Chapter 1

Click.

It is a generally accepted fact that you cannot die in a dream.

Click.

It is also a generally accepted fact that Wonderland is a Dreamworld, a waking vision of a thousand sleeping minds. Ergo, it is a fact that you cannot die in Wonderland.

Click.

But there must be death to grant space for new life.

Click.

The room was empty, the large sash windows with its long red velvet drapes spilling silver moonlight onto the room, swirling across the room, turning the furniture into hunched monster-like shapes, spilling black shadows onto the carpet... but picking out the grandfather clock in perfect detail, the hands slowly clicking around, the hour hand sat firmly on the 12, the minute hand a hair’s breadth from the top of the clock, and the second hand clicking inexorably closer.

Click.

And this is the moment where 2 facts collide, and the rules are subtly altered. You cannot die naturally in Wonderland.

Click. Bong...

The grandfather clock chimed 12 times...

And the girl’s eyes snapped open. In the empty room, she had just materialised as if she’d always been there. The hands of the clock had stopped moving, the pendulum hung halfway, as if caught by thin air.

She tucked her fobwatch away into her waistcoat pocket matter-of-factly, and straightened up with a soft rustle, so obvious in the now perfect silence, and took a step forwards. She was about 5 foot 4 or 5, her skin the colour of milky tea, speckled with coffee-like freckles, randomly splattered blobs across her face, neck and arms, long arms left bare by the shimmering velvet of her dark purple waistcoat, hugging her curves and showing the slightest hint of cleavage. The waistcoat covered her to the hips, a pair of smart black trousers underneath, falling over purple leather workboots.

A silver chain hung from one of the buttons of her waistcoat to a pocket on  the left side of her stomach, the slight bulge of her fobwatch on show. The simple chain matched the chain around her neck, a fine silver chain with a sphere of amythyst hanging off it, emphasising her long neck, left bare by the short cut of her hair, a fluffy cut around her face, making her look so innocent. It was an unremarkable face, she wasn’t bad looking, in fact, she might almost have been pretty with her full lips, cute button nose and high cheekbones...

But her eyes were set, as cold and blue as frozen steel as she purposefully strode through the house. Not a floorboard creaked, not a footstep could be heard as she prowled through the decadent halls of the house and up the lushly carpeted stairs, spinning around the newel post at the top and continuing up the next flight.

As she strode, her right hand reached for her shoulder blade, fingers closing over midair, just behind the skin. A tattoo shifted on the girl’s pale shoulder, and a black swirl of mist twined around her fingers, forming a shape and solidifying.

The girl set the purple top hat on her head, brushing the brim absentmindedly, then came to a stop outside the door. She took a deep breath, straightened up, checking her hat, then pushed it gently open.

A man was sat in the chair by the window, gazing out at the moon, but his head snapped around to face her, although she knew she had made no sound. He sprang upright, hand scrabbling out, snatching a book and hurling it at her. And her hand almost seemed to blur. She snatched the hat off her head and held it out before her, the crown of the hat towards her... and the book clattered into it, and vanished. She set it back on her head.

“So,” She said quietly. “You know what I am then?”

It was the first sound made in the house since she’d opened her eyes, and he nodded, backing away from her, knocking over a chair and falling to the floor before scrambling back to his feet, all in perfect silence. He raised his hand, staring at the graze over the back of it, and stared at her, eyes wide.

“Not now,” He begged softly. “Please God, not now.”

“You knew the price,” She told him quietly. “Eternal life, eternal freedom from sickness, never aging... did you think that this was all free? That one day one of us wouldn’t come for you?”

“W-who paid you?” he demanded, stammering slightly in his fear. “I’ll double it.”

She advanced a step with an icy smile.

“Sorry babe,” She said, with genuine regret in her voice. “It’s more than my hat’s worth.”

Then she was right in front of him, her hat in one hand, the dagger she’d pulled from it in her other hand.  He barely had time to see it, before she plunged it under his breastbone, and straight into his heart. He gasped, eyes glazing and semi-lidding, knees sagging, and as she retracted the blade, they gave and he fell to the floor. She shook her head sadly, gazing down at his form, perfect, save for the hole in his shirt.

Sometimes there was a lot of blood, she thought, sometimes it was like a geyser, sometimes, in really worrying circumstances, flower petals fell from the cut... one had even bled oil once. She watched the body carefully, and as it showed no signs of bursting into fire or anything equally as worrying, she dropped her knife back into the hat, then pulled the book out, gazing at the title, and gave a soft snort, throwing the book onto the bed derisively, the white rabbit gleaming on the cover.

She covered her heart with the hat for a moment, closing her eyes in a silent remembrance, then sighed, adjusting her grip on the hat’s brim. She threw it up into the air, and the hat seemed to shift in the air, become almost ghostly and translucent. She reached up lazily to catch it, and she and it vanished.

Sound returned, and with it, the final chime of the clock downstairs. 13 chimes.

Wonderland is a much more savage place than you remember.