Angor could not understand any of the words, but he could still speculate the story by the pictures.
It seemed like a fairytale.
A girl bumped into a strange land. She could drink some wine to become small as a rat or eat some cake to be as big as a giant. There was a bowl of mushroom soup; drinking from the left made her shorter while drinking from the right made her taller. With all of these surprises, the girl started an amazing journey with strange creatures.
Angor enjoyed the story. He felt somewhat familiar with it, but he quickly put that emotion away to keep reading the book.
Time passed. Things around him were becoming weirder, but Angor realized none of them.
Firstly, Mister Bunny was turning the pages along with Angor’s reading speed. Next, the plush owls, poker soldiers, bunny teacups and rainbow dragonflies on the other side of the hall all came around him. However, Angor was totally attracted by the beautiful journey in the story and was completely oblivious of his surrounding.
Angor did not take any of the abnormalities to heart. Instead, he joyfully placed his own spirit together with the girl in the story.
Angor felt himself becoming the main character of the story and running after a talking bunny.
Everything was beautiful. All creatures here had peculiar looks, but they all showed kindness. Angor even thought that this was the wonderland.
As he kept himself immersed in the wonderful world, a sharp cackling came from the castle far away.
“Oh no, the Queen of Hearts is here! Shava, you need to leave, or the queen will turn you into a card!” urged the talking bunny.
The Queen of Hearts? Leave? Shava?
Angor stared at everything with a blank face.
Who’s Shava? I’m Ango—An—Huh? Who am I?
He realized something was wrong.
He recalled seeing the bunny in tailcoat in the manor castle, and the bunny was—wait, what was the bunny doing?
The beautiful journey in Angor’s mind instantly shattered into pieces. He knew he forgot something, and he knew he must remember it!
He screamed with his mind, but his memory kept falling apart until he could not even remember what he was doing just a second ago.
“Eeeheeheehee—”
“Shava, what are you doing?? Run! The queen is coming!” The bunny dragged Angor’s hand. “This is dangerous, you need to go to my rabbit hole to escape!”
Next, Angor was unconsciously led away by the bunny.
The mountains afar were still booming with green, but all the fantasies now carried a lifeless strangeness.
“My rabbit hole is right there. Get in and let me deal with the queen,” the bunny said before he pushed Angor.
Angor fell onto the ground with a trip.
The bunny was still urging him to get inside the hole, but sudden alertness came about Angor’s mind.
“Get back to the closet.”
The message appeared inside his head abruptly.
The closet? Angor’s once blank expression turned sharp. He remembered the closet! He also recalled that he was taking his talent test, and fell into a strange parallel world for no reason, and a… a reading bunny!
When he realized everything, the world around him shifted. All became nothingness.
The “rabbit hole” was replaced by a bloody maw filled with sharp fangs. The adorable bunny behind him also turned into a tattered ragdoll with patches sewn all around it.
Angor stepped back, then quickly ran away from the maw.
As he left the area, he found himself back at the hall where Mister Bunny was.
He was no longer relaxed as before, however, because he just noticed that a group of card soldiers had surrounded him…