3 Cats

The White Rabbit sounded furious, he shrieked and raced after the cat demon at top speed, all fours like some raging wild maelstorm. His anger could be felt, rippling through the air as he raced after him. Mahou kept running, the Dormouse on the back of Tweedledee flew over and tossed him a poorly designed purple clawed rabbit doll. "Show this to him! Quickly Alice!" The Dormouse waved it around at Mahou and the cat demon grabbed it quickly. "Alice you are in danger, and not just because of this, you must-!" The Dormouse was silenced, getting slammed into the floor and grabbed by the jackalope maid before being thrown into a heart shaped door. Tweedledee swooped over but was caught by a net that dragged him in a different direction.

He turned had not around before this happened and held it out to The White Rabbit, he didn't see the Dormouse getting thrown. He squeezed his eyes shut and almost instantly, the other calmed down. He reached out to take it, smiling at Mahou, "Thank you Alice, now, shall we talk about how to get you back home? I am sure you have many questions, but before they can be answered, we must go on a walk!" The White Rabbit grabbed Mahou's hand and began to walk down the long hallway, as if what had just happened, had never happened at all.

The young demon was extremely confused and slightly terrified, he wanted to go home, back to his boring job, back to constantly worrying about things he was familiar with trying to kill him, this was insane. It was beyond insane, this alternate world was some majorly messed up anime and he was living in it! He hoped wherever The White Rabbit was taking him would lead to the way home. He followed reluctantly, the jubilant look on The White Rabbit's face was unnerving him. Did he not recall what he just did?

"Um...excuse me, Mr. The White Rabbit, where are you taking me exactly? Where is the Dormouse, and Tweedledee?" His voice was quiet as he asked this with a bit of hesitation in his tone.

The White Rabbit cast his eerie, ear to ear smile down at him and ruffled his hair, still in human form Mahou subconsciously tried to flick his ears back to no avail. "Do not worry about them Alice, they are just fine! Why worry at all Alice, and we are headed to the Red Blood Queen's castle of course! Silly boy, you cannot find your way home until you are properly in an audience with him of course! Now onward! However, let me change clothing first!" The White Rabbit released him and vanished into a door with a heart on it. He came out dressed in a heart themed Victorian suit, but the kind of heart that was beating in the human chest, not any kind of cutesy style heart. The suit was red and black and there were small heart shaped buttons along the coat of the suit and a large heart pattern on the top hat he wore.

His ears were pinned back in a ponytail style with a heart shaped fur lined hair clip. His eyes were still very much unseeable through the thick white hair hanging in his face. He grinned brightly at Mahou, offering his arm, the other took it nervously and walked with him.

"Want to see something amazing Alice?" The top hat adorned male spoke as they walked, he waved a hand out small bunny heads like the one on the apron of Mahou's dress appeared in the air. They floated around his head, humming a happy tune. He smiled a bit at them, as they bounced around on his shoulders and bumped into each other. "These, Alice, are called Hearts, they are not actually heart shaped though, they like to hum and sing and dance and play, I found them lost and lonely in the forest one day, and I knew I had to take them in." The White Rabbit stroked the fur on the head of one, smile still firmly in place. "Go on." He motioned his head to a Heart that was bumping itself against Mahou's hand. The cat demon pet the Heart on the head and listened as it purred happily before floating back up into the air.

"They are kinda cute." He muttered as he watched them spin and twirl and dance in the air in front of his head. He giggled when all ten of them nuzzled at his face, he nuzzled them back and they all wiggled themselves in goodbye as they floated back into the room with the heart door. One of them however, a pink and purple striped Heart, its ears straight up in the air, waved itself around, banging itself against the heart on the door with a panicked expression.

He looked over at that room, "you changed pretty quickly, what is in that room over there?" Mahou asked this curiously.

The White Rabbit's friendly smile faded, just a bit, as he slammed his fist into the door and snatched it open, scaring the Heart into rushing into the room. He ended up forgetting to close it, the teen noticed as he was pulled away from the door and further down the hall. "Don't mind that room Alice, nothing to worry about....Mr. Bear!"

Mr.Bear walked over, hopping up onto the shoulder of The White Rabbit, he waved at Mahou and chuckling nervously, the currently human teen waved back.

Mahou frowned then as he looked back at the door, the panicked cries of the striped Heart echoing down the hallway.

