A/N: Dedicated to my beta and sole reviewer Azzie(Inkfire)! Thanks! :D
Searching for Dreams:
Chapter Two: Packing:
Autumn ran home quickly, slipping inside before her parents noticed she'd skipped practice and bolting up the stairs. She tiptoed into her room and carefully closed the door. That done, she turned to face her room-containing her life-and took a deep breath.
Time to move this puppy.
First things first. She counted out how much money she had, and looked into pricing for plane tickets to England. At the same time, she looked up where exactly in England it was said Alice-and the rabbit-hole-had lived. Finding her results, she looked up the nearest airport and possible means of transportation to the area itself. Once a grand mansion, most of the grounds had long since been converted to parking lots. However, the small park nearby looked promising. At least it did on Google Earth.
Thanks to her father's inability to trust her to go shopping with friends, she had quite a stash of cash saved up. Counting everything up, she figured she could do it, if she was careful and went low-class with only the bare essentials.
After researching times and making the necessary reservations, she gathered up everything from her room that she wanted to take with her. There wasn't much. MP3, camera, chargers, laptop, notebooks and pens to write with, drawing tablet and cord, running clothes, some normal ones, and a dress that might help her fit in with the people in Wonderland if she actually managed to get there.
Once her parents were asleep, she tiptoed out of her room and downstairs. She gathered a few things like food and a little extra cash from the kitchen before going to the basement. Squirming back into the crawlspace, she searched with her flashlight until she found the boxes marked with her and her mother's names. Pulling them out, she sorted through them, what she could and couldn't take, what she wanted to take, and from there put into her luggage first what she needed, then what she wanted in order from most to least important. Whatever didn't fit, she packed back into the boxes, which she placed carefully back in their original positions.
Getting out of the house posed a bit of a bigger problem. She went and stood on the porch with a phone and called for a taxi, praying her parents stayed asleep. The driver asked few questions, simply helping her with her bags and setting out for the airport.
Well, that was easy.
Autumn knew it had only been this easy because people in this society were scared. Too scared to ask questions, afraid of the answers they might get. It was a horrible place to live in, yet it seemed that no one dreamed of anything better.
Except me. Why me? Why only me?
To that, she had no answer. Maybe it was waiting for her in Wonderland.