Author's Note: Thank you so much for the reviews! ^^ And sorry for the late updates. I'm just lazy like that. Oh yeah. And I'm very sorry to those who have a thing for the Hatter. Really. I'm sorry. Because I have a thing for him too. I feel kind of guilty now. Oh, did I just give something away? Oopsies.

The thought of returning home? It never occurred to me.

"Hazel, I realize you are enjoying yourself most thoroughly right now, but we must stay on target," the Cheshire Cat said in a rather scolding manner.

I knew I was acting childish, but I was having lots of fun toying with perspective. In Wonderland, perspective could be stretched and warped in any way I wanted. The sky could become the ground, the black and white colors of the wasteland could sparkle, or perhaps you wanted to look at the world in a sideways fashion. When the Cheshire Cat had chastised me, I currently was standing three feet in midair so I could toy with feeling higher up than usual.

"Chess," I said, "I had no idea that things were smaller from up here."

The cat grinned. "Wonderland is doing good for you, Hazel."

And at that moment my concentration slipped, I lost my perspective, and I fell right back onto the ground. Chess stifled a laugh.

"Don't you dare laugh," I said. "I've never been able to see things in a different way before."

"Hmmm… Yes," the Cheshire Cat said. "But perhaps that isn't a very good thing for you as you are now…"

Before I could even ask why, something else caught my attention. It's hard when a demented rabbit in a tuxedo appears right in front of your face to ignore it and to continue talking in a leisurely conversation. Also, I hadn't had a pleasurable experience when I had last met with a rabbit such as this one.

"Ah, Tane," the Cheshire Cat said in a completely un-surprised tone of voice, "what brings you here?"

The rabbit bowed in my direction and said, "I have business with the Lady Hazel."

I looked down at my black shoes—not dirty of course—and frowned. So I was a lady now?

"Just call me Hazel," I said. Tane shook his head.

"No, I've been given instruction to treat you with utmost respect. I shall do no such thing."

I thought about that for a moment. "If I do not wish to be called Lady Hazel and you still call me by that name, then isn't that disrespecting me all the same?"

The rabbit smiled. His smile was not like Chess's or like Terror's, but rather it was slightly insane. Mad (big surprise there). I couldn't help but think at the time how much of a strange person Tane the rabbit was. I always felt that there was always something behind him that I had to watch.

"What sort of business do you have with Hazel?" the Cheshire Cat asked in a very innocent manner. Tane dusted off the front of his tuxedo with his gloved hands (how he had five fingers I shall never know). I don't know why he was dusting it off considering Wonderland clothes don't get wet or stain or get anything on them usually.

"I'm afraid I cannot say," he said. I stomped my foot.

"Why do you always try and get me to comply but you never want to tell me what you want with me?" I said. I was kind of surprised I actually said that right after the words left my mouth. Tane shrugged.

"Trust me when I say I just can't."

You demented bunny, I thought fiercely, then for all I know you could take me to my death.

"Well, whatever it is, I'm not going with you to do any sort of business," I said. Chess nodded, agreeing with me.

"Yes, we're in a hurry, you see," he said. "To get to the Hatter's place."

Tane's long ears twitched. "Ah, but that was exactly where I was going to take you, Hazel!"

I blinked. "Now you feel like telling me?"

He winkedat me. Winked. "Yes." He faced away from me and started walking away from us in the colorless wasteland. I looked at the Cheshire Cat for a moment with a question in my eyes. He shrugged.

I vote we follow him. Tane can't be trusted be but he can't tell a lie.

So we followed. "Tane," I said, "I'm going to assume that you know your way from here to the Hatter's place, right?"

Tane didn't turn around but said, "Hazel, if there is one thing you must learn about Wonderland now it is that a door will always appear when you need one."

"I see," I said and then fell silent. Wonderland never ceased to amaze me. It still doesn't even now, looking back on it all.

A word about Wonderland: usually long walks are painfully boring but it is never this way in Wonderland. Something or someone is always there to keep you occupied. Or something will just spontaneously happen for no apparent reason. Well, at that exact moment something fell from the tree above onto the ground. This wasn't completely unusual because dead leaves fell from the trees all the time in that place, but the thing that had fallen was gold—it had color. I bent down slowly.

It was a rose. A pretty golden perfectly romantic rose. And it also made me feel strange and fluttery inside. That feeling that I had felt before a couple of times that made me think that…

I was going Mad.

And yet, I picked up the bloody thing anyway. Roses were bad omens in my mind. I didn't like them because they reminded me of her. As I picked it up I noticed a small piece of white paper that was folded into one of the petals. I took and out and read the fancy cursive:

THE HATTER IS MINE.

I tightened my grip around the flower and forgot about the existence of thorns. One of them dug into my finger and I promptly dropped the thing. "Ow," I muttered. Let it be noted that by this point both Tane the rabbit and the Cheshire Cat were watching with sincere interest.

