"How am I-" I started out loud.

Because it had been almost silent, my voice was louder than I thought it would be.
Something wasn't right.

This wasn't my hair, I've never seen an hourglass earing before, my voice was different; more....perverty(I didn't like that change the most), my wounds were completely healed, and my clothes were different as well. The only thing that seemed to be the same about my appearance was my height. Because there was no reflection when I looked in the water, I couldn't see my face, but I was certain it wouldn't be mine.

I had on a black coat, a blue and white striped vest with a striped bow, spats and boots, and black gloves. One side of the coat kept falling down my shoulder and I kept pulling it back up, starting to get irratated.

I eventually gave up and looked around for anyone else. I saw several other pieces of broken walls, some tables floating around, and stuffing. It looked like when Vincent would suddenly pull out his scissors and start tearing at one of his stuffed animals.

I couldn't see a single chain. That was a good thing, but it was also abnormal if I really was in the Abyss. Nothing was moving, save for the objects that were slowly floating to one side of the endless space.
I looked inside my coat to see if I had any weapons. If I had to fight, I would've preferred my black-bladed rapier, but it wasn't on me, sadly.

I found two daggers on my belt that had wires when I pressed a button on the hilt. I pressed it again, and the wires retracted. I put them back on my belt and looked at the specks of glowing yellow dots floating around.

"Oz never said anything about golden lights,"I thought.

I decided not to touch them just in case, and looked around once more to make sure there was no one nearby before unbuttoning my vest and my shirt.
There was no contract seal.
That means I had actually rejected Humpty Dumpty and it wasn't bothering Oz or Leo anymore.

"If I didn't actually die, I have to get back to Leo and make sure he's not breaking down like an idiot," I thought, determined not to survive just to die in the Abyss where no one knew I was still alive. "And make sure that brat isn't blaming himself."

I started walking, the water around my shoes making a little noise. I passed other broken walls and section of rooms, but I didn't see anything or anyone else.

"Where are all the chains?"

After walking around for what felt like a couple of hours, I was ready to scream in frustration when I finally saw a girl sitting by herself, facing away from me. Alice had been a chain, yet she looked entirely human, so I walked towards the girl cautiously with a hand on one of the daggers. She didn't notice I was there until I put a hand to her shoulder hesitantly.

She looked up abruptly at me, turning slightly. I heard a bell jingle from a bracelet on her left wrist.

As she turned her head, I could see that she was missing an eye. It was closed and there was  a scar over it, unlike Break's who kept his open, and there was a violet diamond-shaped marking under her left eye. I backed up as I saw dried blood spattered on her hair.

She looked at my hand, which was tightening around the dagger, and she backed up. Her eye glistened and I could tell she was starting to cry. Her other eye was diamond blue with a spade-shaped pupil that was lavender.

She looked down at the water, her hair shadowing over her face. "You're always scared of me...." she mumbled, clenching her fist. "I didn't even do anything to you."

I thought over whether or not she was acting and looked at her. She had a small blue clip in her hair, and was wearing a red short-sleeved jacket that didn't have any zippers. There were cubes at the end of the jacket strings, and two black strips coming out that was attached to her shirt. Her shirt was V-cut near the top, a black point momentarily peeking out from beneath the collar. She had on jean shorts that was a bit loose and folded at the bottom. Her medium length hair was a very dark shade of violet, almost black, with a white-blue streak on the front right side. The bracelet was midnight blue-colored lace and there was a gold bell attached to it. She had black buckled boots with gray and black leggings peeking out at the top, and didn't seem to have any weapons; not on her at the moment at least. Either way, she didn't match in the slightest, and I was a pattern of blue and white. Whoever chose the style for the Abyss had weird tastes.

I almost rolled my eyes in annoyance for getting distracted, but stopped myself.  I sighed and apologized, deciding to see if the girl knew anything about the Abyss we were in since she seemed to have been there way longer than me.

"Sorry, the blood on your hair just startled me,"I said, reluctantly letting go of the dagger.

She looked up and stopped crying, her face a little red.

I held out my hand, and she grabbed it hesitantly, the bell jingling, and stood up. Her skin was pale and felt cold to the touch. She came up to my chest with her boots on. I looked at her right earing, which was die-shaped and a deep blue, purple, and magenta watercolor.

"My name is Elliot," I said.
"Lacie," she replied quietly.
"Are you a chain?"
She hesitated. "I don't think so. Cheshire always referred to me as a person."
Lacie shuffled her feet, looking up at me. "Are you?"
"No."
"Cheshire?," I thought. "Isn't he the chain that took Break's left eye? And how does she not know for sure if she's a human?"

I looked around, still not seeing anyone else other than Lacie.
"How do you know the Cheshire Cat?" I asked her.

"He would visit me from time to time on his way to see Alice. And he gave me this bell."
She held up her wrist so I could see her bracelet better, the bell clanging.
"He told me not to lose it," she mumbled, her eyes getting teary again as she dropped her hand back to her side.

