The sun, a pale, indifferent eye in the late afternoon sky, cast long, lazy shadows over the manicured riverbank. The air was thick and sweet with the scent of mown grass and water lilies, but to Alice, it was simply the smell of dullness.

She lay sprawled on her stomach beside her sister, a small, vibrant splash of cerulean-blue against the muted green landscape. Her chin rested in her palms, pushing her cheeks up just enough to give her an annoyed, fish-like pout. Her blonde hair, usually neat beneath its black ribbon, had slipped, and a few loose strands tickled her forehead, which she impatiently puffed away. The white pinafore apron covering her dress seemed almost blindingly clean, a symbol of the order she yearned to escape.

A large, leather-bound textbook lay open near her, its page covered in dry, angular diagrams and neat, tedious text about the history of the Norman Conquest. "It’s all sense, Dinah," she muttered, not to the older girl reading beside her, but to the air itself. "Nothing but sense and order. A world where two and two must always make four. Where is the nonsense? Where is the adventure?"

As she spoke the word 'nonsense,' the very fabric of reality around her gave a subtle, almost imperceptible twitch. A nearby buttercup, moments ago a sunny yellow, flashed chartreuse for a heartbeat before snapping back. A low, persistent hum, the kind one hears when the brain is too tired to think, seemed to resonate deep in the soil, fueled by her quiet, willful discontent. She never noticed.

She closed her eyes and wished with a fierce, restless energy—a silent, subconscious command to the universe. A world-shaping, paradox-creating wish, utterly unaware that it would instantly be granted.

When she opened her eyes, a strange sound caught her attention—not the gentle lap of the river, but a rapid, rhythmic thump-thump-thump, accompanied by frantic, high-pitched murmuring.

Late! Oh dear, oh dear! I shall be terribly, fantastically late!

A glimpse of brilliant white fur and a flash of scarlet waistcoat caught her attention. A White Rabbit, impossibly dressed and visibly distressed, sprinted past the edge of the lawn, clutching a massive pocket watch. He was real, yet utterly out of place.

Alice gasped, scrambling to her knees. Her large blue eyes went wide with electrifying curiosity, and a delighted, almost feral grin broke through her pout. This was it. This was the moment where two and two did not have to make four.

Without a second thought for the book, her sister, or the sensible world she was leaving behind, Alice hiked up the skirt of her cerulean dress.

"Oh! An adventure! I simply must know where he is going!"

She took off in pursuit, her black Mary Jane shoes pounding lightly on the grass, utterly focused on the fleeing, frantic creature, her curiosity her only guide. She didn't see the hole the Rabbit plunged into until she was practically upon it—a sudden, impossibly deep gap beneath the roots of an oak tree, like a massive, open mouth leading to absolute blackness.

She paused only for a breath, the thrill of the unknown overriding any hint of fear.

"Down," she whispered, the word a promise to herself, "is definitely more interesting than across."