Chapter One

"Alice, would you please pay attention?" a voice said from above the girl's head. Alice looked up to see her mother staring down at her. She had an annoyed look on her face and her hands were balled into loose fists at her hips.

Alice tilted her head to the side questioningly. Her mother sighed and said, "Seriously, do you ever pay attention?" Alice opened her mouth to answer, but then thought better of it and closed it again.

Her mother sighed again and turned to walk away, "Never mind, I give up for today. Go ahead and do what you want," she said over her shoulder, waving her hand in dismissal. Alice quietly got up and collected her school things.

She had been home-schooled by her mother, Anna, since she was old enough to learn—which, for her had been at the age of five. She was sixteen now and her home-schooling had become nothing more than a bother to her for the past four years so, naturally, she wasn't really giving her lessons her complete attention. Now, Alice was quite bright, yes, but she just didn't have much of an interest in learning anymore. Her mother knew that, of course, and she seemed to try less and less to get her daughter to cooperate with every day that passed. Alice had taken this opportunity to have fun and enjoy herself and so now she was headed to the woods behind her home.

She had always loved to explore there, ever since she was little, and so now every day-in the time in which she should have been focusing on her schoolwork—she had spent a lot of time there, looking for new things and places under the shady branches of the trees.

Many paths of dry, beaten soil wound through and around the many trunks with in the forest, and it was a new, unexplored one that Alice followed today. She followed it for some time, delving deeper and deeper into the trees, until the path began to swerve back and forth in a sort of zigzag pattern. It was as if a child had drawn a long, curvy line of rough soil and pebbles through the woods, without any known purpose to it. Alice stopped. In front of her was a large clearing, in the middle of which was a large tree, with gnarled roots and leafless branches. Sighing in delight, Alice ran towards the tree but then stopped once again. At the base of the old tree was a small, snow white rabbit.

Alice crept forward slowly, trying not to startle it. Suddenly, its head whipped around to stare at her. It tried to hop forward, but one of its front paws crumpled beneath him. Alice, moving more swiftly now, started towards it. The rabbit recovered and limped quickly around the other side of the tree. Alice was running now. She whipped around the tree reaching her hands out to catch the rabbit. But it was gone. Confused, Alice started to straighten up—until she saw it. A fairly large hole seemed to have been dug at the base of the tree, in between two wide roots. Kneeling down, Alice peered down into the hole. It was very dark, as if the hole led to a tunnel.

"Hello?" Alice called and her voice echoed down into the hole, only stopping after about half a minute or so. She sat there for a few moments, pondering the strange hole. Suddenly a gust of wind blew at Alice's back, along with another gust blowing down into the hole. Alice felt as if she were being pulled in, and in a matter of moments she had been sucked into the hole and was tumbling down, down, down.

Alice blinked open her eyes to darkness. She sat straight up in surprise, only to find her head bumping into the hard, brown earth above her. "Ouch!"

Rubbing the top of her head where she had hit it, she squinted her eyes. As they adjusted to the gloom, she could make out rounded dirt walls around her and a solid dirt ceiling above her, roots sticking out of it. With a jolt, Alice realized that she was inside the earth. Where else could I be? she thought.

"I must have fallen down that hole…" she said to herself. Turning around where she sat, she tried to make out some sort of light, but found none. She looked around slowly, trying to find a way out of the tunnel and back up to the surface of the earth. The tunnel seemed to continue in only one direction.

"Well there's only one way to go," she mumbled, and began to crawl forward. It seemed as if she had been crawling for miles and her back had begun to ache from be hunched over for so long. How far down did I fall? she thought. She was about to stop and rest, when a dim light suddenly appeared in front of her. She quickly scrambled towards it. Emerging from the tunnel, Alice blinked in surprise, finding that the sun was slowly descending behind the trees. How long had she been down there? She looked around. She seemed to be back in the same clearing, and the gnarled tree was still there, behind her. Much to her surprise, most of the leaves on the trees were gone as if it were fall, although Alice knew it was still spring. On top of that, the path that had led her to the clearing was gone and the trees that had always seemed welcoming now looked dark and ominous.

Feeling somewhat frightened now, Alice shivered, even though the breeze was warm. She slowly headed into the trees, aware of every sound, if there were any sound at all that is. The only thing she could hear was the soft crunch of leaves and the occasional twig underneath her feet. She wondered on for some time, now jumping at the sound of every twig that snapped underfoot.

Suddenly, a black cat jumped out in front of her. Alice screamed. It was the largest cat she'd ever seen, what with the top of his head reaching up to her waist. Stranger still, his ears were longer than that of a normal cat-they must have been about three or four inches long and 2 inches wide-and his tail reached long out behind him, around three feet long.

The cat put a front paw to his lips—which was quite a peculiar thing for a cat to do, even and especially for one as big as this—seeming to signal for silence. Alice ceased her screaming. At this, he lowered his paw only to raise a hind one and used it to scratch behind one of his ears. As he lowered his paw once more the strangest thing happened. The cat's shape changed; growing and reforming.

Then-in flash of brilliant, white light—the cat was gone and in his place sat a boy. He seemed to be only a few years older than Alice, at her sixteen years of life. He had bright pink hair with white at the ends and deep, turquoise blue eyes. He was quite tall, while when standing would surely be a good three inches taller than Alice. His pale almost-white skin looked smooth as if it were made of porcelain. Last of all, and one of the two strangest things about him, was that instead of regular human ears a pair of cat ears sat atop his head—bright pink with white tips to match his medium-length hair—and a long tail protruding from the base of his spine—also bright pink and white.

Stunned, Alice just stared. The cat-boy stood up and walked over to her, took her hand, and placed a kiss on top of it. He looked up and said softly, "My name is Lanzá. It's quite nice to finally meet you…Alice." At this, his mouth curved into a wide grin that reached from ear to ear.

Alice pulled her hand back and stifled a shout of fright. Stepping back, she managed to choke out, "H-how do you know my name?"

Straightening up, Lanzá replied, "Oh, I believe everyone here knows your name." Turning away he added, "Although, I'm afraid that my name is much less popular."

Blinking, Alice ventured to asked, "And where exactly is 'here'?"

Lanzá snapped his head around, making her jump. He turned and stalked back to her, only stopping when his face was a few inches from hers. She held her ground this time and he tilted his head to the side. "Madness," he replied simply and then backed away.

"….Madness?" she repeated after a moment.

"Yes, Madness."

Thoroughly confused now, Alice kept silent, until Lanzá's ears twitched and he suddenly reached out and latched onto her wrist. "Wha-"

"No time," the cat-boy hissed, pulling her through the trees.

He's fast! Alice thought, panting with the effort to keep up. The blur of trees and undergrowth seemed to go on forever until suddenly they stopped moving. Alice collapsed to the ground with a huff. Lanzá seemed to be unfazed by the run and was still standing and as alert and energetic as ever.

Alice looked around and noticed that the trees had thinned out and that the moon was now shining high in the night sky. "Where are we?" she asked.

Lanzá reached his arm out to pull aside a low-hanging branch, revealing a large field. In the middle of the field, Alice could just make out what looked like a long table with various colored chairs around it.

"Welcome….to Hatter's Mansion." Lanzá purred, and another ear to ear grin spread across his face.