CHAPTER ONE

Of Who and Why or "...and thus grew the tale of Wonderland, thus slowly one by one"

In which a girl named Alice wakes up in the middle of a dense forest, but who is she really? Meanwhile, other people start waking up all around this strange land.

She was running.

When she had first woken up, she was actually kind of confused. It had seemed to her, for unseen reasons, that she was in a large, blacker than night wood. At first she felt helpless. Afraid even.

But then she remembered her name.

And it all came back her.

So now she was running. Chasing. Chasing the white rabbit, a tired, twig-breaking wreck.

It had brought her here after all, she surmised, maybe it could get her out.

Her name was Alice. She was chasing the white rabbit.

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He was walking.

When he had first woken up, he was actually confused for a moment. But it was only for a moment, and the moment passed. Vampires, after all, by nature, have a certain awareness for all things, great or small regardless.

And so now he was walking at an infuriatingly leisurely pace, his shoes trip-trapping on the ground as if there was nothing wrong.

But what he was really, really doing was eavesdropping on the trees.

Trees spoke slowly, in the very oldest of ancient languages, in tones that were carries and sustained by the wind and leaves. Their voices were the sentiments of the earth and the long lost echoes of the sky, and their songs were the songs of all-life and never-end. Alucard, in all his years of unliving could never really get the hang of speaking their tongue, which was, in his opinion, a great pity. However, much to his consolidation, he could somewhat sense what they were saying.

And right now, the trees were passing this on amongst each other –

The roots are afraid. There is something in the ground. And it is coming.

And this was disconcerting Alucard, more than he cared to admit.

Trip trap. Trip trap.

Eventually he reached the lake.

He knew what was going to take place here now. He couldn't help but chuckle. From the very moment he woke up, he had sensed her presence. And now. Now, he could actually hear her.

Panting, heaving, out of breath.

He grinned to himself, the pearl white teeth glinting in stark contrast to the black of the forest.

"Police girl." He whispered.

Trip trap. Trip trap.

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Eventually, she reached the lake.

She stumbled clumsily over to the waterside, and there, let her legs give way.

Alice collapsed, heavily. She was absolutely exhausted.

And now that she was taking the time to observe the way she looked – each dirt smudge, each branch cut, each clothes tear – she was disgusted at how filthy she was.

And not only that, she thought viciously to herself, you let that blasted white rabbit get away as well!

Now that was true, without a doubt.

It was about a few minutes away from the pool from the lake that it happened. She was in the process of chasing it when the white streak suddenly darted into some bushes, and thereafter disappeared without a trace, much to the poor girl's bewilderment and dismay.

"My goodness!" she cried out loud, to the universe in general. "What is to become of me in this state?"

In the shadows, something like a grin flashed for the shortest of seconds. Alice didn't notice.

Alice was quite close to crying at this point. She was tired, and lost and wanted very much to go home. Not to mention she had this lingering, terrible, nauseating feeling that she was forgetting something very important.

She groaned.

The blonde did her best to buck up. The British never back down, she told herself, and so you should have no reason to. Be strong girl! You'll find your way out. Somehow.

She tried her best to force a smile to suit her forced disposition.

Something in the shadows sniggered. Alice still didn't notice.

She made some mental notes of the three biggest problems that she was being faced with at the moment. Number 1, she was beyond filthy. Number 2, she was hopelessly lost. Number 3, she was totally, totally confused. Number 4, she had to remember what exactly it was that was nagging at the back of her head.

She groaned again, long and loud.

Oh well, she thought weakly, I might as well solve the first part, right? Right.

Very slowly and making careful not to hurt her garment anymore than it already was, she kneed her way over, very close to the water, right to the place where it kissed the ground.

Delicately as she was taught, she dipped her pale white hands into the frigid water and splashed some of it onto her face.

She felt the droplets slide down her cheeks and she breathed in deeply –

And froze.

