A.N: Okay okay i know... Long time coming but i have been up to my eyes in school work and i finnally had the time to type up this chapter. I promise that the others will be faster in coming...

Chapter 3

Haunting Dreams

"Andi..."

"What?" Andianna asked opening her eyes. Instead of being in her room lying in her huge four poster bed, she found herself lying in the grass of her back yard. The bright but cool rays of the sun beating down on her pale skin.

"Andianna..."

"Who's there?" Andi asked sitting up, cautiously looking around her.

"Andianna..." some one whispered in her ear. "Andi, follow me..."

"Alice?" she questioned faintly recognizing the voice. "Alice is that you?"

"Follow me Andi..." she the voice taunted her and she saw her sister stick her head out from behind a tree close by her.

"Alice come back! I need to talk to you! I need to ask you about somethings!"

"Then follow me Andi... Come and find me..." Alice said ducking behind some shrubbery.

"Alice, where are you going?" she asked as she watched Alice duck down and crawl into a small opening that resembled a rabbit hole. "Alice come back!"

"Come and find me Andi... down the rabbit hole..." Alice taunted her.

Andianna crawled through the small space, noticing that it got smaller and smaller as she crawled along. "Alice?'" Andi questioned, "Alice where are yo-"

There was a rush of air as she felt her self falling down through an opening in the earth. Andi let out a shrill scream of terror as she kept falling...

Down...

Down...

Down...

"Oof" she stopped abruptly, upside down. She looked up (or rather down) at her feet to see what had caught her...

She saw nothing... just air... she was being suspended above the floor as if an invisible hand had caught her.

"Let me go!" she screamed twisting and turning, trying to shake her self free. The grip on her ankles slackened and she fell to the floor with an ominous crunch. She cringed, realizing that she had landed in something crunchy but sticky. She looked down and could not help but let out another shriek of terror.

The ground under her feet was covered in bones...

Piles and piles of bones and decaying matter. The walls were covered in a thick coppery smelling liquid that was oozing slowly down to mix with the squalor of the ground.

"ALICE!" she screamed, "WHERE ARE YOU!"

"Over here silly!" Alice giggled, "What are you doing in there?" she laughed at Andi's revulsion as she leaned languidly on a tree just beyond the mouth of the cave. "Come along!" she beckoned and began to dart playfully from tree to tree. Andianna ran out of the cavern and out into the forest. She looked around to try and see where Alice had gone but what she saw was the strangest sight. It was not like the Whispering Forest near her manor in Darkness Falls nor was it like any other forest that she had ever been in side of.

Each tree had what seemed to be humanoid characters, (branches in the form of hands) and a face... with an expression that seemed to have been captured on the brink of immense pain and suffering... with hollow eyes that seemed to follow her every move...

"Go back Andianna...go back please..." a funny looking animal pleaded with her, tugging on her skirt, "Go back before it is too late..."

"What?" she asked the curious creature. "What are you?"

"Go back..." it pleaded again before hopping away. "Go back... if you die it will be all for nothing..."

"Andianna," Alice said popping up beside her. "There you are, come along." Alice said pulling on her hand.

"Where..." Andi asked being pulled along. "Where are we going?"

"Stay right here. " Alice told her, leaving her to stand underneath one of the trees in the strange forest.

"What?" Andianna asked turning around quickly, she thought that she had heard something move behind her. "Who is there?" she asked spinning around again. She spun around too fast and stumbled over an exposed tree root and fell with a loud thud. The sound of the impact seemed to echo around her.

Then there was silence... Total and complete silence. There was no one around. All the animals that had been scuttling around before were now gone, there were no birds flying and screeching above her.

She felt something running down her leg and looked down. She saw that she was sitting in a puddle of what seemed to be blood. She let out a shrill scream and pulled her self up. She shut her eyes and willed it all away, but she could still hear the faint dripping of water.

She felt something drip onto her hand...Blood... She looked down and say that the puddle that she had fell in was getting bigger...

Andi looked above her head at the trees timidly, afraid of what she would see. She found where the the dripping was coming from...

