Part 1 - Hatter and Alice
Chapter 1: Wonderland
The loud sound of purring disturbs Alice from her sleep and in a groggy voice she says, "Go away Mr. Kitty I'm tired." After that the purring stops and Alice turns onto her side content to continue sleeping when she realizes they do not own a cat.
Alice sits up yawning and trying to wipe the sleepiness out of her eyes. She manages to get her eyes open enough to see a little bit in the dim lighting and indeed there is a cat in her house. Alice cannot make out any details about the cat because it was too dark but something about its shape seemed strange. Before Alice could turn on her lamp next to her bedside the cat meows and walks out of her room opening her door wider. "I could have sworn I shut my door last night" Alice said as she put on her slippers.
Alice runs down the stairs looking for the cat, when she hears another Meow coming from downstairs. Alice turned on all the lights downstairs and checked everywhere she could but found no sign of a cat. As Alice turned the lights off and began heading upstairs thinking it was all in her head she hears another meow coming from the back door. Alice turns on the outside light and opens the door to the back, and sees a cat standing in the shadows.
"How did you get outside Mr. Kitty?" Alice mutters to herself as she chases the strange cat into the forest.
The light of the full moon shines down into the forest thicket and Alice begins to start seeing the cat more clearly as she chases it deeper into the forest. The cat is very slender almost fox like and its fur seems to have different colors which Alice assumes is just a trick of the moonlight. Too distracted by trying to get further details of the cat, Alice fails to realize she's been chasing the cat in a straight line for a few minutes now and has yet to hit a tree or even stumble on one of the larger trees roots.
The mysterious cat keeps gains distance becoming more and more engulfed by the shadows as Alice is totally oblivious to the fact that the trees are actually lined up in perfect symmetry and the light of the moon seems to shine perfectly in front of her. Eventually the only part of the cat Alice can see is its tail which now oddly appears to be in the shape of a question mark. As the last part of the cat's tail disappears Alice then realizes there is a large deep hole in the ground at the trunk of a massive tree.
Careful not to get to close Alice leans over and tries peering into the hole but sees only a vast darkness. Sighing with disappointment that she lost the cat Alice turns around to go home when she sees the cat floating in front of her face. Its eyes are narrow, sharp and glowing purple; it's smiling with a row of dozens of sharp little teeth. And in deep mischievous voice the cat says, "Hello Alice."
Startled by the sudden appearance of the cat floating in front of her face and it talking, Alice stumbles back and falls down the hole. She screams as she falls down the hole which is filled with swirling colors. Then the colors begin quickly disappearing and everything goes black for her.
Alice woke up in the dirt, still in her pajamas. Alice begins wiping the dust off her pajamas and believes that she dreamt up everything with the cat and went sleep walking into the forest until she looks up. The first thing she notices is that there is not a single tree around her; the next is the desolate land in which she now resides.
Is this Wonderland she wonders out loud? "Hello?" Alice calls out. No answer. "Is there anyone out there?" she calls again; still no reply.
Alice looks around her for any signs of where she is but the only thing she can spot nearby is a dried out dark tree stump with two arrows pointing down opposite paths. One arrow pointing to the left says "House of cards" And the other arrow pointing right says "Village of Tresek". Alice looks to the left where the "House of cards" is supposed to be and sees a long and rather dull path. Then she looks to the right and sees that the path to the village is shorter. When her stomach begins to growl her decision is made up and she sets off on the path to the right.
After about an hour of walking Alice arrives at the village to find out its nothing but empty ruins; the buildings are all smashed or burned, there's no sign of anyone else and an ominous sense of dread fills the air. As Alice carefully navigates the village's ruins, she begins to imagine how it might have looked before being destroyed, streets filled with happy people and beautiful décor all around and sorrow begins filling her heart. "Who could have done this sort of thing?" she asks herself.
After navigating the village ruins some more and imagination painting more and more of what she believes the village looked like before her stomach grumbled again very loudly. Remembering what she came for Alice begins searching the more intact houses or buildings for signs of food. Unsure of what is a house and what is a shop Alice checks everywhere she thinks she will find any food losing more and more hope after each empty building.
As night creeps up on her Alice begins to shiver in cold and is forced to stop looking for food and instead look for shelter. Her search is cut short as it's soon to dark to see more than ten feet in front of her; Alice retraces her steps tripping a few times on concrete blocks or other small sturdy objects completely hidden in the dark until she finds a building and settles for it.
Eager to get inside and forgetting to step carefully Alice trips on something and lands with her hands on some broken glass. Her hands get cut up and she starts crawling on her hands and knees careful to avoid anymore broken glass until she finds a corner and crawls up into a ball. Shivering cold, bleeding, and alone, Alice cries softly thinking about her home and warm bed until sleep catches her.
Alice wakes up as the morning sun is beginning to rise. Hungrier than ever before and still cold she inspects the cuts on her hands, they stopped bleeding and weren't very deep but she still risked the chance of infection if she didn't get them cleaned and wrapped up. Alice stood up and wrapped her arms around her chest trying to keep herself warm as she continued her search for food.