"Ah, why are you crying?" I asked, bending down to look her in the eye.

"He's gone. That man with the Hatter killed him. He's the only one that would talk to me...."
"Break?" I interjected without thinking.
She started crying even more, the tears running down her face and dropping into the water covering the floor.
"Hey, wait, I'm sorry! I won't talk about it anymore," I said reluctantly.
"Um, do you know Alice?" I asked instead, assuming she was talking about Alice's twin sister, the Will of the Abyss.

"No," the girl sniffled, looking at a cracked room with red and black checker-patterned flooring. "I don't know about Celia either. Cheshire never talked about them for long."

"Celia?" I asked, confused.
"Oh, I think I mixed them up," she muttered, thinking.
Lacie looked back at me. "I remember now! It was Celia he would visit in the core of the Abyss, and Alice was her sister. Celia has blueish-white hair, and I think Alice's hair is like Cheshire's, but her eyes are violet."

"Celia was the Intention's name? I thought they were both called Alice."

"Have you talked to anyone else here?"
"No," she said. "I've seen other people and chains, but they all ran away or dissapeared."
"You've seen other chains? When?"
"And why would they run away from you?"I thought silently. I looked Lacie in the eye and felt a chill go down my spine, but I didn't know why. She still looked like a human, and I couldn't sense any bloodlust. The aura she gave off was playful and kind of sad....but there was a part that felt like Vincent and Break when they got angry.

"I don't know; a long while ago. Cheshire told me time is distorted here."
"Then is this...the Abyss?" I asked her after a couple of seconds.

She looked away at the endless space.
"Yes. It's different from the Abyss Revis made, though. The Abyss used to look somewhat like this,"Lacie said, holding out a hand and touching the gold lights, her bell making noise again as it swayed on the lace.

"A different section of the Abyss?"

"Is that why there are no chains here that look like the trumps?" I asked her aloud.
"I think so," she replied, toying with one of the jacket strings.
"How did you get here? And are the two Abysses connected?"
"I woke up here," she said, letting go of the cube at the end of the string she had been playing with. "This Abyss is above the other Abyss, I think."

"Can things get out of this part of the Abyss?"
"Yes."
"Then why are you still here? You seem like you're lonely."
"You have to have a contract," she replied."I used to be able to go to Cheshire's dimension, but our contract got interrupted when he died."

"You used to be a contractor?" I asked, startled.
Lacie looked like she was younger than Oz, but time was warped in the Abyss so it was possible that she was older than Gilbert.

"Yeah," she said, tugging her shirt collar down. "It's not there all the time anymore since the Hatter killed Cheshire. But since it's there, I think Celia's trying to keep him alive with his remains and her memories. I think she can do that since she's the Will of the Abyss."

Her bell clanged as I saw a small incuse appear several inches below her neck. It dissapeared a couple of seconds later.
My eyes widened as I realized Break and Oz had gone to Cheshire's dimension quite a while ago, yet Lacie's incuse hadn't gone over a single rotation. She didn't even have a clock hand.

"You're....a Baskerville?" I asked, shocked, and took a step back.

She looked up at me, confused, and hurt showing in her eye momentarily.
"A Baskerville?" Lacie asked. "What's that?"
"I'm not gonna hurt you," she insisted when I didn't answer, tightening her grip on the cube.

I hesitated. "There's no way she can have a contract seal without a hand unless she's a Baskerville. Yet she said she woke up here, and doesn't even know who the Baskervilles are."
"The Baskervilles are a clan that can make contracts with chains without them being illegal contractors. We're not on good terms," I said, looking back at her.

"Illegal?" she asked curiously.
"Illegal contractors get dragged to the bottom of the Abyss after they kill people for their chains and their clock hand makes a full revolution."
"Why would they kill people for their chains?"
I stared at her. She had a contract with Cheshire, yet didn't know chains consume people for power? Even if Cheshire was like Alice who had no interest in eating people, Lacie should know that chains in general consume humans when they pass through a Way.

"What?" she asked, blinking.
"How come you don't know any of this yet you've been in the Abyss this entire time?" I said, raising an eyebrow.
"Am I supposed to? I haven't seen any other chains except for a porcupine-looking one when it went through a Way, Cheshire, Mad Hatter, Raven, and....that knight guy. I forgot his name. Celia killed him for interrupting her talk with someone."

"You've seen Raven?" I asked, making a side note not to anger the Intention.
"Yeah, I was looking around to see if I could find some other way out of this place place, when I saw him. There was a boy there for a second, too. He called the chain Raven, so I assumed that's his name."
"A boy?"

"What did the boy look like?" I asked, scanning the area again.
"He had curly black hair and I think his eyes are yellow. I only got a glance of him before another boy with blonde hair pulled him back and they disappeared." She started playing with her jacket string again.