Bodies.

Just hanging there as one would casually hang clothes out to dry. Andi let out another blood curdling scream. Just then, all the images of Wonderland began swimming in front of her eyes.

The Cheshire Cat...

The Caterpillar...

The Mad Hatter...

The Gryphon...

The March Hare...

She saw the leering faces of the Tweedle Twins as they stood over what seemed to be the decapitated body of a young hanyo boy, blood splattered over their ruddy faces and clothes. They turned towards her and gave her a rather sinister smile.

We are the Tweedle Twins..." they said to her. "He is Tweedledee and he is Tweedledum...but you already knew that..." They turned and looked at the body and then back at Andianna, "You are next...Alice..."

"No, Not again..." She pleaded, "Please not again..." The Tweedle Twins vanished from before her in a puff off blue smoke and was replaced by The Gryphon, a rather peculiar creature that looked part human, part lion, part eagle. He gave her a rather mocking regal bow.

"You have come back have you?" he asked her. "Ma petite Alice? What have you come back for? Have you come back because you missed us?"

"No" Andianna screamed "No more please! No more, just leave me alone!" she shouted out at them. "No more please..." she whimpered as she slumped to the ground.

"Look at her... Ma petite Alice has gone mad..." The Gryphon chuckled.

"Why have you returned to us Cherie Alice?" the Tweedle Twins gloated, rubbing there blood stained hands together. "Are you here to try and save us from our selves again?"

The Gryphon smiled. "Do you want to meet Him again? I heard that you weren't a very nice girl the last time you met." he smiled benignly. "And I am sure that he would love to see the likes of you again."

"I am not Alice!" She screamed out at them. "I am Andianna! Andianna, Andianna, ANDIANNA!"

There was silence among them as they looked at her carefully.

"No she is not..." she heard some one chuckle softly behind her.

"Yes." came another voice. "this is not our Cherie Alice, this is some one else..."

Andianna looked behind her to see both the Mad Hatter and the March Hare leaning nonchalantly

against a tree sipping tea from cracked cups and saucers.

"How do you know this?" the Tweedle Twins hissed at them, ignoring Andi. "She looks just like Alice..."

"Aye, that she does..." the March Hare said in his soft way, looking at Andi curled up at their feet. "But I assure you that this is not our Alice..."

"Don't get all preachy with us sear!" Tweedledee Spat out. "Who is she? One of your impostors Mad Hatter?"

"Nope." The Mad Hatter said offhandedly. "Too perfect."

"Then she must be Alice!" The Gryphon commented, "If you or any one else for that matter did not invite a Xenos and she isn't one of your V-kittens she must be Alice."

"There are two things wrong with your logic Gryphon," March Hare commented softly kneeling down beside Andi. "Alice would never return to Wonderland, not after what she saw when she left it last... besides-"

"Alice is dead." The Mad Hatter said bluntly.

The March Hare looked up at him. "Why thank you Hatta, you have spoil my rendition."

The Mad Hatter pulled a face at the March Hare. "You were taking too long."

"Alice is dead?!" The Tweedle Twins and the Gryphon spat out in shock. "How?"

"Not necessary at the moment." The March Hare cut in before the Mad Hatter could answer them.

"Then who is..." They turned their attention back to Andianna.

"Alice is gone...dead...left you all alone..." The March Hare said in his soft, gentle, soothing sing songy voice to Andianna, smoothing her hair from her face. The others looked at him strangely. The Mad Hatter yawned bored. He looked at him. Hatter shrugged with in difference. He turned back to Andi. "She took the easy way out and died...Didn't she... Andianna"

They gasped in recognition. "This is...?" The twins asked in shock.

Hatter nodded yes.

"Don't you blame her Andianna?" The March Hare continued ignoring them. "For leaving you behind? Taking the easy way out and leaving you to deal with Wonderland all by your self?"

"But how...?" The Gryphon asked confused. "How did she...?"

The Mad Hatter shrugged "Who knows? She has been coming here for a while...this trip was not her first and if They find out it surly wont be her last..."

