My eyes flew open and I found myself plummeting through the air; when I turned my head—I saw another girl jumping at the same time as me, a girl with blonde hair that, strangely enough, looked almost exactly like mine. "Re—Juliet!" I shouted, and the girl immediately turned towards the sound of her name.
"Alice!" She called my name, and before we knew it, our bodies had crashed into something incredibly soft and springy—it was as if we'd fallen onto an oddly soft mattress. "Huh? I thought we were going to die," Juliet said before sitting up to see where we'd landed.
"Where on earth did we end up…?" I muttered, and when I touched the soft thing I was sitting on, I could feel that familiar squishiness. "This feels just like a marshmallow."
"It is a marshmallow. Look around you, Alice," said Juliet, and sure enough, when I lifted my head—I could see that this world was made up of all kinds of sweets: giant lollipops stuck in the ground, rivers flowing with chocolate, candy floss floating in the sky in place of clouds, and too many other things to list one by one.
I was almost speechless—this was the first time in my life I'd been trapped inside a "book," and it turned out this place was truly crazy, strange, or, to put it more clearly, absurd. "This is..."
But before I could finish my sentence, Juliet suddenly stood up and shouted with enthusiasm. "THIS IS SWEET HEAVEN!" It caught me off guard, and my head was instantly drawn towards her.
"What the...?" I blurted out, and before I could get an answer, she hopped down from the marshmallow we'd been sitting on and ate it without the slightest hesitation. "E-Eh?"
After she swallowed, she looked at me with eyes that practically sparkled as if she'd just found a treasure that would make her rich for life. "Alice! This tastes just like real marshmallow! You have to try it!" she shouted before taking another bite of the marshmallow.
"No… thanks," I said, puzzled by her behaviour—she didn't seem suspicious at all—but at least she wasn't poisoned… or at least not yet. "Are you… really not Red?" Without realising it, I muttered, almost to myself. Seeing her so excited about something sweet like this really reminded me of him.
"Did you say something?"
"Hm, ah, no."
I jumped down and looked around us again; the sweet smell filled my nose, and I'd have to get used to this scent until we could get out of this Book. "Juliet, let's look for the others..." I turned towards where the girl had been standing, but she was already gone without a trace. "...first?"
"Juliet?" I called out and looked around, and spotted her at the far end of the brown river—I was even more surprised and could only let out a long sigh before walking over to her.
I could clearly see her sipping the chocolate she'd picked up with both hands, and though her expression looked surprised, the wide smile she wore was enough for me to know she was enjoying it. She took another sip before turning towards me. "Alice, you have to try this!" she said, her face full of anticipation.
"No," I replied firmly. I didn't want to taste anything here, but her pleading face—like a little puppy's—made me feel bad. I tried hard to resist, but in the end, I gave in to her. "All right…"
I tucked a strand of my blonde hair behind my ear before leaning in slightly and snatching the chocolate from her hand. Once I swallowed it, I could taste the authentic flavour of real chocolate—not the artificial kind. "It's good," I said, and that made Juliet's face light up.
"See?! My dad always says to try things before you judge them," she said before finishing the chocolate in her hand. I was now curious to try the other sweets to see if the rest tasted like the real thing or not. "Let's try that candy floss!" Without warning, Juliet grabbed my hand and dragged me away with her.
We tried various sweets all around us, and I can conclude that this place is truly an authentic world of sweets with authentic flavours. Before long, I couldn't resist and ended up dragging Juliet over to taste some other sweets.
"You're going crazy for sweets too!" Juliet exclaimed, and that immediately stopped me from taking a bite out of a giant biscuit—this wasn't like me; I wasn't supposed to be this much of a sweet tooth. I looked back at my hands—I'm the type of person who gains weight easily just from eating a little, and that instantly made me realise what the two of them were trying to do to us.
I quickly gripped Juliet's hand tightly, preventing her from putting that biscuit in her mouth again. "Hey! Mind your own business!" she yelled, but when she saw how serious I looked, she fell silent—my tight grip on her hand only made her more convinced that something was wrong.
"They're trying to trap us all here with these sweets, and the longer we eat—the harder it'll be for us to stop, and we'll end up trapped here forever."
