Time froze, but only for a moment. The clocks began to turn again, and Alice and the White Rabbit were gone.

The court was still for a moment, its members exchanging looks with one another, unsure of what had happened or how to respond.

The first to speak was the Queen, who had realized exactly what the rabbit had done, which she considered for a moment could be an act of treason.

The Queen stood, looking out to the court. She tried her best to find her voice for a moment, then, in a hoarse voice, screamed. "Find her! Find her now! She left with the messenger!"

The card soldiers, who had been overseeing the court, scrambled over one another, rushed to follow the Queen's orders, soon becoming a stream of white and red.

"I want her found," the queen howled, "Find her or you'll all suffer the consequences!"

The remainder of the court began to stir, realizing that the Queen's orders had now extended to them as well.

The Queen continued to yell until the courtroom lay empty, with the only sound remaining being her heavy breath with one thing on her mind; she was going to murder Alice.

...

After spending four hours at the first round of callbacks, Emma was exhausted. Three of those hours were purely dancing, which she hated to do, and the last hour singing, which she happened to hate more than dancing.

Dead tired, Emma slid down her bathroom wall, her body sore. She didn't want to get up. She didn't want to wake up in the morning. She didn't want to go back to callbacks tomorrow. She just wanted to sleep for the rest of her life. She dragged herself back up to finish wiping away her makeup.

These musical auditions were killing her. She didn't even want a part, but she didn't have a choice. As she trudged back to her bedroom, the smiling portrait in the hall of her parents, the "actors" of their generation, stared daggers at her. She wanted to rip the painting from the wall and slash at their faces with her fingernails.

She was the natural prodigy. A gifted singer like her mother and a natural actor like her father. Constantly, she found herself compared to them, despite the fact that she couldn't stand to be around either of them. Her mother too distant and her father too overbearing. It would be unfair to say that she hated them, but sometimes she wondered if what she felt was close to hatred on a bad day.

Many would argue that she had been given a golden opportunity; at eighteen, the theatrical and film world had began to obsess over her. Emmaline Gloria Liddell had been written everywhere from billboards to programs. Many would kill for what she has, but Emma couldn't bring herself to care about any of it. She simply plastered on her practiced smile and moved about the set or stage to please her parents and the directors.

Her days were filled with constant practice, the dance lessons followed by voice coaching. Once she landed a part, she was already auditioning for the next. In the evening she wasn't performing, she was appearing at a premiere of something else alongside whatever actor played her love interest most recently. Even this evening, she had to dress up to attend a play she wasn't watching, while the actor that she performed with last week, who was five years her senior,tried to convince her to marry him in the private box they were seated in. He even promised to take her last name.

Pulling her bedroom door shut behind herself, Emma gave a loud groan, hoping that she had projected enough for her parents to hear her while they were on tour a thousand miles away, but even if they were in the same room with her, it was unlikely that they ever would have heard her. They only tended to acknowledge what she was saying when she agreed with them. Otherwise, her words would simply fall on deaf ears.

"Maybe I'll call Lorena." Emma said to her cat, Dinah, who was curled up on her bed.

The cat mewed at Emma in response, turning herself on her back.

Lorena, Emma's rebellious older sister, lived in another country, pursuing some kind of an art degree that frustrated their father every time it was brought up. Emma called her on occasion to have her sister read her to sleep, which had been a tradition between the two since childhood.

Emma shouted to cell phone to call her sister, on the second ring, she picked up.

"Hey, Daisy-chain, what are you doing up so late?" Lorena's voice lit up the room more than her lamps did.

"I had to go to a show. Can you read to me?" Emma pulled on her housecoat and sat on the edge of her bed. Dinah ran over to her and rubbed herself against Emma's back.

"I'm working on getting through a biography right now, but it's kind of dense. I think it would put you right to sleep, though."

Emma looked over to the pills on her nightstand. "I'm sure it will be the medication that puts me to sleep, Lo. The biography is fine."