After a while of walking down the yellow brick road, they found themselves unable to move. Mahou watched the bricks. which turned into red and black tiles with a silhouette of the red blood queen's shoulder length head of hair and actual heart topped crown on every other tile. "La, la. La, la. La la la, la la." The White Rabbit hummed this and the tiles began to turn gently, allowing them to move forward. After a few hours of walking past purple mountains topped in ice cream and licorice forests, they made it to the Red Blood Queen's Castle.

Mahou was not surprised by now to see that the guards at the front gate were human headed tarot cards. Mahou watched them move aside, the fanfare blowing from within the castle itself. The White Rabbit smiled his bright smile, adjusted his suit and led the boy inside the gates by the shoulders. "It's a very special and important date, so we simply cannot be late! The Red Blood Queen is waiting for you Alice, as we all have been."

Mahou sighed, "look, White Rabbit, my name is not-" he was cut off as he felt his arms tugged on by the guard cards as they reached the doors of the castle.

They yanked and pulled him until he was standing in front of the Red Blood Queen, a tall, beautiful young man with long curly black hair, pale skin and blood red eyes that sparkled like jewels. His robes were lined with black fur and his many ringed hand waved lightly. "Welcome Alice." His voice was deep even though he didn't look older than Mahou. This took the demon aback but he did not say anything about it.

"So uh, why does everyone keep calling me Alice exactly? I am not exactly from this world you see." He smiled at the Red Blood Queen who smiled back at him. Mahou realized The White Rabbit and Mr. Bear had vanished.

"That is because we have been very eagerly awaiting you Alice, very eagerly... please step into the ballroom with the citizens of the kingdom, please, your way home is through there..." the Red Blood Queen's smile had grown twice the original size. Mahou turned to look at the ballroom, walking over to it, but he never noticed that the Red Blood Queen's grin had become ominous...

The citizens of the kingdom, dancing? he saw their shadows on the floor as he was kneeling in front of the Queen. They appeared to be humans, he nearly breathed a sigh of relief at something familiar. Until they entered the ballroom and he watched them dance that is. They were tall as a small building, lanky bulbous nosed with massive dinner plate hands, most of them lacked eyeballs, some had no eyelids, a few others had no lips. These tormented figures were all gathered in the ballroom. He craned his neck up and watched them dance even closer, they were waltzing with ease, despite their deformed states.

He walked past their twirling legs and into the center of the ballroom, a pair of ruby red slippers sitting in the very center of the dance floor. He reached out to grab them, pulling them on with little to no hesitation. "I saw this in a movie, the Warlock of Boz, all I have to do is..." he clicked his heels together and closed his eyes as a rush of energy surrounded him, sending him tumbling into a strange glowing vortex...

He opened his eyes, expecting to see green grass and a farm house, maybe a little dog too. Or in reality he was expecting to see the poodle skirt cafe's ugly over head lights and the smell of burning curly fries stinging his nose.

Instead, he opened his eyes to see the striped Heart, squeaking at him in a panic, nudging the body of the Dormouse that was laying in the middle of the floor past the door The White Rabbit had hurried them away from. "What....the fuck? What is going on? Oh! The Dormouse! What happened to him!? This is absolutely horrible..."

The striped heart spun around, waving itself at the body of a purple and pink haired cat boy in the corner of the room with purple and pink striped ears and tail. He was dressed in a Victorian suit that matched his hair. His eyes were glassy, blank and lifeless. The Heart jumped into Mahou's hands as he held them up, preparing to put them on his own face. He saw the body and looked at the Heart.

"Wait..Wait a minute... wait! Heart? He found you lost and had to take you in?" His mind was reeling as he stood up and held the Heart out to the body, it melted into the corpse and the body twitched. Slowly, the cat boy's eyes opened, and he sat up, scratching his head. "Oh my god..." the dress adorned male gasped as he watched this.

"Hello Alice...like everyone else, I have been waiting for you, for a very long time....nice to meet you, I am the Cheshire Cat" the suit wearing cat struggled to stand up as he spoke. "And I simply must inform you, as the Dormouse tried to, you are in terrible, terrible danger..." his pink slit pupil eyes dilated as he heard the growl coming from the clothing hanging on the rack in the room, which Mahou realized was just a closet.

"The same thing that killed me and the others, including the Dormouse, is here to make you Our Alice forever if we don't get out of here right now!" The Cheshire Cat grabbed his hand and slammed his shoulder into the door, slamming it open. Mahou's mind was racing a mile a minute as they ran out of the room quickly, followed by the other Hearts. The sound of snarling could be heard from inside the very depths of the closet.