Chapter1 The Voice of the White Rabbit
A single snowflake landed on Alice’s eyelashes.
Just that—and she felt as if a cold wind slipped straight through her chest.
“…Where am I?”
Her voice sounded younger than she expected.
Watching her breath unravel into white mist, Alice finally realized that this was a winter night.
And yet—
why was she standing on a snowy road without a coat, without gloves?
On the snow-covered ground, a single trail of rabbit footprints stretched ahead.
Small. Thin. A fragile white path that looked as if it might vanish at any moment.
Alice took a hesitant step forward.
That was when it happened.
A voice brushed against the inside of her chest.
You have to hurry.
It was a voice she didn’t recognize.
And yet, strangely, it felt familiar.
She didn’t know why. Only that her heart stirred uneasily, and her feet began to move on their own.
“Where… am I going?”
No answer came.
Only the sound of falling snow quietly filled the world.
Before she realized it, Alice was touching the top of her head with both hands.
Something soft—warm—was there.
Ears.
White rabbit ears stood upright, as if they had always belonged to her.
The warmth beneath her fingertips felt undeniably real.
“Why…?”
Her chest tightened.
A dull ache passed through her—
as if she wanted to remember something, and at the same time, desperately did not.
“Hurry. Hurry. You’ll be late.”
The voice echoed again from deep within her chest.
As if her heart itself had turned into words.
Alice broke into a run.
Snow burst upward, her vision scattering into white.
She didn’t know why she was running.
She didn’t know where she was going.
She only knew that she had to keep moving.
Still, pain crept into the soles of her feet, and her breath quickly fell out of rhythm.
“It hurts… I want to stop…”
But the voice inside her would not allow it.
“No. If you stop, they’ll catch you. Faster. Faster.”
Catch her?
What would?
There was no answer.
Stumbling through the snow, Alice kept running.
Then, at last, she saw it—
A gate shaped like a white arch.
An old wooden gate, its edges traced with snow.
It looked like the entrance to another world.
Alice stopped before it, breathing heavily, her shoulders rising and falling.
At last, the voice inside her chest fell silent.
Beside the gate stood a large mirror.
She didn’t know why a mirror would be in a place like this.
But Alice felt drawn to it, as if pulled by something unseen.
The Alice in the mirror blinked slowly.
In that instant, Alice froze.
Because the figure reflected back at her looked like—
someone who wasn’t her.
Her hair was a slightly different color.
Her eyes, deeper than usual.
And more than anything—
The Alice in the mirror was smiling.
Even though Alice herself was not.
A chill ran down her spine.
It felt as if the girl in the mirror was living a life separate from her own.
“Why…?”
That was when it happened.
A faint light wavered from deep within the mirror.
A strange, violet-tinged glow—utterly out of place in the snowy night.
And from within that light, a voice emerged.
“You’re late, Alice.”
Low. Smiling. And yet somehow lonely.
The voice rippled across the mirror’s surface like water, reaching Alice’s ears.
She staggered backward and fell into the snow.
Startled by the cold, she looked up—
but the figure behind the voice was gone.
Only the mirror remained, its surface slowly returning to stillness.
“…Who are you?”
Alice pressed a hand to her chest.
Her heart made a small click—
like the sound of a pocket watch.
“Late… for what?”
The snow continued to fall quietly.
The answer was known only to what lay beyond the mirror—
and to the voice within Alice’s chest.
—End of Chapter 1—