"How curious," Chess said and twirled his tail about. And then grinned. "Just who could that be from?"

I didn't have to answer that question. We all knew.

Tane, on the other hand, tilted his head and looked worried. "It appears Alice does not wish us to go to the Hatter. Oh dear… but we are running out of time…"

I smashed the rose with my foot. The color slowly drained out of it as I did so. "And why exactly are we running out of time?" I asked. He didn't say anything in acknowledgment but chose to ignore me.

"Ah, here! I found his back door!" he exclaimed. I had to look twice because a large steel door just happened to appear out of nowhere. It had a picture of a dilapidated top hat etched upon it. Chess put a hand on my shoulder.

"Hazel dear," he said. "You had better lighten up. Your hair is beginning to turn blonde." I jerked away from him and he grinned at me. I fingered a lock of my hair close to my face. Streaked blonde. Sigh. I exhaled slowly. Lighten up. Visit the Hatter. Cure Alice. My brain was swimming with the things I knew I had to do.

"Come now, Hazel," Tane said impatiently. "We've got to get going!" He gestured towards the door.

"All right, I'm coming," I said and walked towards the thing. On closer inspection, I saw just how heavy the door appeared to be. "I suppose we just… open it?"

Tane shook his head. "No, this is the type of door you have to walk into."

I was momentarily taken off guard. I recovered in a second or two. "And how exactly do we do that?"

He sighed and walked towards the door and just kept walking. And then the door swallowed him. Literally. It opened up by itself and I could see it had teeth on the edges and it grabbed the rabbit with its tongue and then it closed.

There was silence, and then—

"—Chess, that's disgusting." I crossed my arms. No way was I going to let the door eat me. No. Way. But Chess, being the stupid, idiotic, wonderful feline he is, wound his tail about my leg and said, "Oh, but Hazel, think of it from this perspective: soon we're going to have to face Alice and that's going to be much harder than going through this little door, now isn't it?"

Brilliant. "You're very encouraging, did you know that?" I said.

He shrugged. "I try."

I walked towards the door. I was close enough to see scratch marks and miniscule details on it, the dust within the cracks. I took one more step forwards, one that would take me into the door. In that one split second, I felt a strange sense of foreboding. A bad, bad feeling. Something terrible was lying beyond the door.

I don't want to go.

It was like that time I was going to see Alice. Something… something bad… The door swung open and I saw its teeth.

"Oh no," I whispered. The Cheshire Cat, I saw, looked alarmed and reached out to grab me, but it was too late. I was spinning, I was traveling somewhere. I was wrapped up in something and it was moving fast.

And the next thing I knew, I was sitting on the floor of what looked to be a grand ballroom. It was circular and large and the tiles beneath me were alternating between black and red squares. Just like a chess board. The red tiles sparkled and looked like rubies, but the black tiles looked menacing. I slowly stood up. And then I was caught off guard again, because suddenly somebody was behind me and I had a knife against my throat.

"You're not welcome here." It was, most certainly, the Hatter's voice. I calmed myself. Forced myself to relax.

"I did get that impression," I said. Think, Hazel, I told myself. Something doesn't feel right. "Alice is very fond of you. Did you know that?"

He took the knife from my throat and turned me around so I faced him. He shook me by the shoulders.

"Yes, but what's that to you?" he asked. He spoke very quickly.

Think, Hazel, I told myself again. I thought back to the memories. The Hatter never seemed to be surprised by anything. He always had this… knowing look in his eyes. A thought, a simple possibility, flew into my mind. I don't know how it got there. It didn't fit with anything I had thought of so far, yet it made perfect sense.

I looked him straight in the eye.

"You work for Chaos."

He snorted. "I most certainly do not. You're Mad." He raised his knife and brought it down towards me. Without thinking, I sidestepped and dodged it and grabbed his wrist.

"Me being Mad has nothing to do with it," I said. "You work for Chaos. You ate those tarts then on purpose. For her. And you knew what Alice would do. You just went along with Chaos's plan. But you didn't do it just for Chaos. You were doing it for yourself all along. Just to have some fun toying with the balance of things. Do you think that's right?" The words simply tumbled out of my mouth.

He wrenched himself from my grip. I studied his reaction. He didn't look angry. He didn't look surprised. Instead he had this insane grin on his face. "I won't deny it," he said. He laughed. "It was easy for me, being Mad, to do so."

My moment of brilliance left me and I stumbled backwards in shock. How could he just admit it like that? I felt a wave of emotion that had nothing to do with me. "How could you do such a thing?" I asked softly. "Even if you were Mad?" The Hatter was the root of all evil in Alice's case, which meant that he was the one who had to be killed in order for Alice to be cured and for Wonderland to set right, even though it was the Hatter who she loved. It was just… wrong. Cruel.