Did she just see…?

She rubbed her eyes.

She looked again.

And it was exactly like her eyes had caught it. Her reflection. It was wrong.

The clothes were exactly right – the color, the petticoats, the frills. But her face! She didn't think her eyes were ever nearly this huge, or her teeth that sharp. Why, they were more like fangs! And her skin was definitely not this shade of deathly, parchment pale. And her golden hair – since when had it been cropped this short? And in such a spiky style? Her sister would never approve of such a thing. She looked completely off, completely mad and completely scared. Her face was twitching, looking at everything wrong in her features.

So much was different. So different. So wrong. In fact the only way her reflection could be this wrong was if, was if, well, was if –

She wasn't Alice at all.

And that's when it hit her.

Alice? ALICE?

She bent down and all but dunked her head into the water.

Splash, water hit her face, making her cold but waking her up.

Oh lord, how could she be so stupid! How could she be so absolutely, unadulteratedly moronic!

Something – something that was going to get very hurt, very soon, she promised it that – had messed with her head! Something had made her think that for the past hour that she was some prissy, pretty, simpering heroine from some fairytale storybook. And what was worse, she had actually succumbed to it!

She slapped herself. Of all the dumb things you can do, girl, you never let something take over your mind! Her master had taught her that a million times!

Splash.

How could that have happened? How could someone had infiltrated her subconscious defenses so easily and so cleanly, she hadn't even noticed? How? She was a vampire, for god's sake, not some mortal commoner!

She slapped herself again.

How could she be so stupid?

She was in a world beyond angry now. Her anger on whatever this being was when she'd finally find it, she decided, would make vesuvius look like a tea spill

Alice! Alice!

How in the world did she ever even think she was even named that? Alice?

"My name is Seras Victoria!" she screamed out loud.

"And thank god you finally remember."

Seras, at the realization, had had an explosion of rage and frustration just waiting to be let out, but even it released itself into quiet at the sound of the voice.

Seras, her hair still dripping and hr cheeks still glowing red, dropped her fists and turned her head ever slowly to the left.

Sitting next to her, swishing it's tail as if it had just sighted easy prey was a huge, sleek, black cat.

And it's eyes were red.

And it was grinning.

"Hello, Seras." It purred. "Welcome down the rabbit hole."

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Walter opened his eyes.

It was very strange, he thought.

He was seated at an exceedingly long table with all kinds of strange cutlery, all stacked up on one another with steaming quantities of a certain liquid brimming over their edges.

He looked down at himself to find that he was wearing a strange but exceedingly elegant midnight blue tailcoat with a strangely glinting ruby pin on his collar and alternating black and white pants in strange patterns, almost like hidden portraits if only you squinted.

He looked up at the sky to see that it was a strange shade of purple.

He looked at his two companions. One was sleeping, and strangely enough, he had a slight recollection of the other one being dead.

Walter knew that there was something strange going on.

He touched the table.

He fiddled with his monocle.

He felt his hair.

And what makes this even stranger, he thought absently, is that I don't find it strange at all.

Next: "...Curioser and Curioser!"

Comments:

Haha. Moved the comments down here.

Okay. I'm actually really pissed right now because I revised this entire chapter just to have the computer die on me. Then I had to revise everything aaaall over again so if I missed a grammatical error or two, please bear with me!

This chapter is mostly narration and hardly any action. It's meant to just set the foundation of the story after all. Except I'm not too happy on my writing on this one. It's a bit shorter than I would have like it to be and I so feel like it's overstylized. I may just rewrite it in the near future. :-/

Thanks to everyone who reviewed the prolouge by the way - reviews motivate me to polish up the storyline and to update quicker, so yeah, thanks again. Reviews and constructive criticsm are absolute love.

I really have to sleep. I have swimming trianing at 10 in the morning tomorrow...

And is Trip Trap and actual stepping sound? I really have no idea.

Hope you enjoyed!