CHAPTER 1

"You're quite certain, White?"

"Beyond a doubt, sir. It's her. I'd know her anywhere." The rabbit's nose twitched uncontrolably, betraying his otherwise calm exterior. The red-haired figure frowned down at the creature.

"I don't wish to be pessimistic, but you do realize, of course, that you haven't the most exemplary record in this regard."

White rubbed his paws nervously, but spoke with all the vigor his tiny frame could muster. "I understand, sir. Last time was a horrible mistake and I swear to you it won't happen again. I'm sure this time," He looked between the two figures, pink eyes imploring. "It's her."

The two humans made brief eye contact, the girl raising an eyebrow slightly. After a pause, the boy looked back at the rabbit and inclined his head: an acquiescence. "Then by all means, fetch her at once."

White nodded vigourously. "Of course, sir. I'll leave immediately." He glanced quickly between the two present one last time and scurried from the room, the door swinging shut behind him with a bang.

"You think he's got it right this time?" The girl asked quietly.

"Who knows." The boy replied lightly. As he stared towards the door, his mouth narrowed into a tense line. "The only think we know for sure is that we're running out of time."

Samantha Collins was running out of time too.

She adjusted her overstuffed bag again as she powerwalked, trying to keep it from slipping off her shoulder, and cursing under her breath. Her short blonde hair was a mess, clothes haphazard, face unwashed, all results of a missed alarm and a 9 am class. The temperate morning and gentle sunshine on the sidewalk had no effect on her as she stormed down the empty side street, thinking of the lecture she would miss part of and the presentation she was supposed to give afterwards. In the corner of her vision, something white darted by. She barely spared it notice. Her team mates were going to kill her for being late! At this thought she whipped out her phone to check the time again for the umpteenth time. 8:58. and she was still fifteen minutes from the building! She groaned aloud and picked up her pace, shifting her backpack again and swiping her phone unlocked. Again something white tickled the edge of her vision, but she ignored it.

hey! I'm rly sorry but I'm running late :((((( overslept. let everybody know for me?

The message sent to her classmate and project teammate Tania bleeped its arrival.

White ran alongside her, darting in front and then behind, trying futilely to catch her attention. He felt mounting frustration that he was unable to call out to her; for unknowable reasons the mirror world always had a disturbing silencing effect on animal travelers.

At a loss for what else to do, White, as politely as he could, reached out and tapped her gently on the leg. Samantha slowed her walk, confusion overtaking her concern, as her eyes darted around below her. In a split second, two things happened: one, her eyes landed on White, two feet of fluff and a scruffy blue waistcoat, and two, her foot hit an irregularity in the curb, the combination causing her to stumble violently, phone flying from her hand, backpack tumbling to the curb, and Samantha hitting the pavement rear-first.

"God, fuck! Ow! God DAMN it!" Sam swore with vigor, shaking her head in attempt to reorient herself. When she opened her eyes, the white rabbit was sitting next to her, nose twitching expectantly. Instictively, she scrambled backwards. "What the fuck." The rabbit gestured, seemingly coherent, and Sam put a hand over her mouth in shock. "What the fuck. Is this some kind of joke!?" Her eyes darted to her phone, which lay beyond the rabbit in front of her. There were no other people in sight. Sight firmly on the rabbit, who was now gesturing more emphatically, she slowly leaned around him, trying to grab it-

Until the rabbit caught on. White had no idea what it was, but Alice seemed very interested in the slim black box she had dropped, and wasn't responding to his very clear signals, so he decided to go out on a limb. He darted a rabbit-reflex hand out and snatched the thing from under her fingers. This got a reaction, at least; she immediately froze; before she could react further he hopped a few feet away and held it out to her.

Rising uncertainly to her feet, Sam took a tentative step forward. Surely, she was going insane; this was a two-foot-tall rabbit in clothing who seemed to be trying to communicate with her. What? She gingerly held out a hand for her phone. The rabbit reacted quickly, hopping another few feet away and then waving it at her, clearly aware of what he was doing. Her shock soured to annoyance and she scowled; whatever was going on here, she did not have time for it. Sam lunged at the rabbit, who took off into the trees. Grabbing her backpack, she ran after him, the sidewalk quickly disappearing behind her.

This way and that, the rabbit wove through the trees, continuously stopping to taunt her with her phone. "Give that back!" She yelled futilely, her legs feeling like weights for all the good they were doing her. Getting progressively more winded, she stumbled through branches that clawed at her hair and arms, the rabbit too nimble to be bothered with them. Suddenly, the pursuit stopped— White was paused next to a giant oak some twenty feet away, holding her phone up tantalizingly. Sam took a cautious step forward. The rabbit, nose twitching furiously, did not react, except to keep his beady pink eyes trained on her. Sam took another step, and another, drawing closer, moving gently. "Good rabbit," she coaxed, hands out, "Stay riiiiight there."

When she was three paces away, Sam braced herself, took a half step back for momentum, and launched herself at White, trying grab her phone. What happened exactly, she couldn't tell; but she left the ground, the rabbit disappeared in a streak of white, and she did not meet the ground again as she'd expected to. White nodded as he watched alice disappear down the rabbit hole in a flash, discarding the strange piece of metal she'd been after.

Sam fell.

A harsh scream flew from her lips, echoing off the walls around her as she plummeted downwards. Air whooshed past her ears and whipped through her hair as the horrific, gut-wrenching nausea of gravity gripped her abdomen like a vice. She tumbled ungracefully even as she picked up speed, every instinct in her screaming in confusion as she continued her descent, seconds dragging on in the blackness. Through the overload of adrenaline, it was hard to think, but one thing seemed very clear to her: she should not still be falling. Through flailing panic, she forced herself to look up, just in time to see a tiny pinprick of light above her become too small to see, though, strangely, despite the tunnel's overwhelming darkness, she had no problem seeing her own body. Experimentally, she tried to move other appendages, the feeling of helpless horror slowly abating. She turned this way and that, discovering that different positions seemed to affect her speed. She let out a long breath.

"I'm still falling." She eventually said out loud, noticing the way the words seemed to be snatched out of her mouth, said into a space that she quickly passed by. "HELLO?" She yelled, as loud as she could. No answer. Not that she'd really expected one, she guessed. Sam continued to fall, the experience unsettling but no longer terrifying. "I'm going to die." Sam said aloud, finding speaking to be the only thing of novelty available to her, and death to be inevitable. "I'm falling to the center of the earth, and I'm going to die." Sam folded her arms. "That fucking sucks."

Sam continued to fall, trying to summon the will to be afraid of dying, or mad that her life was over, or sorrow that she'd never see her family again. None of these things came to her, however; her fall didn't seem real. She felt both shellshocked and perfectly calm. If she closed her eyes, the whooshing of the wind seemed almost comforting, though it was impossible to relax in such a state. The descent went on for what might have been fifteen minutes and might have been three hours; it was impossible to tell, and the experience seemed hazy, somehow. At some point, Sam noticed a light beneath her, a pinprick of white in the endless expanse of darkness. It grew in strength as she approached it rapidly, the speed at which she moved suddenly recontextualized, and it gradually became more and more blinding. Sam shut her eyes and threw her arms before her head as she plunged into it.