AN: Thanks for the reviews, they make me happy. Special props for MaxRideObsessed since I royally screwed up some timeline issues. I was off by a year, I believe. Well, to make things clearer, Max is fifteen in this story, so YAY.

Chapter Two: White Rabbit

"In another moment
down went Alice after it,
never once considering how in
the world she was to get out again."

- Lewis Carroll, Alice's Adventure's in Wonderland: Down the Rabbit Hole.

Max didn't want to wake up. She knew what she would see if she opened her eyes. Eight perfect corners, four white walls, and a floor of cold slate tiles. She had lived in this room for the first nine years of her life. Already she could recognize the smell of sterile metal and peroxide. However, the bed was deliciously comfortable, something that she did not remember being part of her life at the School. The bed was more recent. The soft pillow and fluffy blanket spoke of the faraway house where Jeb had taken the flock to live. It was wrong, so sickeningly wrong.

Max opened her eyes and found the same white ceiling she expected to see. The florescent lights made her eyes beg to shut again. However, she forced herself to turn her head and stare vacantly at the bedside table. At first, it puzzled her to see it there. Her bedcovers also had a pattern of light blues, green, and pink lines. It was a real bed, not the plain and lumpy hospital kind. In fact, it was her bed. Her exact same bed from the house.

Max sat up, senses confused as to where she was. The room felt like the School, but it looked like her old room, so much. Her bookcase, dresser, the carpet, and even her Mickey Mouse alarm clock were there. But… the ceiling.

She looked up again, finding it distressingly foreign and… it reminded her too much of the School. If it was her room, it wouldn't be a spotless white, but a light pastel color cream. Disoriented, Max turned to where her door was supposed to be.

Barred… glass window with wires.

That wasn't her door, this wasn't her room. She was in a copy, a twisted mockery of a past life she was happy in. Even as she looked around again, Max started noticing the slight differences. For one thing, the room was organized and clean, a state that her real room would never reach. Her blankets smelled of cheap detergent, not the scented flowery perfume that Jeb used. The lights were unnaturally bright rather than giving off a relaxing glow.

And there were no windows, of course.

How could she have even thought she was back at the house?

This was hell, a perfect form of torment the School had ever given her. Jeb did this. Her friend, her father figure, the person she had come to love. Max couldn't bear to look around her fake surroundings. She focused her attention on the flawless white ceiling.

Flawless, save for the wired security camera. Max could see her expression twist in the reflection of the lens.

"God dammit!" she shrieked.

The nearest object in her hands was the mini lamp. She hurled it with all her strength at the camera, not caring if the porcelain shards fell on her. The colorful lamp flew and missed, crashing against the wall. It wasn't even plugged in, as if the whitecoats knew she was going to throw it all along. Max snarled and grabbed her alarm clock. That too hit the same wall, leaving the camera dangling from the ceiling on a few black wires.

Still, it wasn't enough to vent out her anger. It was just too painful to be forced to look at a forged illusion, much less stay in it. This wasn't her home with Jeb. This was the School. This was where the twisted and traitor Jeb stayed, not the Jeb that became her father. She wanted the old Jeb back and her flock. Fang, Iggy, Nudge, Gazzy, and Angel, she missed all of them. Now they were either dead or locked within a brightly lit white room with a collar around their neck.

She reached for the next projectile, a thick book from her bedside. The weight felt good. Nice and heavy, it was sure to make a dent on the wall. She drew her arm back, catching the sight of the colorful cover before she let the book fly.

Alice's Adventures in Wonderland.

The book never made it to the wall. It thudded against the ground, ripping pages when it skidded. Max choked back a sob.

…Stupid book.

But she didn't throw anything else. Still on her bed, Max struggled to keep her composure. She was still furious and knew that nothing would be more satisfying than making a total wreck of this room. Her listless gaze fell on the ruined book. She was above throwing a tantrum like a child, though she privately felt that the camera deserved what it got.

Leaning her back against the bed rest, Max kicked the blankets off her body. Somebody had exchanged her dirty clothes for a cream hospital tunic. Max frowned. Her legs felt perfectly fine. She ran a hand against her thigh, noting that the place where the tranquilizer dart had hit her was nonexistent. In fact, she couldn't find any injuries that she received the night she was capture. It brought up a scary question in her mind.

How long was I out?

It couldn't be any more than a day or two. Max was familiar with the physical body weakness that came when one was confined to a bed. This wasn't the case. It was as if she had just woken up on any other day. Letting out a frustrated sigh, she shut her eyes. Think.

"You're late, Max!"

Her eyes flew open. Max sat up, twisting in the bed to take a look at her intruder. She recognized the voice, but not the figure in the open doorway. Like the room, she believed that not everything appeared as they were. However, she couldn't help out but call out the name.

"Angel?"

Max stared and wasn't sure what to make of it. What was in front of her was a little girl in a pure white Victorian style dress, save for it cut off at the knees and was extremely frilly. The matching sunhat and twirling parasol on her shoulder completed the very pretty ensemble. Angel smiled and Max melted. After being away from and worried about her favorite baby girl, Max couldn't help but get up from her bed and rush over to her.

