First Ever Fan Fic! (...meh)

What's happening? I really have no idea what I'm doing, or where I'm really going with this story. But it is my first and I hope I'm doing okay…or not. Whatever; basically, the story is practically the same, only Sophie is actually from what you would call 'our world'. Discover Sophie's real story in this weird twisted version of HMC (from both the movie and the book, as in the movie, they don't mention a lot of the characters names, so I had to look it up in Wikipedia) WARNING, RATED M FOR PSYCHOLOGICALLY TWISTED STUFF! PROCEED AT YOUR OWN RISK!

Chapter 1

I stood on the edge of the cliff, trying my hardest to resist the urge to step back from the man in front of me, which would ultimately result to my death.

"You have nowhere to go, Sophie," he said. "Just give up now and come back-come on now, you don't have to get hurt by any of this. If you come here now, you won't be punished, I promise,"

I looked at the man, then looked at the sheer drop behind me that looked to be about four stories high and would probably kill me. But then I looked back at the man, and though of where I had been for almost three years now. And suddenly, death didn't seem so bad.

"It doesn't have to be this way," he said.

I closed my eyes, knowing my decision and prayed to myself.

"Come on, Sophie," he was getting closer…it had to be done now.

"Alright," I said softly, trying to make it appear as if I surrendered. But just as he was reaching for me, I fell backwards towards the ground…hoping I would somehow survive this and be able to run...

I felt myself land and for a minute, all I saw was bright white. I took one breath…two, then three. Then I opened my eyes and saw a bright blue sky with small, puffy clouds slowly blowing to the right.

But it had been night time just a few minutes ago, hadn't it? I thought. Am I…am I dead?

"Excuse me, miss,"

I looked and saw a small looking girl with bright blonde hair and big eyes and was wearing what looked like a pink version of a maid's uniform. "Are you alright?" she asked me.

"Where…where am I? Am I dead?"

"What? This is Market Chipping. And from what I can tell, you seem very much alive,"

"Where is that at?" I said. I looked and realized I seemed to be in some alley…but I was just in the woods a few minutes ago…

"Are you alright? Why don't you come with me, you seem confused,"

"Umm…yeah, that might help," It also might help wrap my head around this as well.

"I'm Lettie Hatter,"

"Sophie," I mumbled. "…just Sophie…"

2 years later…

"Crap!" I shook my pointer finger and saw a tiny drop of blood ooze out after accidentally pricking my finger with the sewing pin. I put the finger in my mouth and sucked for a few minutes to wait for the bleeding to stop before going back to sewing the plastic berries onto the hat.

"Sophie?"

I turned to Mary, one of the other hatters at the store.

"The girls and I are going into town-why don't you join us? You've done enough work for today,"

"No, I'd better finish this," I told them, smiling. "You guys go and have fun,"

Mary didn't say anything for a few seconds, and then smiled. "Well, suit yourself…"

I turned back to the hat and started sewing again, trying my hardest to avoid the pin with my fingers. "If I prick myself one more time, I'll have to bandage all of my fingers again…"

"Alright, girls, let's go," I heard Mary say outside.

"Is Sophie coming?" one of the other hatters asked.

"No, she's busy," Mary said.

"I heard her yelp-did she get blood on one of the hats again? If Mrs. Hatter sees another hat with blood on it, she said she'd throw Sophie out before she knew what hit her,"

That's one thing I hated about this stupid store-the girls here talked as if I the door wasn't open (which it was).

"That's enough, we're leaving now," Mary said. She was the only one who even tried to stick up for me.

"Hey, look! It's Howl's Castle!"

"What, where?"

"Howl?"

Curious, I peeked out the window in front of me, trying to see what they were talking about. But all I could see was a faint black blob behind all of the clouds that covered the Wastes.

"He's gone," one girl said.

"No, he's just hiding from all those planes,"

"Hey, did you hear about Martha? They say Howl took her heart!"

"What? Now I'm scared to go outside!"

"Oh, don't worry; he only preys on pretty girls,"

The girls burst into a fit of giggles, then headed outside.

I looked curiously out the window, and then went back to my work. Guess that means I won't have to worry about some random Wizard stealing my heart, right? I thought. I'd heard random things about the infamous wizard, Howl. He was extremely handsome and apparently liked to eat the hearts of pretty young women (one girl said it was what kept him so young and handsome looking).

After a few minutes I managed to finish the hat and put it on one of the wooden head miniatures and thought of what to do next.

What I need is a new situation…I can't mooch off of Lettie's mother forever.

