Through The Rabbit Hole

Chapter One: Alyssa

It wasn't a long walk from the town to Belle's sweet little house. It upset me that almost every house looked like little cottages right out of a fairy tale. Even though I guess we were in one. When we entered there was a giant machine and a plump figure underneath it. He made noises as the clank of metal and other objects earned his approval. Belle leaned down and spoke out to him.

"Father! I have brought some friends over!" she yelled over the noise. Instead of a happy reaction, she was greeted with a confused one. The plump man rolled out from under the machine and looked at us.

"What? That doesn't make sense," he said more to himself than anyone else. He stood up and brushed his hands off on his apron while looking us up and down. Belle brushed off his weirdness and continued on.

"How's the work going? Is the machine working yet?" she eagerly examined the heap of metal. He stood up and walked over to a lever.

"I'm not sure. I've told you before, I'll never get this thing working! I guess we'll just have to see," he declared before pulling the lever. The machine sputtered and made noises before coming to life. They cheered as it proceed to chop the wood. By their reactions that was what they wanted and Ryan started to cheer with them. I clapped too so I wouldn't be left out.

"Father this is great! You can enter the competition now!" Belle held her small father and rejoiced. He smiled and hugged her back at the great news.

"Oh, I'll need to leave as soon as possible then," he burst out before starting to gather his stuff. He packed up a bag of tools and cleaned up the machine in preparation.

"Oh, my new friends could take you. Wouldn't that be nice?" Belle asked her father. He looked uneasily towards us, but seeing no harm, he agreed. Ryan was excited, but I was more worried about my necklace. Would we be back in time for it? It didn't matter because before I knew it, I was swept out the door with them and was loaded onto a horse. We started off, but instead of going to the town, we headed further down the path towards some woods.

"Why don't we go that way?" I asked pointing to the cheery village.

"This way is faster," Belle's father said. "By the way, my name's Maurice," the old man smiled.

"I'm Ryan and that's Alyssa," Ryan said before looking back at me with a smile. My heart stopped at the way he looked into my eyes and wished for him to do it again. He was too sweet for me and I regretted punching him earlier. That might've made me want to punch him more.

"Well, it's nice to meet you," Maurice said cheerfully. "I hope Belle hasn't caused you any trouble."

"If anything, we've caused her trouble," Ryan laughed. I couldn't help but hear Maurice whisper under his breath, "That's what I'm afraid of". It could have been my imagination, though. They continued to engage in friendly conversation as I listened. We soon reach a fork in the road and Maurice pulled out his map confused.

"We must've missed a turn or something," he started to mumble under his breath. Ryan looked at the signs showing the way, but they just made it harder with the chicken scratch on them. I looked at the path ahead of us and then at the one next to us. We could just keep going forward onto this path, where it seemed nice and sunny. Maurice found it necessary to try the other, though.

"Why?" Ryan and I both protested. Maurice's horse even seemed a little uneasy by going down the dark, dead path.

"It'll be a short cut! We'll get there faster than ever!" he tried to reassure us. Ryan and I shared glances to which he just shrugged his shoulders. So off we were down the dark forest.