"They still have you on those? Try not taking for the night. Maybe you'll see something in your dreams worth staying sober." Lorena was notorious for trying to get her sister to do anything that would upset their parents.

"Do you have any books with pictures in them?" Emma laid down, rubbing the cat's stomach. She'd take the pills later.

"You can't see them over the phone, silly girl."

"Then read me the biography."

Without question, Lorena began reading. Emma couldn't make out who was the subject of the biography exactly, since Lorena must have been half-way through the book by now, but listening to the smooth voice of her sister was certainly calming. Mixing the voice with Dinah's purring lulled Emma into a sleep deeper than she had initially anticipated.

...

A startling crash woke Emma from her sleep. She bolted up, slowly coming into consciousness. It took her a few moments to realize what a crash in her house could mean; since Dinah was still lying on the bed, the noise was caused by someone else. She was supposed to be home alone.

She got out of bed, grabbing her quilt and wrapped it around her shoulders. She didn't know how to react to a situation such as this. She had thought that in any emergency the security system would have alerted her and she would have more than enough time to hide, but the alarm had not gone off. The house was silent now, despite the crash.

The noise must have come from somewhere close by, since it had been so clear that it woke her up so suddenly. She scanned her bedroom, looking for anything that would have made a noise like that. She noticed that her vanity, that sat on the corner of the room was a bit haphazard, some of her cosmetics still rolling on the hardwood floor. Had it simply been the cosmetics, Emma would have blamed Dinah. The position of the large vanity itself proved otherwise. This could only mean that someone or something was in her bedroom, and since she had yet to hear a door slam, they were still here. And there was only one place that they could hide.

This wasn't a situation Emma thought she would ever find herself in. She looked over to her closet door and stared at it, terrified of what she would find in there. She knew she shouldn't open it, and that she should run out of her bedroom and call the police with her cell phone, but for whatever reason, she couldn't. She was frozen in her spot, knowing that she was now in the same room as the intruder.

Instead of being reasonable, Emma took light steps towards her closet door, trying her best to even her breathing. She didn't have the time to consider what would be behind the door, as she was behaving in an uncharacteristically compulsive manner. Her heart raced in her ears when she was close enough to the closest to hear a rustling inside.

There was very little she could do to defend herself if she were to open the door. She was small and weak, unable to handle even the slightest bit of pain. If this person even lunged at her, it was very possible that she would simply have to let them hurt her.

She still had the opportunity to turn around and call the police, but some small voice at the back of her head convinced her that if she opened the door, nothing would happen to her. Everything would be okay.

She slowly wrapped her hand around the doorknob, preparing to brace herself, quickly pulled the door open.

There, in her closet, stood a man. He was quite a bit taller than herself, but she realized that she was contributing part of his height to the long, white rabbit ears on the top of his head. He was dressed like a fairytale character, from the round glasses that sat on his nose to his bright red vest with a pocket watch swinging at his side, connected to one of the pockets. He looked more terrified than she was with his hands on his mouth.

At this rate, she wasn't sure if she should be afraid or confused, the two mixing in a strange way that forced her to simply stare at him, rather than begin a line of questioning that should have started with who are you?

He stared back at her, lowering his hands. They stood in silence, taking in one another's presence.

After a few moments, the man murmured, "Alice?"

Emma, in complete confusion stood there for a moment, trying to analyze what the rabbit man from her closet had said. Who was Alice?

"You're… Alice. You must be." He took a step towards her, to which Emma took a step back.

"You must have the wrong person." Emma began, but was quickly interrupted.

"No, no, you must be the right Alice. You're much older, but undoubtedly, your features haven't changed that much. Your golden hair, and those large blue eyes." He reached out to touch her face, but Emma moved away from him. "You don't remember me, do you?"

Emma stared at him, unable to create a coherent sentence.

"My name is Wilbur. We met a long time ago, when you were a child."

Even if her childhood was a blur, Emma would have remembered meeting a six-foot-tall man with rabbit ears if she had ever come across one. Obviously she had never met this man before.