As she neared the center of the village, Alice heard strange noises which made her stop and hide behind a partially intact house. She didn't know what sort of creatures she would find in this place but she didn't want them to find her first. The strange sounds she heard moments ago were replaced with the sound of footsteps, and for a moment Alice contemplated running out from her hiding spot to see who else was there when another thought came to her. What if the person here now is the person responsible for the destruction of this village?
Tap, Tap, Tap; The foot steps got closer and closer as Alice stood perfectly still in her spot not sure if she should turn and run or just remain silent where she was. Tap, Tap, whatever was coming was coming closer still as Alice's imagination made her even more frightened then she originally was. As the footsteps came closer they became louder and louder and Alice kept imagining some massive horrifying creature trying to sneak up on her but failing miserably; until the footsteps stopped only a few feet from Alice.
Silence; after the footsteps stopped the only thing Alice could hear was her own heavy breathing. Slowly she peeked hear head around the corner and saw nothing, then she took a couple steps out from hiding and sighed in relief. She probably just imagined those footsteps out of her hunger.
Then Alice turned back around and there was a massive six foot tall brown rabbit leaning over her. She yelped and fell back, as the rabbit jumped in surprise as well. "Oh my, I'm terribly sorry for frightening you little girl." The rabbit said.
It was male and had an Australian type of accent, as the top of its left ear had been chewed off like he had been in a rough fight with a wolf or something. The rabbit was wearing a worn green square patterned sweater vest with different buttons closing it up. He also had some tattered brown pants, but no shoes.
"I'm not little." Alice said, as her cheeks started to brighten. "And you didn't frighten me you just surprised me is all."
The rabbit chuckled lightly and offered out his right paw. Alice grabbed it and he helped her to her feet. "My name is March Hair." The rabbit said. "But you may call me March for short."
"Mine is Alice." She said. "Thank you March, and by the way can you tell me where I am?"
"You are in the ruins of the village of Tresek my dear."
"No, no I mean this world, what is this place?"
"It used to be Wonderland but ever since the red queen came to power, well now it has no name. But never mind all that you look like you could use a cup of tea and some scones, how about it?"
Alice wasn't sure what to make of March, if he was really as nice as he seemed or if there was some angle to him. But when Alice's stomach rumbled she was reminded of her hunger again and realized she didn't have much choice. Reluctantly she followed the rabbit as it made sure to walk slowly so she wouldn't be left behind.
"So Mr. March Hair," she said. "What are you doing here in this place?"
March let out a light, but sad chuckle and said, "Cheshire told me to come here and pick up some 'Tapeeque chairs'. Which I have no idea what it is but he disappeared before explaining more and he only said that it was extremely important that we have them. I'm starting to think this whole thing was a practical joke by him, but I did find you so some good came out of it."
March turned to Alice and smiled, and her heart warmed a little as she knew that she met a new friend and somehow knew she could trust him. They spent the next few hours walking in complete silence as the village became less and less visible. Alice was still starving and starting to feel heavy fatigue when March stopped her.
They were now standing in front of a charred forest that started showing very small signs of new life around, like mushrooms. March led Alice to a large decaying tree stump that was about three times the size of March. He sniffed the air, then looked all around him too make sure no one or nothing else was around. Then he tapped on the tree stump with his left foot twice and the stump opened up inwards like a door.
He turned to Alice and said, "It's a secret passage to my home. My brother and I built it many years ago when the red queen began rising to power. It keeps her cards off our trail completely and is fun ride to boot." Then March winked at her and dived into the tree trunk, leaving Alice all alone in the dead woods. Still a little shaken up about how she originally came to this land, Alice debates walking away too find some food in the forest or follow March. Eventually Alice sighs and dives into the tree stump, screaming all the way down.
At first the fall is straight down then it curves, and spins in circles, and loops a couple times. Everything is completely pitch black in the tunnel so Alice can't tell which way she's heading. At one point in the ride it feels like she's going up, when she sees a bright light coming from the end and is launched about 20 feet into the air.
Alice shrieks as gravity takes hold of her again and she has no idea how she's going to land without injuring herself. She closes her eyes expecting the worst any moment now. Then something warm and soft squeezes her sides and she stopped falling. As she opens her eyes she sees March holding her up and smiling.
"You're a lot lighter than I anticipated I did not think that you would launch up that high, are you alright Alice?" March said as he put Alice down on the ground gently.
"I'm fine," she replies.
Alice looks around her and sees a clean and plant life filled area around her. There's a small but steep hill going up in front of her that is lined with hundreds of different colored small mushrooms on the sides. March leads her up to the top of the hill and she gets a great view of a small valley. There's a small cottage in an open plain of grass with a long curvy table that's filled with tea cups and pots in front of the cottage. Out not too far in the distance Alice can see a beautiful lake with some mountains further past it. To the left of the cottage Alice can't make out much of the lands there but there seems to be some massive red structure. To her right the lands look the same as to the left and behind her Alice can see the village she met March in.
The village looks more pleasant from the distance then it does from up close Alice thinks to herself. And after she was done taking in the view March says, "Now how about that tea and something to eat?"
"Sure." Alice replies with a smile as the two walk down to the rabbits cottage.