Okay, here we go:
The sticky sweetness of the candy apple was the last thing I remember. It wasn't Dad's of course. He doesn't really do treats. This one was from Yaoyorozu; a perfectly round red orb, glistening like a forbidden fruit. I'd taken a bite, the sugary shell cracking under my teeth, and then… nothing. Just that deep, familiar exhaustion pulling me under, like the heavy blanket of sleep.
I'd been trying to get better about naps. Dad said they were important for healthy growth, but it always felt like a stolen moment, like I was giving in. Especially with all the training, the studying… the constant push, pull, whiplash of trying to catch up. Still, that candy apple was good, really good, and I let the darkness have me.
Then, I wasn't on the scratchy, uncomfortable couch in the U.A. dorms anymore. I wasn't even in the dorms.
The first thing I noticed was the light. It was… everything. Overwhelming, bright, dappled through leaves that were too green, too vibrant to be real. And the air, it smelled like wildflowers and something else… something strange, almost playful.
I sat up, blinking against the kaleidoscope of colors. My hand, which had been clutching the stem of the apple just moments before, was now holding… nothing. I was lying on a patch of soft, mossy ground, and dressed in a blue dress with a white pinafore. The fabric felt odd against my skin. I'd been in loose sweatpants and one of Dad's overly large t-shirts.
Panic, sharp and cold, threatened to grip me. "Where… where am I?" I whispered, my voice sounding small and lost in the vastness of the forest.
I looked around, my heart hammering. Everything was oversized, almost cartoonish. The mushrooms towering over me were the size of small houses, and the flowers seemed to be bursting with colors that didn't even have names. There was a crooked path, almost swallowed up by the dense undergrowth, winding away from me into the woods.
It was terrifying and… strangely familiar. It was the kind of strange that made my head spin, like seeing a drawing come to life.
Then, I saw it. White fur, pink eyes, and an anxious twitching nose, disappearing around the trunk of a giant toadstool. A rabbit. Not just any rabbit. This one was wearing a waistcoat and clutching a pocket watch in one tiny paw.
I blinked. This can't be happening. This was too weird, even for me. Being thrown back through time, fighting alongside heroes, having my power used by the world's worst man… all that had prepared me for a lot, but not this.
My first thought was to go back to the U.A dorms. To wake up. This had to be a dream, right? A really, really weird dream brought on by a giant sugar rush.
But the way the sunlight filtered through the leaves, each tiny fleck dancing like a spark, felt too real. And the scent of the flowers, the strange, sweet tang in the air... it all felt too vivid to be the product of my tired brain.
The rabbit, if that was really what it was, was gone. I took a shaky breath. It was no use sitting here, I reasoned. I needed to figure out what was going on.
So, with my heart still thumping like a trapped bird, I took the first step onto the path. I felt a strange sense of acceptance settling over me. A curious whisper within my own head told me that the rabbit was where I needed to go. After everything I'd been through, maybe a little bit of Wonderland wasn't so bad. Maybe some of this strange could be a good thing.
I found myself humming an old lullaby Dad used to sing, his voice a faint, comforting echo in the unfamiliar silence of this strange new place. It was going to take more than a talking rabbit to scare me now. I was Eri, after all, and I'd seen monsters far stranger than this. I just had to find out what my role in this peculiar place was meant to be. And maybe, just maybe, there'd be more candy apples hidden somewhere along the way.