It had been two years since I was randomly dropped into this world (well, dropped is a nice word for it, isn't it?) and Lettie had set me up with a job as a hatter for her mother. Lettie insisted I stay as long as I need to, but it's been two years already. I was better acquainted now, and could probably make it on my own in this world.

That's the way mom raised me…thinking of my mom made me think of a lot of things which resulted in me shaking the thoughts out of my head. No use in dwelling in the past…I'm here now, and that's all that matters.

Thinking about it made me decide to see if Lettie had seen any job opportunities yet and if I could officially 'start' my new life here. Going around, I grabbed my cloak and changed into one of my regular dresses. I tried wearing the stupid dresses that stooped down past your ankles they had here for a few weeks, but they were itchy and I kept tripping on the skirt. Getting fed up, I just started making my own clothes (it helped that one of the hatters taught me how to sew) so I started wearing dresses of my own design. The one I wore today was a white dress that reached past my knees with blue flowing-like patterns.

Most people called me crazy, but whenever they did, I would just look at them and say 'on the contrary…I happen to be the only one here not crazy,' at least that's what it felt like.

I headed out, making sure to lock the shop before I left. Then I headed into town, grabbing one of the cable cars into the main part of town.

I started heading down and…ah, crap, where did Lettie say she started working again? I pulled out the piece of paper that listed directions to the bakery and started heading in that direction. When I saw the enormous crowd gathered in the street for the parade, I decided to take a short cut through some of the alleys.

Walking along, I noticed soldiers with guns and uniforms besides them and I quickly pulled my hood up and continued on, not wanting to be seen. I continued down the pathway, trying to make out where I was when I looked up and saw blue.

"Hey, looks like a little mouse lost its way," two blue dressed soldiers blocked my way.

"Actually, I happen to know where I'm going, so if you'll let me by…"

"We're about to go get a cup of tea-care to join us?"

"No thanks, I'm busy," I tried to step around the soldier, but the other one moved to block my way and squinted down to see under the hood of my cloak.

"She's pretty cute for a mouse," he said. "Why don't you take the cloak off, show off your 'cuteness'?"

Finally getting pissed off, I decided to scare them off with my rapid tongue. "I don't like #$!% who hassle innocent women, now get the #$! out of my way!"

"Hey, you've got quite a mouth for who's supposed to be a lady…maybe we should teach her some manners,"

I was about to reach for my pocket knife that I kept in my cloak pocket for emergencies when I felt a hand on my shoulder and I was yanked to someone's side. "There you are, sorry I'm late,"

I froze a little, because the voice was deep…just like…

No…it was impossible, there was no way…

"Hey, we're busy here," the soldier said.

"Are you really?" the man next to me said. "It looked to me like the two of you were just leaving," Out of the corner of my eye, I saw him move his pointer finger, and suddenly the soldiers began marching away as if they had no control over what they were doing.

"Don't hold it against them, they're not all that bad…" I looked to see who it was who technically saved me and…

Holy. Shiznight.

Super. Hot. Guy. Right. Next. To. Me.

He obviously wasn't who I at first thought it sounded like, for which I was grateful. This guy was ten times more handsome; so handsome, I wanted to duck my head and tell him I wasn't worthy of being in his presence.

"Where to?" he said in a voice that actually made me shiver a little. "I'll be your escort this evening…"

"I-it's okay, I can walk myself, I'm just going to the bakery…"

"I'm being followed," he said suddenly. "Act normal,"

Wait, what? I quickly followed my instinct and tried to act normal, but I was pretty sure the look on my face was one of sheer terror. For a few seconds we just walked like that, then I heard a strange noise behind us.

"Sorry," he said. "I got you involved,"

"Wait, what?" I said, but was immediately distracted by some black looking blobs forming in front of us.

"This way," the man pulled me to the side and started running and I just ran with him, somehow knowing that these black blobs were bad. More blobs formed in front of us and before I could think, the man told me to hold on and we were propelled into the air.

"What…how…" was all I could say.

"Straighten your legs and walk like you normally would," he told me. I did so and discovered that it was like I could walk on air. It was amazing!

"Not so hard, right?" he said. We continued walking on air over people and the parade going on. I think I saw some people look up and point at me, but I was too distracted by both the insaneness and the magic of how this was possible. I knew magic was possible here, but I'd never actually…participated in it!

"Very nice," he said softly and continued onto the balcony of the bakery. He landed on the railing and with the grace of what felt like a goddess, I landed on the balcony.

"I'll draw them off," he told me. "Wait a little before going outside,"

"O…okay," I said.

"That's my girl," he said before flying off the balcony into the crowd. I immediately went forward to see, but he was gone in the blink of an eye.