"Gilbert and Vincent, maybe?"
I thought back to when I had caught them coming back from the hall that led to the Nightray's gateway to the Abyss a bit after Gilbert had been adopted into the Nightray dukedom.

"Do you want to get out of the Abyss?" Lacie asked suddenly.
"I...." I closed my mouth. Making a contract again was not what I wanted.
"Is there no other way to get out?" I asked. "You didn't find any?"
Lacie put a finger to her chin, silent for a few seconds.

"No. Not unless you can open a Way yourself."
I clenched my teeth. "But you're not a chain and neither am I. We can't make a contract, and there's no other chains around."
"What do you mean? You can make a contract with me."

"What? I just said we can't make a contract because you're a person, not a chain," I said, pointing to her then me.
"Here," she said, reaching for my arm.

I pulled it back, stepping away from her. "What are you doing?"
"You have to drink the other person's blood, right?" Lacie asked, her bell jingling.

"Well, yes, but...."
"If you're worried about that illegal contract stuff, we can put the incuse on me." She took another step towards me.

"Hey, hold on," I said, backing up further. I stopped.
"You've got to be kidding me."
There had been a wall behind me and now I was backed up against it. I was starting to rethink writing off that small aggressive part I had sensed from her aura, which had gotten more noticeable.

"Lacie!" I exclaimed, pushing her away from me.
She stopped. "What? You weren't here this whole time, so you want to get back, don't you? I don't wanna stay here by myself, so a contract between us should be fine."

"Shouldn't it?" she asked, seeing my expression and backing up a bit. Her eye flickered, changing color for a split second.

"No," I said. "There's something different about you. You're not a normal human and I've already been an illegal contractor. I don't want to make a contract with another chain."

"So you'll stay here with me?" she asked, blinking away tears.
"I'm sorry, but I have to find some other way back," I said, slowly walking sideways along the wall.
"But I'm not a chain. Even if Cheshire never stated that I was a human, I know that I'm not a chain!" she said, starting to yell.
"Then what are you?" I yelled back, stalling. I was almost near the edge of the broken wall.
"I don't know!" she exclaimed, huffing and close to tears; not noticing that I was slowly walking towards the end of the broken section.

Her eye widened as I turned, about to make a break for it.
"Wait!" she yelled, barging into me as I got a foot from the wall.
"Hey!" I said, losing my footing and falling on my side, water splashing. God, she was fast.

"You can't just leave after talking to me! And for a stupid reason like 'I don't know for sure if you're a chain!" Lacie exclaimed, crying as she sat on top of me, preventing me from getting back up.

"So if you want to leave, you're gonna have to take me with you or make a contract with me!"she huffed angrily, her eye color flickering crimson red similar to Oz's again, then turning back to blue and lavender.

"Tch!"
I tried to push her off, but she wouldn't budge, and held my wrists down when I tried to grab one of the daggers.

"Okay, fine! I'm not going anywhere, you win; just get off of me!" I glared at her.

She looked down at me, her hair covering her scarred eye. She had stopped crying, and now she grinned.
"Nope, I don't trust you," she said, sticking out her tongue at me and crossing her arms.

My temper flared and I clenched my fists, a vein showing. "That's it! You're worse than Leo and Oz combined!"
I twisted underneath her and grabbed her arm, pulling her off of me. Her eye widened in surprise as she hit the water. I rolled over and leaned towards her.
"If you're lying, I will find a way to get you back here before you can so much as blink," I said through my teeth.

"So you'll contract with me?" she asked, ignoring my hostile attitude.
"Yes," I hissed.

She smiled, her eye turning red.
I winced as a blade whizzed by my cheek, making a small cut. I looked to the side and my eyes widened when I saw a bladed chain.

"There," Lacie said, brushing her thumb against the cut, a drop of my blood on her finger.
She licked her finger as the chain dissapeared.

I looked back at her as she coughed.
"You're heavy," she remarked as a black point appeared, poking out from the collar of her shirt.
I blushed slightly and got off of her, clearing my throat and looking away.

She looked at me, sitting up; her eye still red.
"What's wrong?"
I looked back at her. "What's up with your eye?"
"Huh? What's wrong with it?" she asked, touching the right side of her face.
"It turned red."
"Oh that. I don't know, it just does that sometimes. It'll change back in a bit."

"Then what was that chain?" I asked suspiciously. "It appeared out of nowhere, meaning that wasn't just a hidden weapon."

"Here, let's go," she said, changing the subject and standing up; brushing off her shorts.
"What, you can open a Way?" I asked, stumbling; dizzy all of a sudden.
"Now I can," she replied.
A silhouette of a spiked crown appeared above her head and several chains appeared.

My eyes widened as we got dragged into an opening Lacie made with the blades, and I passed out.

(Sorry for the late update. While I was looking up stuff about chain users, I found an AMV on Kurapika and started binge watching Hunter x Hunter)