Chapter 1
Wonderland was a both eerily dark and absurdly fascinating place, Zoey Allen thought to herself as she watched more and more visitors trickle in, seeing the first of many to come rush into the establishment in a never ending race for the best seats — the ones which possessed the best views onto the colorless, gray-in-gray street that stretched on endlessly outside of the small, square windows as if their existences depended on it. The young waitress shook her head in disbelief. She would never understand the appeal of her workplace, but she was grateful for its mysterious appeal either way.
It was early morning. The sun had just gone up several minutes ago, coloring the sky in an especially beautiful shade of light red, and the emerald-eyed woman with the angelic face and quiet attitude let out a melancholic sigh, letting the last year or so pass before her mental eye. She was lucky to have gotten the job, she told herself, just like she had done every day since she had started working at the legendary Wonderland Café and Bar. Things could have turned out much worse for her.
But today, she had trouble believing that.
"Zoey!"
Immediately she slipped out of her trance, reopening her eyes and seeing her minimally older co-worker wildly gesture for her to help her. She complied without second thought, sprinting towards the mahogany-haired woman with the everlasting look of annoyance plastered onto her face and aided her in cleaning a dirty table for new customers.
"What had you so occupied there?"
Zoey shrugged. "Nothing," she lied, yawning. "I just tried to remember if I'd shut the kitchen window before I left." Reluctantly, she added, "Sorry."
"Well," Zoey's co-worker demanded, "did you? 'Cause it's supposed to rain today, or so I've heard."
"Pretty sure, yeah."
"Sure?"
"Yes, Lila. As sure as it gets."
The woman named Lila rolled her eyes. "Just making sure, you know. The last thing I need is to come home from work to see my kitchen flooded."
And the waitresses were back to silence.
It's curious, Zoey thought. Lila and her were co-workers, they lived in a shared apartment above the restaurant, they had spent almost every day of the previous year together — and still, they did not manage to get past the small-talk.
"Lila," one of the regulars called out from the back of the café. The woman in question shyly smiled.
"Well, I gotta go," she excused herself while walking off. "Sorry!"
Zoey cleaned the remainder of the table in silence.
As she returned the sponge and drying cloth to the back of the restaurant, she buried her face behind her hands, her back slowly sliding back the wall until she was sitting on the dusty 50's style tiles, her skinny knees pushed into her ribs.
She could not do this much longer, she realized. She was forced to endure, she knew as much, but sooner or later, she would break.
After a year of this artificial, merry façade, Zoey felt like crying. But she could not even do that. Because, what if Lila would hear? What if she started to ask questions? What then?
Several hours later, as Zoey and her colleague walked up the stairs to their apartment in silence, Zoey realized that Lila and herself were as different as it could get. Where Zoey kept her thoughts to herself, Lila made a point of speaking her mind without the merest of boundaries; where Zoey did a good job of hiding her disappointment at her way of life, Lila constantly seemed, aesthetically at least, as if she was carrying the weight of the world on her broad shoulders. The two women had next to nothing in common.
And so it was not surprising at all that once they had checked to see if or if not the kitchen had been flooded during the day, they quietly retreated into their separate rooms, not to hear from each other again until the next morning.
Zoey let herself fall onto her bed with a groan, regarding her room. It was small, scarcely furnished and as un-personal as it could possibly get. She had deliberately kept it that way. There were no photos, no books, no flowers, no decorations whatsoever. Nothing to remind anyone who entered it of who inhabited it. To the right of the door, there were a small bed and a nightstand with a lamp, and on the other side of it stood a desk with a non-descript chair and a wardrobe.
And that was it. This was what her life consisted of now — cleaning tables, serving customers, spending the evenings in her little prison cell of a room.
Had someone told her a year ago that this was how she was going to spend her adult life, she would have surely laughed him out.
Zoey sighed and took her cellphone out of her jeans pocket. She pressed the 'on' button, the display lighting up only seconds later, and she sat up as she saw the time. Zoey quickly changed from her Wonderland work uniform into a hoodie, a fresh pair of jeans and a pair of trainers, combed her long brunette hair and left the apartment. She did not say goodbye to Lila. What would she have cared, anyway.
The brunette sped down the staircase and ran onto the street, finding her second hand Renault between the cars parked infront of the door. She was late, and therefore made a point of hastily turning on the engine and racing down the street to save time.