"They?" The Gryphon asked.

"You ask too much questions Gryphon, I should have disposed of you when I had the chance... now They realize that you have some use and They want to keep you..." The Mad Hatter rolled his eyes.

The Gryphon snapped his mouth shut immediately.

"NO!" Andianna screamed at them, "NO MORE!" She exploded. A force field of blinding light erupted from her body, blasting them away. Putting them back where they belonged, into the shadows...

"Andi..."

Andi looked up and saw the strangest sight... well not so strange...

She saw a stuffed white rabbit pulling its self along the ground towards her. As she looked at it more carefully she realized that it was the same stuffed white rabbit that she had kept as a young child. The one she used to sleep with...

Why was it here? She wondered... but then again, why was she here? She did not know that either...

It looked at her with its glittering glass eyes. She crawled backwards away from it, shaking her head in disbelief... this was not real, just as before, this was not real...

"Andianna please...!" It cried in a horribly high pitched voice. Andi backed up until she felt herself collide with a tree. "Wonderland is dying Andianna..." It pleaded with her.

"We need your help!" it whispered coming to a stop in front of her. Andi looked at it confused.

"You need my help?" she asked it timidly. This was the first time a Wonderland creature had implored anything of her, they always seemed to want to taunt her about things that she did not know.

"Yes Andianna, we need your help...Wonderland is dying..." It repeated.

"Dying?" Andi asked . "What do you mean? I don't understand, how can Wonderland be dying? And even if so, what can I do about it?"

The rabbit went still for a moment as if to gather its thoughts. It went so still that for a moment Andi thought that what ever had been giving it life had left it.

"It is dark..." it whispered to her suddenly filling with life again.

Andi looked around her. "Dark you say? Is it night already?" she asked trying to pear through the thick canopy of trees over head.

"No. Wonderland..."

Andi looked at the little toy puzzled. "Wonderland is dark? How so?"

"Dark and evil... it is dying from the inside out." The rabbit shuddered. "We need your help..."

"How the hell am I to help you?" She asked. "What does this have to do with me?"

"Everything...Something...Nothing..." the rabbit said cryptically.

"What in blue blazes is that to mean?" Andi asked it confused. "I am afraid that you are not making any sense."

"You are the key to everything..." It said hurriedly, then looked as puzzled as she did, then it looked scared, as if it had said something that it should not have.

"What? I don't understand you Mr. Rabbit... What are you talking about?" Just then an alarm clock sounded loudly, echoing and shattering the silence around them.

"Oh no!" The little rabbit shrieked, trembling all over. It glanced at a pocket watch that was attached to his body and almost fainted in shock.

"What? What is it?" Andianna asked it.

"I am late!" He shrieked terrified. "Horribly late!"

"Late? Late for what?" Andi asked watching the little animal scurry frantically around her. "You must leave! You must leave now Andianna. If not all will be lost..."

"How?"

"Down the rabbit hole! Come quickly!" It pulled her along. Andianna followed it down the rabbit hole and into the stifling darkness. She could see nothing as she crawled along, the damp earthy walls crowding her in. "Until we meet again Andianna..."

The darkness enveloped her and she could hear him no more...

"So?" He asked twirling the two silver balls in his palms that the March Hare had given him. Stress relievers he had called them...

"Sorry that I am late master... it is just that -"

"Cut the whimpering Rabbit." He said harshly, crushing the balls into a fine silver dust. He looked at the powder sifting through this claws and sighed, so much for relieving the stress... He composed himself before turning his gaze back to the trembling Rabbit again. "Is it done?" He asked calmly.

"Yes..." The Rabbit said timidly.

Its master smiled. "Good. Now, go tell the others what you have told me." He said. The white Rabbit doll bounced around happily.

"Tell them everything master?" It asked, He paused and looked at the Rabbit. It shrunk away at the fixed stare that he was giving it. "I am sorry master..."

"What are you sorry for Rabbit?" He asked, "For once you have done no wrong. Tell them..." He paused again. Then He smiled sinisterly "Tell them that their Guardian has come home..."