Yet it seemed like I had seen it before.
Chase started running through the crowd, no one paying much attention. He definitely had a good hold on me as I didn’t feel like I was going to fall at all. He really should try out for ballet at Tippy Toe, he was strong and from what I could tell, he had pretty good balance. I told myself to remember to mention that later.
I glanced up at him when I noticed something odd. He had purple hair, like deep purple. I almost didn’t notice because of how dark it was. I squinted at the top of his head.
“Chase, why are you wearing cat ears?” I asked. “And your hair is dark purple. When did you change your hair? Are you going to some con?”
“Don’t worry about it Alice. Not important right now.”
I closed my eyes and placed my head on his shoulder. I felt him laugh a little.
He kept carrying me through the grassy streets. I had no idea how long this was going to last but I knew that soon I needed something that would make the pain go away. I wanted to pass out so bad, but I had to know what was going on.
Chase stopped moving and I opened my eyes to find us in some strange alley. It was rather small, more like a passageway. It was dark in this area, giant trees towering before us against the buildings. We were stopped in front of an old wooden door, rather different than the glass building we had passed before. Chase knocked it with his foot.
The door opened to reveal someone I actually knew. Davis. He wore a brown suit. It looked good on him, very distinguishing.
“Davis, what are you doing here?” I questioned, half dazed.
“What am I doing here?” He pointed at me. “What is she doing here Chase? This is against the rules!”
Chase shoved past him into the building. “I don’t follow the rules, that’s why I exist. Besides, she needed to be brought here.”
“What are you talking about?” Davis squeaked, following Chase around the room.
“I’ll explain in a moment.” Chase set me down on a couch. I glanced around. The place was quaint, just a living room that had only a few pieces of old leather furniture. There were other doors, but I had no idea what they lead to, I presumed maybe bathroom, kitchen, and bedrooms but after everything that had happened, normal didn’t seem to exist anymore.
Chase turned to Davis. “Where’s Malcolm?”
“I’m here.” I watched as Malcolm came out of one of the doorways with Melvin. Their eyes widened as they saw me.
Melvin quickly grabbed Chase by the collar. “What have you done?”
“I had to bring her here. My suspicion was correct, the White Rabbit had found her. He almost killed her,” Chase explained as Melvin tightened his grip. He didn’t struggle though, but let Melvin get whatever frustration he had out.
“You can’t just stalk a girl; you have any idea how perverted that makes you?” Melvin went on. I thought about agreeing, as he did have a point, but Chase did save my life because of it. I really couldn’t complain.
“If I didn’t follow her, she would be dead!” Chase replied.
Malcolm ignored the two of them and knelt down beside me. He pulled out a small cookie and handed it to me. Something about all this seemed familiar. “Alice, you have to eat this. Fast.”
I grabbed it and without thinking it about it, drank it down in one gulp. I realized after the fact that eating some strange cookie that a boy handed me wasn’t the smartest thing to do. True, I knew him from school, but I didn’t know that much about him. My head was hurting so bad already that for some reason I thought it could help.
And I was right.
Memories came rushing back to me, memories that I didn’t know were gone. The locker. This place. Guards chasing after me and Chase and the rest of them coming to my rescue, Malcolm forcing me to drink some potion, just like they did now.
So I had been here before, that is why everything seemed so familiar. But there were still so many questions that were still left unanswered and now that my headache had subsided, I could finally get these guys to talk.
“Who are you all really? What am I doing here? Who just tried to kill me? What is this place?” Questions spilled out of my mouth.
Malcolm grabbed my hand. “Listen to me, this isn’t what was supposed to happen.”
I stared at him. He was wearing that dark green suit as I remembered him wearing the day before. His curly dark hair stuck out from underneath his burnt orange hat. He looked so handsome that I felt as if I was going to melt when he touched my hand. But I couldn’t, I had to figure out what was going on.
I pulled my hand out of his, letting him know he couldn’t smooth talk his way out of answering me. “What was supposed to happen? I don’t understand.”
“You were supposed to be told of this war before coming here. We weren’t going to force you into this but somehow they found out about you. We had to act quickly.”
Chase butted in. “You mean I had to act quickly?”
Malcolm gave him a look and turned back to me. “Either way, here you are.”
“Here I am? Where the hell am I? What is this place? Why are you all
