Frozen Stars Over Wonderland - Chapter 1 (Patreon)

Alfre was unsure how it happened. She wasn’t even sure WHAT happened. But now she was running through a deep, dark wood, sword at her side and white hair billowing out behind her and the sound of wild, animalistic growls at her heels.

She did not always have white hair. And it had never been this long before. She reached up to push up glasses that were not there and would probably never be again as she jumped to avoid tripping over an exposed root. The sounds of growling faded behind her but she continued her sprinting. The how and why of this situation could wait until she was safe, and she wouldn’t be safe until she was back in the city.

But where was the city? And how could she get back? 

She cursed as a low hanging branch caught on her hair and tugged a few strands from her scalp. In a moment of clarity brought by the pain, she swore to chop all of her hair off the moment she got back to the city. 

She caught sight of a break in the trees just ahead of her. The end of the forest? No. A meadow. A meadow with a small, squat structure in the middle of it. Shelter, supposedly. At this point, she’d take any thing. Her lungs burned and her legs threatened to give out from under her if she ran even one more meter. 

She slowed to a stop as she approached it. It was a cottage, abandoned some time ago. Moss grew up the stone walls and the window was dusty and cracked. The door hung ajar, but it didn’t seem broken, which was a good thing. The last thing she needed was a shelter with a busted door. It creaked loudly on rusted hinges as she pushed it open a little more. Nothing seemed terribly out of place inside. It was dusty, true, and cobwebs hung in the corners where the walls met the ceiling, but there seemed to be no sign of an attack or a struggle. Whoever had lived simply up and left, leaving behind a small, unmade bed, a tiny kitchen, and a fireplace. 

She closed the door behind her, sliding the bolt to lock it against any possibly intruders. She didn’t dare try to light the fire, not that she had any real way of doing so even if she wanted to. The moonlight that shown threw the small, dirty windows would have to be enough. And enough it was for what she needed. She wandered the few steps necessary over to the bed. She smacked at it, causing the dust to go flying. She sneezed loudly, groaning at the pain it caused in her chest. She slapped the mattress a few more times in an attempt to clean it enough so that she wasn’t covered in grime come morning. Satisfied, she unhooked the belt that held her thin, simple rapier to her hip and set it aside, leaning it against the wall within reach of the bed. She toed off her simple, black leather boots and collapsed on the bed. Despite the fear that coursed in her veins, despite the adrenaline yelling at her to run more still, her eyes grew heavy and sleep came as beasts growled just outside the door.