Week 13 Story: Akira in Wonderland

(Photo from Pinterest)

One afternoon, Akira decided to go for a walk. He was still fairly new to the city, and thought it would be a good idea to get more familiar with his surroundings. He was walking through an empty alley. Empty except for a black cat that was walking on two feet.

“Oh no,” said the cat. “I’m going to be late! Everyone will be angry with me!”

Akira thought this was rather strange, so he decided to follow the cat. As soon as the world started twisting around him, he remembered that he had met that cat before. In that strange place he accidentally wound up in on the way home from school the other day, the Metaverse. He had no idea what that place was, but when they got home, the app on his phone had welcomed them back to the real world.

By “them” he meant himself and that weird kid Ryuji from school. The one his homeroom teacher told him to stay away from. Akira was in enough trouble already and didn’t need to hang out with a delinquent. Naturally, they ended up together in that strange world.

It was taking forever to land in that place, so Akira started thinking about all kinds of stuff. I hope I’m not gone too long this time. I wonder if Sojiro will miss me if I am. Who will help him make the curry if I’m not there? Will he be able to handle the shop if I’m not there to do the dishes? he thought.

He also started to think about that kid Ryuji again. And the weird cat-monster they had met the last time they ended up here. He wished he hadn’t followed it, at least not by himself.

When he finally landed, Akira caught a glimpse of the cat. Morgana, was it? He decided to follow, and found himself in a hall full of doors. The table in the center of the hall had a very small key on it. Too small for the doors. Akira looked around some more, eventually finding a small vent with a lock on it. Peering through the vent, he could see that there was a magical looking garden down below, but there was no way he would fit through the vent.

Akira returned to the table and noticed a small bottle of potion labeled “drink me.” He shrugged and decided to go for it. It tastes like Sojiro’s special curry! There was a loud popping sound, and Akira turned into a rat. I suppose I’ll fit through the vent now, he thought with a tiny rat frown.

When he ran over to the vent, he realized that he forgot the key. Akira ran back to the table and realized that he was a tiny rat that would never reach the key. Luckily, there was a little piece of cake under the table. Akira the rat took a nibble. It tasted like coffee. Jamaican Blue! How delicious! He thought. There was another loud pop, and Akira turned back into a human. He grabbed the key, took the last swig of the potion, turned back into a rat, and scampered back to the vent. He ran through and jumped down into the garden, landing with a thud.

When he got there, he was not alone. The garden was filled with all of his friends; Skull, Panther, Fox, Oracle, Queen, Noir, Crow, and even Mona, the cat.

“Joker?” asked Fox the rat. “Is everything alright?”

“I’m not sure. A minute ago I thought I had just arrived in Tokyo, but now… I know all of you.”

“What, did you eat some bad curry this morning or something?” Skull the rat asked. “You’ve been in Tokyo for months, now.”

“We’re in a palace,” said Mona, that cat who was now a rat.

“Hey guys?” Panther asked. “How are we going to open that door over there with our, umm, paws?” asked Panther.

“That is prepawsterous,” said Fox.

That was when Akira woke up. He sure hoped it was only a dream, or else he was going to have to listen to Yusuke’s terrible rat puns in real life, too.

(Photo from Polygon)

Author’s Note:

This story is based on Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll. In the original story, Alice follows a talking rabbit down a rabbit hole and ends up in a hall of doors. The tiny key on the table opens a very small, hidden door that Alice can’t fit through. She drinks the potion to become small, forgets the key, eats cake to become very tall, and eventually gets the door open. She goes on to have many adventures in her strange world. My retelling is based on characters from the game Persona 5. The main character, Akira (Joker), is dreaming that he followed a talking cat into the Metaverse, a cognitive world inside people’s minds. In his reality, he knows the cat, and the other people who have turned into rats are his teammates, the Phantom Thieves. When he realizes that he knows them all, his friend Yusuke (also known as Fox) makes a terrible rat pun, waking him from the dream. In the game, there is a part of the cognitive world that they enter where devices turn them into rats, and they can crawl through small vents to get to new places. It becomes a very long puzzle, because rats can’t open doors. I thought that if Akira ended up in a sort of Wonderland, he would turn into a rat, which would make his life much more complicated.

Alice's Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll. Web Source.