The Heart of a Hatter

Chapter 1

Waking up in a cold sweat he rose into a sitting position taking deep breaths, like he'd been drowning. No, not again, he thought as he wiped his face, his hand covering in sweat by doing so. He could almost see his reflection in his hands from the amount of sweat that had piled up. He undid a few of the buttons on his pajama top trying to cool down.

"Another nightmare?" he asked himself, unsure if it was a nightmare or the best dream he'd ever had. He had been having constant dreams of Alice, the girl who was never to return. Even after he offered her the opportunity to be with his family she had refused. That moment reoccurred over and over in his head as he slept. Did he love her, no? Did he feel his heart breaking, no? Did he feel alone, yes. Ever since that day he assumed anything new, no matter how small or big it might be, will eventually fade into thin air like she did.

He placed a hand on his forehead feeling his temperature. This had been occurring more often as of late, as if it was happening out of some reason cause by human nature itself, or fate in the stars. He flicked his forehead, giggling softly afterwards, after all he was still Mad as a Hatter. But fate, that was a real confusing term for him. Fate was anything written in the prophecy, a tale that was meant to be told. But his problem, a little bit more on the personal side. He was the main character in his own story this time, not the girl with the flowing blonde hair and blue dress. Eventually he saw no point in trying to go back to sleep so he rose from his bed and gave out a little squeak as he stretched his upper body. Twisting side to side then cracking his neck he giggled as his vision got dizzy from the neck cracking for a second. Opening his cupboard he pulled out his clothes for the day, getting changed as need be (no I'm not going into detail you perverts XD).

Eventually he was ready for the day; grabbing his hat and putting it lop sided on his head as he always did. He never saw the reason for wearing a hat straight, it just looked, too normal. He was just about to leave when he wiggled his finger and took a few steps back. He slowly backed himself into the kitchen which was adjacent to the living room near the door.

"Can't forget, can't forget," he said as he pulled a basket of tea bags off a shelf in the kitchen. All these continuous tea parties meant eventually they would run out of tea. Today was that day. He was expecting complete chaos when he returned to the long table spread out in the woods attended by fewer people than the table required. Opening the door with his foot it swung open and he took the path along to where the table lye. Eventually every now and again he would get daydreams about that fateful day, but as he did every other day he let himself grow number and number to it till it faded from his memory for the time being. He eventually heard the sound of plates and cups shattering, sighing a little before smacking on a smile and heading over to the table.

"Tea... Tea... Tea!!" He heard the hare say, hearing another crash as a half broken cup ran off the table and onto the ground in front of him. He did a quick exaggerated pivot on his heel as to not step on the broken cup. Suddenly he felt a tug at his pants and as he looked down he saw the hare full on balling his eyes out.

"Okay, okay. I have the tea, you're going to go madder than you already are at this rate now aren't you," he said with a sigh ending in a giggle and plopped the basket onto the table. The hare grinned with madness and delight as he almost literally dove into the basket and pretended to swim amongst the tea bags. Mind you it was not a big basket so as he did so he knocked tea bags out onto the table in the process. Sitting down at the end of the table in his normal seat he pulled over one of the tea pots from the table and added a tea bag from the basket into the pot of hot water. Stirring the pot in his hand, even holding it up to his ear to listen to the sound of the water swirling round the pot, he waited. Suddenly he heard a scream, which would usually make the average day person jolt but because he was so used to random screams he assumed it was someone at the table. Closing his eyes he listened to the water continue to swirl around the pot as he mixed the tea. Eventually opening his eyes he put the tea pot down and was about to add a huge amount of honey to which he then heard a thump on the table. Looking up with his eyes before his head his eyes widened as he noticed a... girl. A girl... was at the table... this wasn't good. His eyes darkened to a dark shade of green as he put down the honey and began pouring the tea from the tea pot into a chipped cup.

"Who are you?" he asked, the slight Scottish accent coming through.