Long ago, there was a Wonderland, and there was an Alice. Wonderland had been a happy, strange place of wonders, created from Alice's thoughts, hopes, dreams, wishes, and desires. Alice is gone now so what's left for Wonderland? Will it fade? No. The stubbornness that had been a part of Alice led Wonderland to gain a kind of intelligence all its own. Now, its own self perseverance led it to corrupt itself in order to survive. Still only a place of dreams, it waits to ensnare people in its twisted web of fantasy. Lucky for it, people are always looking for a place to escape to…

This is based from both the book Alice in Wonderland and the song Alice Human Sacrifice.

"The sentence for the murderess, known only as the 'Bloody Diamond,' is death by firing squad," the judge read out, sounding pompous and too self-satisfied.

The once terrifying murderess that he spoke of now looked broken. Her weapons had been removed and she was bound in chains so that her innate fighting and killing ability would be useless. Even her own clothes had been taken away, so that she wore nothing but gray rags. Her usually fiery red hair, which currently was falling into her face, was a mess of rats' nests and was so filth that it looked grayish-brown.

"Are the gunmen prepared?" He received a curt nod. He looked down at the captured woman, known only by her dark alias, received by carving diamonds into her victims, which turned red with their outpouring blood. The man glanced at the captive on death row, and his face flowed into a contemptuous smile, even as he shifted his eyes so he did not have to look directly at her. "Miss," he asked in a voice that flowed like too sweet honey, "would you like a blindfold?"

"No thank you," she replied. "I, unlike you, would rather look death in the face." She returned his smile with one as sharp as a knife's edge. The judge shuttered and completely turned from her, in disgust or horror, she didn't know. She hoped for horror.

"Just shoot her already!" The gunmen prepared to comply.

She stared them all down and waited. The woman, who really wasn't old enough to be considered a woman, but not young enough to be a child, saw the guns fire as if in slow motion. She felt the first bullets pierce her and thought I refuse to let my life end like this, and then everything went black.

From the darkness rose memories of the girl when she was a younger. They were nothing more than fragments, but enough to hit the girl emotionally.

First was a memory of knitting with her mother:

"But mother, I don't want to learn how to be a lady...father says that I don't have to... He says that he's proud of the way that I am."

"Well, your father doesn't know what he's talking about. If I do one thing right in this family, it will be to raise you to be a normal girl, and then a normal lady."

"But my brothers get to do whatever they want, no repercussions. That's not fair! I'm just as smart and as strong as them, if not more so. And what do you mean right? There's nothing wrong with our family is there?"

"No!" her mother replied quickly. "No, there's nothing wrong with our family. Nothing at all..." Her mother glanced away while mutter something about her daughter dropping a stitch.

The next memory was the beginning of the end.

Sneaking around the house when she should be sleeping, something her father encouraged her to do. Her mother would have a fit. It wasn't her fault if she couldn't sleep though. And why did mother have such a fit about it? It wasn't as if she was prying into secret things, she just wanted an extra snack to help her get back to sleep.

Silently hurrying back up the stairs, she headed for bed as soon as she hit the landing...or at least she intended to until she saw light spilling out under the door of her parents' room.

"Al, you can't keep this up, she's going to find out!" It was her mother's voice.

"So what if she does? I intend on taking her into the business anyways. You're useless domestic tricks aren't going to be of any help to her then." Her father's voice.

"That's not the life I want for our daughter!"

"Oh, but you'd have our son's go running headlong into it?"

"NO! But she's just a little girl! She's a sweet, innocent-"

"SO WERE YOU!"

"I WASN'T AS YOUNG AS SHE IS! Do you want her to die?"

"Of course not! God, I can't thing what I'd do if anything happened to her!"

"Then why are you pushing this?"

"Because she's the most logical option. She'll be a major asset to us."

"How can you go from seeming to lover her to turning her into a technicality? What if she doesn't want to be a part of this?"

"Then I can't force her. But have you ever thought about the fact that she might not want the life you want for her?"

"Of course I have! I just want to try though..."

"Then let her try the life I want her to have."

"...fine..."

The girl heard movement within the room and shot backwards, forgetting to be careful of the floorboards. One of them made a loud creak.

"What was that?" The girl raced quietly back to her room

The last memory brought tears to her eyes. It was the beginning of the end...her end.

"Mother? Father? Brothers?" The little girl shyly entered her home. It was unusual for no one to be there to greet her after she got back from 'training'. Normally, they would be there, asking if she were alright and how she had done.

"Hello-AHHHHHHH!" As she rounded a corner, her innocent questioned greeting turned to a bloodcurdling scream. Lying on the floor with their blood splattered everywhere; lay the mangled, near unrecognizable bodies of her family.

"Aw, I missed one. Are you ready to die little assassin?" A man stepped out of the shadows. He was covered in blood and carried a knife in one hand. He took a couple steps towards her.

"Wh-wh-what are you talking about?" She retreated a couple steps in response to his advance.

"Did you not know? Oh well. Then I guess you'll never know the reason for your death." The man suddenly lunged at her. Even years later, she still didn't know what really transpired that night. All she knew was that one minute; the man was leaping at her, intent on killing her as he had her family. The next, he lay dead, next to her slain family. What had scared her most, at the time was, she enjoyed seeing him mangled and dead.

"Who am I? What am I?" the little girl whispered to herself.

She awoke to sunlight streaming cheerily down onto her face. She sat up quickly.

Where am I? she asked herself. How am I not dead?

"Who...are you?" a quiet, almost mocking voice asked behind her.

The girl was on her feet and spun around in seconds, reaching for knifes the had reappeared, along with her usual clothes. Though this was a mild surprise to her, the sight before her was an even greater shock. The one who had spoken to her was a small boy, all in blue, up in a tree. And blue he was, from his clothing to his hair. The only thing about him that seemed to NOT be blue was his eyes, and seemed an empty void of black, no white, or separation from pupil to iris. That wasn't even the oddest part of the picture, in the child's left hand, there sat a hookah pipe, something a child should NOT be in possession of.

Blinking away the confusion, she retorted, "I might ask you the same question."

"But I know who I am. Who are you? You're not Alice, are you?"

"No, I'm not Alice. And it really doesn't matter if you know who you are, I still don't."

"Do you even know who you are?"

"Of course I do. I'm Diamond."

"Are you sure?" The boy jumped down.

"Of course I am. Who else would I be?"

"Who knows?" The boy stared intently past Diamond.

"Still," out of a pure defense instinct, Diamond glanced back, "who are you?" Seeing no one, she returned her attention to the boy, but he had vanished. In his place was a blue butterfly.

"How strange..." Glancing around, fully for the first time, Diamond noticed a sign pointing down a path labeled 'To The Flower House.' She hummed to herself and decided it would be best to follow the path, even though it went against her nature to follow paths. Paths and roads mean people who could identify you. In this new place, though, where she had no clue as to what lurked within the trees; a path to people seemed to be just what Diamond needed, as long as they weren't like the strange child in the tree.