The Hatter didn't look me in the eye when he answered. He held his knife and ran his finger down the edge of it. I could hardly watch. "I knew what I was getting myself into. I could see it. I knew that this would end up happening. I knew that when Alice came to Wonderland, she would be trouble. I couldn't stand it. But look at me Hazel dear… I'm the Mad Hatter after all. I do whatever I feel like it whenever I feel like it, and I never think about the consequences." He paused.

"That was always your mistake." The Cheshire Cat happened to appear right next to me. For the first time, I saw him angry. His eyes looked hard. It was almost frightening.

The Hatter didn't bat an eye. "Come now, Chess. We all never think about consequences here in Wonderland. It goes against our nature."

The cat hissed. "It was until Alice came along."

And then all hell broke loose.

He pounced on the Hatter. My eyes could scarcely follow the action it happened so quickly. I saw Chess, his claws trying to rip at the Hatter's throat. And the Hatter literally skipped and hopped around the ballroom, laughing the whole time. They almost looked as if they were dancing.

The Hatter pulled a white rose out of nowhere and put it in between his teeth. Chess saw his chance and dove at his throat. And then it happened. There was a flash of the blade and suddenly the Hatter's hat was on the ground and Chess was on the ground in a heap and…I nearly fainted at the sight. The Cheshire Cat's head was detached from his body. I couldn't move, I couldn't think, I couldn't do anything but stare.

"Let that be a lesson to you, you mangy cat," the Hatter said and placed the white rose on the ground near the cat's body where it slowly turned red. Again, I thought…

They sicken me.

The Hatter bent down and picked his idiotic hat off the ground, dusted it off, and put it delicately back on his head.

He sickens me…

I came out of my trance. I wasn't even completely Mad, I just felt nothing but pure hatred. I pulled out the knife that Terror had given me, hoped that he wasn't dead, and said in a low voice, "How could you?" He was your friend once, I thought fiercely.

The Hatter looked at me and blinked as though he had forgotten about my presence which made me even angrier.

"Well?" I demanded.

He shrugged. And then began to walk away.

You've got a knife, Alice…

I'm not Alice, I told myself. But I didn't care. I threw the knife anyway. Hard. It hit the Hatter in the back. He staggered, fell against a wall, and sagged to the ground. He winced in pain and wrenched the dagger out of his back. I walked up to him. He looked angry too.

"Idiot girl," he said. "You think I killed your cat friend. He's not—"

I didn't care a bit what he had to say. I held his wrist that held the knife and I looked him in the eye. "Die," I said. And with that I took the dagger from him and plunged it into his chest.

He laughed. Smiled. And then he was still. I breathed heavily and then proceeded to sniffle.

"I must say, Hazel, that was quite a show."

I turned around. Couldn't believe my eyes.

"Chess?" I said. "But… He… You…"

He rolled his eyes and swished his tail from side to side. And was suddenly standing right next to me.

"I told you once, didn't I?" he said. "Talking to people inside their own head, disappearing for a while, those are just a few things I can do. And I can also re-attach my head to my body if you wish to know."

My brain was on overload. Finally, I just sighed, relieved, and accepted the chaoticness of everything. I patted him between the ears. He purred.

"I wish I had known," I said. "I killed the Hatter… I feel terrible."

Chess shook his head. "No. It had to be done. Otherwise the balance of things would still be all wrong."

I remained silent. Even so, I felt a terrible guilt. First a guard, then the Hatter. The guy who Alice loved. I felt like a killer. A Mad, insane killer.

(O.O)

We exited the castle shortly afterwards and found ourselves back in the Rose Wood somehow. Chess was silent. I didn't say anything either. I kept on thinking about the Hatter. I thought back to the memories. He had been kind, it seemed, even if it really was fake. Or maybe it never was fake? I didn't know. I just felt terrible. And even worse, I wasn't as upset about killing him as I was the first time I killed someone, which made me feel even more guilty.

It's always the hardest the first time…

But I hadn't wanted there to be a second time. I hoped, very much hoped, that I would not have to kill a third time. Because I felt that whenever I killed someone, I lost a part of my soul, however cheesy that sounds.

And then I heard voices. Not as in voices inside of my head, but actual voices coming from somewhere nearby.

"…have to. Talk to her about it…" A woman's voice.

"No. I won't."

I recognized that one. My eyes widened, lit up. "Chess, do you hear that?"

His ears twitched. "Yes, I do. I think we found Terror again, Hazel dear."

I'm so cruel, leaving you right here. Sorry. And I'm sorry for killing the Hatter off. ;[ But you all knew as soon as the Cheshire Cat's head was cut off what would happen, right? Anyways, after this series is finished which might be next chapter or the chapter after that, I'm probably going to write a sequel. And a prequel having to do with Alice. ^^

As for the sequel, I kind of have an idea for it and it's probably going to be more laid back. Ah yes, I couldn't leave Terror out of this for too long. And I think the sequel is going to have a lot more Terror in it. I don't know about you guys. Perhaps you guys want romance between Hazel and Terror. I think I'm going to leave that up to you. I don't know how to write romance, really. But I'm willing to try for you guys. =]