"No, really, my name is Emma." She wasn't sure how she managed to get that out, but she suddenly felt compelled to speak to the strange man in her bedroom.

"No, you have to be. I wouldn't mistake anyone else for you." Wilbur scanned her face, leaving Emma to feel a bit vulnerable. "You're older, yes, and there have been a few changes, but I can tell it's you."

Emma looked around her room, trying to figure out who had set this nonsense up. Lorena wouldn't be the kind to pull such an elaborate prank, and she didn't have any friends. There was zero explanation for this man, nor an explanation as to why one of his ears flopped over as if they were real.

Impulsively, Emma leapt forward and reached towards his ear, which set Wilbur off guard. He grabbed her by her rib cage to steady her before realizing what she was doing. He bowed his head down. "I forgot you don't have rabbits in your world."

Emma touched his ear and realized that it was soft, warm, and real. The ears on the top of his head were real. This man that had been hiding in her closet had real rabbit ears sticking out of his mussed white hair. She then returned her attention to the statement he made.

"My world?" She let his ear go then studied his face. He had soft features with very pale skin that emphasized his red eyes. He had all the features of an albino rabbit, which she found strange yet endearing.

"The world above mine." Wilbur responded, as if that wasn't a strange thing for him to say.

It was then when Emma realized exactly what was happening: she was still asleep and this was a dream. There was no way she was still grounded in reality at this point. She must have fallen asleep too deeply to take her medication and this was the result. She would have laughed at the absurdity of all this, must have when Wilbur asked her what she found so funny.

This gave more of an opportunity to play along with the rabbit man, which Emma rejoiced in a bit. Lorena was right about her medications; there was no way she would have had a dream this vivid if she had taken them.

Emma returned her attention to the rabbit man, and in her sweetest voice, asked. "And if I was Alice? What would happen then?"

Wilbur's ears perked up when she said that. He stuttered a bit, which Emma attributed to her change in demeanor. "I would like to take you home with me, if that isn't too forward." His face changed to a bright shade of red as he spoke.

Emma allowed herself to continue being compulsive, knowing that the worst thing that would happen to her is that she would wake up and have to return to her life of solitude and hard-work. "Then I'll be your Alice."

"My Alice?" Wilbur managed to stutter, his face growing a deeper shade of red.

"Take me with you." Emma continued, "To your world."

"Of course." Wilbur nodded offering his arm to her. "I would be more than pleased to escort you."

Emma took his arm and expected to teleport to some far off land that she could only dream of visiting. Instead, though, Wilbur lead her over to the vanity. He touched the mirror, resulting in a rippled effect. It was strange for Emma to watch the glass move as if her reflection was suspended in water.

Wilbur looked to his pocket watch, then back to the mirror that had now settled still again. "We haven't got much time. Is there anything you must do before you go? We're going to be gone for quite a while."

Emma looked back to Dinah, who was sitting on the edge of her bed. She gave the cat a wave before she returned her attention back to Wilbur.

For a split second, there almost appeared to be an expression of remorse on the pale rabbit man's face, which Emma managed to catch. Before she could say anything about it, he grabbed her hand and instructed her to stand on the vanity. When she managed to climb atop it, he gave her a very simple instruction.

"Walk through the mirror, and if you happen to run into anyone on the other side, do not speak a word to them."

The instruction seemed a bit ominous, but Emma nodded and returned her attention to the mirror.

It was a large mirror, large enough that she wouldn't have to bend over very far to make it through the frame. Much like she would test water, Emma pushed her foot before her. To her amusement, her foot did go through the mirror. Her toes felt strangely warm when compared to the rest of her body that remained in her bedroom.

With a few words of encouragement from Wilbur, Emma took a deep breath, as quickly as she could, leapt through the mirror.

Before following her in, Wilbur took a look around the room, his face falling despite the elation he felt for finally managing to find Alice. He looked to the cat on the bed, debated if he should pull her back, and eventually followed her through the mirror.