"Oh Angel," Max said and asked, "Are you alright? Were you hurt? Where's everyone else?"

Max brought her arms out in a hug, but Angel nimbly stepped to the side. The parasol spun idly in her hands and her innocent smile did not falter.

"Late," the little girl said in a singsong voice, "There's no time at all! You're late!" With that, Angel skipped out of the room, leaving the door wide open.

She couldn't help it. Whether it was motherly instincts or the need for company, Max followed her.

Outside her room looked like any other hospital. However, the area was eerily empty, causing Max to speed up her pace. She didn't want to lose sight of Angel and be alone.

Yet the matter of catching up was becoming impossibly difficult. Max knew she was a fast runner and she knew that Angel couldn't possibly beat her in a race. Past games of tag proved it many times. But… Max was running her hardest and Angel was still managing to increase the distance between them. Not only that, but the younger girl was skipping. Max stared in disbelief. With each skip, Angel flew several yards. At first, Max thought that she was somehow using her wings, but Angel still held the parasol behind her, obscuring her back. Max couldn't even see her wings.

The realization almost stopped Max in her tracks. She couldn't see Angel's wings because of the parasol. It might not be Angel after all. The parasol was suppose to cover the fact up.

Max felt her legs start to ache. It took her a moment to become aware that she had been running in a straight line for a very, very long time. The hallway was never ending. She passed identical doors and when she tried to read the room number, she found that she was running to fast to comprehend the signs. Max couldn't slow down either in fear of losing Angel, or her imposter.

"If you think so, then we can make a turn," giggled Angel, spinning gracefully of her heel and shooting down an intersecting hallway. Even at her fast pace, Angel had time to glance directing at Max and grin.

Max swore that she didn't see the second hallway there the last time she looked up.

"Angel, wait-" she shouted but then the words got caught in her throat. She had only a brief second to catch a glimpse of Angel before the girl had disappeared in the other hallway. However, Max thought she saw a pair of perky rabbit ears on top of Angel's head. Trick of the light? Max blinked. She was sure it was Angel; after all, her mind had been read.

Max skidded and made the turn into the second hallway. She nearly fell, but easily caught her balance. When she glanced up, she was surprised to see Angel not too far off. It was as if she was waiting for her. Max gave a sigh of relief before turning into a growl of frustration when Angel took off again.

Yet unlike the first hallway, this one had a dead end. Max could see the checkered wall with a silver handle right in the middle. There were also some words painted on but Max was still too far away to read it. She was at least twenty feet away from Angel when the younger girl grabbed the silver handle and flung it open. It wasn't even a door, but Max spotted the words 'laundry chute' in an odd and gaudy font.

Angel removed the parasol from her shoulder and started to fold it. There was no helping it, Max halted and paled. She watched in growing horror as Angel's snowy white wings shook itself loose. Bright scarlet blood dripped from the feathers, as if they leaked from the end of every shaft. Max tried to tell herself that Angel was injured somehow, but the way the blood flowed from her wings was unnatural for a wound. It wasn't even flowing blood, but thick clots that seemed to ooze like tar.

"Oh, my god..."

Angel caught Max staring and tilted her head, rabbit ears lifting. Her blood dripped on the floor till there flecks of crimson everywhere. However, her dress remained curiously white. Shouldering her closed parasol, Angel gave a tiny curtsy.

"You wouldn't want to be late, Max," she said with a solemn nod. Then she smiled. That same naïve smile.

Climbing into the laundry chute, Angel gave a wave and pushed herself in. The little door swung closed with a squeak, leaving Max frightfully alone in the hallway.

She slowly approached the laundry chute and opened it. A peculiar smell wafted from the opening. Max wrinkled her nose. It was faint, but noticeable. The smell of blood must have been from Angel. Looking in, Max could see it slope like a slide into darkness.

"This is definitely not your average laundry chute," she muttered.

Max considered her options. She could remain here, alone and lost… or she could follow the girl (if it was a girl) that looked like Angel (unless it really was her) down the chute. Max liked the latter better. At least she would have something to do.

Climbing into the shaft, Max shivered as her hands braced against the cold and slightly damp metal. She didn't dare take a breath, imagining the smell to get stronger if she went further down. There was no light, no markers, nothing but black.

But what did she have to lose?

"Here I go," Max said quietly and lifted her hands.

The effect was terrifyingly immediate. Her heart leapt to her throat as she was thrown forward by an unknown force. She slid faster and faster and when she looked back, the light from the entrance was slowly fading away.

Did Alice feel the same way when she went down...?

Max felt the hairs on the back of her neck rise. She yelped and scrambled for a hand or foot hold. A powdery substance she could not see covered her hands and make it impossible to stop the sliding. She cursed and heard the echo ring mockingly in her ears.

The book, Angel's white dress, her rabbit ears, the laundry chute…

Why hadn't she noticed?!

Max desperately tried to stop herself. She choked back a sob that came from horror and fear mingled with frustration and anger. It was sick. She wasn't waking up. Why was this happening?

She was going down the rabbit hole, down to Wonderland.

End Chapter.