"And you know what happens if we don't stop eating, right?" I asked, my eyebrows furrowed as I looked at the girl who seemed to be just now realising the gravity of our situation.
"…We'll get full?" she asked innocently.
I let out a sigh of frustration and disbelief—she was just as dumb as Red; maybe that kind of stupidity really did run in her family's blood. "More accurately, we'll be way too full, but our mouths won't stop chewing until our stomachs explode."
"That's terrible!" Juliet immediately dropped the biscuit she was holding; she became very alert, looked around, and, as if snapping out of a trance, suddenly realised someone was missing. "Romy! My love! Where are you?!" She shouted, but still got no response.
I pulled out four cards before tucking two of them under my shoe and handing the rest to Juliet, who looked extremely worried about her boyfriend's current situation. "Don't worry, Romeo—he's… ugh, right… he's just as stupid as you, so we need to hurry," I urged, now I'm not surprised why they're dating.
After she tucked the cards under her shoe as well, she gave me a strange look—as if there was something she really wanted from me. "Alice," she finally called out, and when I turned towards her—she immediately pointed to the giant lollipop stuck right behind her. "Can I take that?"
It turned out her request didn't matter; I rolled my eyes before grabbing her right hand and soaring into the sky—once in the air, I noticed two strange things. First, Juliet's right hand felt incredibly hard, and second, she felt much heavier than before. But when I turned to look, I saw she was holding the giant lollipop—the one stuck in the ground—with her left hand.
Right then and there, I immediately let go of her hand and couldn't help but shoot her a look of surprise and annoyance at what she'd done—noticing my gaze, she raised her eyebrows in confusion. "What? This might become a weapon for me! I'm not a Fable like you guys, and I only have a little of my potion with me," she explained.
Elsewhere, a man and a woman were walking side by side, yet neither of them was willing to make even the slightest eye contact. Behind them, a hapless girl had to follow the pair amid an atmosphere thick with awkwardness and irritation.
The woman in the police uniform stopped in her tracks when she saw three chocolate bars lying on the ground; they'd already passed them twice. "Look at that! We've passed this spot before, and you still told us to trust your intuition?!" Ciel asked angrily.
"I never said it would work a hundred percent! At least not like you, who bragged about your amazing navigation skills but still ended up back here!" An offended Robin immediately fired back, and as they traded barbs, the girl standing behind them was at a loss for what to do.
"Calm down, both of you…" Snow tried to intervene, but her voice didn't reach the ears of those already consumed by anger. "If we keep fighting like this, we'll never find a way out…" but her words fell on deaf ears.
Snow let out a long sigh as she listened to the two of them bickering like children. "Please help me, God," she prayed, and it was as if she'd been immediately blessed—she found a way to make sure her voice reached both of them.
"Don't you Fables have extraordinary abilities? Why don't you just use them?!" Ciel snapped as she took a step forward to get closer to Robin.
"And weren't you trained to find your way in situations like this? Looks like I had too high an opinion of you guys," Robin sneered, and his words truly cut deep into Ciel's heart.
"You're out of line—"
"SHUT UP!" But before Ciel could continue arguing, a hoarse-voiced girl shouted, demanding that the two of them shut their mouths tight. They both turned their heads at the same time and saw Snow with her head bowed; but now, in her right hand was a dwarf doll with a thick beard and wearing a red nightcap. "I'm Flint! And I'm asking you both to be quiet and get along!"
The atmosphere calmed down again, while Ciel was completely at a loss for words over what was happening right beside her. "What's this, then? A Punch and Judy show?" That question was a harsh blow that caused the puppet to vanish instantly, and Snow curled up on the ground, not daring to show her face again.
Before long, the two of them heard sobbing coming from Snow's direction, causing them to slowly exchange panicked glances. "See, it's your fault she's crying," Robin stammered, at a loss as to what to do.
"Shh, let's calm this girl down first, idiot" Ciel whispered back, truly bewildered to see someone who was supposedly Fable crying over something as trivial as this.
"But how?"
"I don't know—you're a guy, right? Be thoughtful! Come on!"