired, maybe that was just a dream. It felt like there was grass on his back, maybe he just passed out in the garden. He just couldn't shake the feeling that something felt…off. That fall had felt so real, Alfred pushing him had felt so real. Matthew shook his head and slowly tried to get up, but then another weird thing happened.

A face popped up above him and Matthew screamed, falling back onto his back. He didn't recognize this person at all and his heart pounded once again. This man had wicked red eyes and bright white hair. He gave Matthew a bright smirk, showing off his oversized canines. The thing that stood out the most, however, was the fact that he had purple cat ears peeking out over his head.

"Wow, that was some fall!" the man gave out a cackling laugh while Matthew pressed himself as far as he could into the grass below him. This was weird. Definitely not normal. Definitely not the party. At Matthew's reaction, the man laughed harder, disappearing from sight and Matthew glanced back. The man was resting on his backside, holding onto his stomach, he was laughing so hard. Matthew saw a purple tail dance along the grass beside him. He was fairly well dressed, too, in a strapping suit that didn't seem to suit him at all.

"Wh-who are…" Matthew cursed himself for being unable to properly talk to strangers. "Who…"

"Don't get all tongue tied now," the man smirked while Matthew sat upright and turned towards him. He noticed that they were in some kind of large clearing, surrounded by deep forest on all sides. Before Matthew could react, the man was leaning close to him, running a single finger up his chin and making him look the man in the eyes. "I know I'm gorgeous and all."

Matthew was speechless. He blushed brightly as he stared at the crimson eyes of the man in front of him. The man looked like he expected an answer, but Matthew's voice had long since packed up and gone away. He sputtered instead, finally thinking to crawl away from the man, who pouted.

"Come on," the man smirked and, suddenly, he disappeared from sight. "I liked hearing your voice." Matthew screamed and jumped, immediately looking behind him, where the voice had come from. Surprisingly, the man was there. "No matter how quiet it is," the man smirked, leaning closer again. This time, Matthew thought to quickly get onto his feet, away from the maniac trying to get close to him.

"Get…get away," Matthew muttered and the man raised an eyebrow before disappearing again.

"Where did you have in mind?" His voice asked from nowhere in particular, but then Matthew saw him in the trees a fair way in front of him. "I can go anywhere, just ask." He disappeared again. "I can go backwards." That time the voice was behind Matthew again, but when he looked, the man was long gone. "Or forwards." That was to his side, but Matthew was too slow once again.

"Just….stop!" Matthew snapped and the man appeared in front of him with a bow and a smirk.

"As you wish," the man winked at him on his way back to standing properly. Matthew's blush returned with a vengeance.

"Where… Who…" Matthew's mind was reeling, going way too fast for him to figure out any of his thoughts. He had too many questions, and he couldn't even formulate the words to get him out.

"Where?" the man hummed and started walking around Matthew in circles, almost like he was the cat's prey. "You can call it whatever you would like, but I particularly enjoy the name Wonderland, it's got a nice ring to it. Who? Well, I come with many names as well, but you may call me Gilbert, if it pleases you, Matthew."

"How…how did you…"

"Know your name?" Gilbert winked at him, stopping right in front of him. "Well, I would have to, now wouldn't I?"

"Why?" Matthew asked carefully. He had to tiptoe around this guy, crazy as he was. Those ears and tail were interesting enough on their own, but with his disappearing act Matthew couldn't explain, he had to be on edge. Was this a dream? No, it felt far too real to be a dream. What was this, then?

"You ask way too many questions," Gilbert smirked, leaning close once again. "You remind me of Kiku." He laughed and took a step back, much to Matthew's relief. He tried to regain his bearings. At least, at the moment, Gilbert didn't look like he was about to kill him, so that was a plus. He looked around at the forest. There had to be some way around all of this, there had to be some kind of normal person he could talk to. "Wanna figure out where to go?" Gilbert asked, far too close to Matthew's ear. Matthew jumped away and glared at the cat, who simply gave him a smirk. "Well," Gilbert leaned on Matthew's shoulder, but he felt nothing, not even Gilbert's touch. "Depends where you wanna go."

"Home…" Matthew mumbled and Gilbert raised an eyebrow.

"Home?" He scoffed. "That boring place? Why the hell would you wanna go back? To the boring parties and the boring ass people?"

"I should go back," Matthew muttered and Gilbert groaned, pushing off of him and walking slowly in front of him.

"Fine, party pooper," Gilbert rolled his eyes. "I know a guy. Follow me and you'll be safe." Gilbert whirled around to a random direction with a smirk and started walking, disappearing shortly afterwards. He didn't reappear.

"Gilbert?" Matthew asked, looking around. There was no sign of the man and Matthew sighed heavily, facing the last direction Gilbert had. Follow him, eh? "I hope I can trust him…" Matthew shook his head, knowing it was a stupid idea to follow anything a strange man he'd just met said. But he really had no other choice, at least not if he wanted to know where he was going. He couldn't afford to get lost. He had to go home.

So he started his trek into the forest, being extremely careful not to change his direction from the one Gilbert had before he disappeared. He trudged through this Wonderland, hoping that this wasn't all there really was to it.

Yay! Happy December everybody! I'm so happy! I'm going to do what I did in October and basically update this short little thing sporadically throughout the month, ending hopefully on Christmas and then posting something else entirely on New Years' Eve! It's a party! Anyway…

I've noticed a lot of people doing Alice in Wonderland fics recently and I really wanted to try it, especially now that my friend's got me hooked on the manga "Alice in the Country of Hearts" and all of the series that follow after it. I'm obsessed. But it's not a bad thing. In any case, I'm twisting the plotline to fit my own needs, but expect to see characters from Hetalia as characters from Alice in Wonderland or Through the Looking Glass or whatever really came first, I don't know. Also, this will be a PruCan, but I don't think there are any other explicit pairings, except maybe AusHun because it's so easy to hint at.

So…next chapter look forward to meeting….The Caterpillar.

And please review!

Oh, and I do not and never will own Hetalia!