This was the last, perhaps most unusual part of her daily routine.
When Zoey finally arrived at the national park an hour later, she took her usual route under the hole in the fence which the guards had not yet noticed and ran to the gigantic forest, whose first line of trees began a mere hundred meters from her own, personal entrance.
She gulped as she took the first step into the darkness of the forest, a feeling of unease filling her.
Hopefully, he had fed.
"Noah?" she called out cautiously. "Are you there?"
"Yup," a deep, harmonic voice answered from above her. Zoey turned, a smile brightening up her face as she took in the sight of the dark-haired, pale creature with the crimson irises sitting in the branches of a tree which was located several meters infront of her.
"How's it going?" she asked.
Noah shrugged. "Good, I suppose. I had a couple of teens for dinner today. Stupid kids keep sneaking into the park."
Zoey nodded politely, having learned within the last year not to bother leading discussions on feeding habits with a vampire — it could only possibly end in one's disadvantage.
"How's life in Wonderland?"
"Okay," she replied simply. She was in no mood to share her problems today.
"If you say so. Hey, I have a question for you, by the way."
"Oh yeah?"
"I've more or less imprisoned myself in this forest for a year now because you suggested that I should. I won't rip anyone's throats out, I promise. At least not in public. Can we please go out together more often than once in two weeks? I yearn for entertainment."
"Erm..." Zoey thought about it for a moment. "If you say so, I suppose..."
"Awesome," Noah smirked. "Thanks."
A moment of awkward silence later, Zoey spoke up.
"It's the anniversary today, you know?"
The vampire looked down at her in interest. "Anniversary of what, if I may ask?"
"Of... of you being like this."
"Oh," the dark-haired creature said. "I'd completely forgotten."
Another moment of silence.
"I wonder how they are," the girl thought out loud. "They must feel so betrayed, thinking that we ran away from them..."
"Well, to be fair," Noah added, "We didn't run away because of them."
"You're right," Zoey nodded. "But that doesn't make it any better."
She sighed. "Don't you miss it? You're life before this?"
"I guess," he said. "I don't really mind. It's not that bad, really, being a vamp. Kinda has its perks." Noah looked down at Zoey. "But you do. I can see it in your eyes. You miss it really, really badly."
The brunette sighed once more. "I've had better days," she replied. Better years, more like it. "Not that it matters much."
"It should, though," Noah commented. "Aren't you happy here?"
"I guess I am," she said.
"Why do you miss it, then?"
Because nothing she did held any meaning any more. Because when she woke up in the mornings, she woke up in the life of a stranger. Because she seemed to do nothing for herself anymore, and all for him.
Because life had turned into just another item to check off on her to-do list.
"I don't know," she whispered. "No reason."
As Zoey lay in bed that night, the usual silence disturbed by the sound of a sitcom her roommate was watching on the other side of her wall, she could not sleep. She tossed and turned, pressing her eyes closed with all the force she could muster, but in vain.
The brunette opened her eyes. The trees outside of her window threw bony, skeleton-like shadows on her floor, lighting up the room with their nightmare inducing presence. Zoey sighed, sitting up. A memory kept playing in her mind.
The snow fell relentlessly, forcing her to keep her eyes to the ground. She ran through the newly fallen snow, leaving her footsteps, running for her life. People where starting to call after her, yelling at her to stop and come back. A single tear left her eyes.
The night may have been white, but it most certainly was not silent.
The boy in her arms was screaming in agony, kicking and rolling around in her arms. Blood fell from a wound on his neck, leaving small crimson droplets in the snow. She tried to soothe him, to coaxe him into silence, but to no avail — his pained screams only increased in volume.
"I'm coming after you!" a male voice called after her. "You better stop right where you are, Miss!"
She took a deep breath and ran even faster, her legs aching so much that she half thought they would give out. Within seconds she had reached the car, throwing the agonized boy onto the backseat and hastily starting the car.
Moments later, she had disappeared into the night.
Zoey sighed, closing her eyes. "Happy anniversary of falling down the rabbit hole."
Author's Note: Did you like it? I originally wanted to make it about three thousand words, but then realized I'd probably bore you to death with more details of the café and Zoey's apartment. I hope this was okay to read — please leave me some feedback :)
I know this is probably not what you expected after the prologue... I promise the next chapter will be much more interesting, though, as the Volturi will make their entrance. So, until then!