“Where did he fell from?” Judy asked, as she continued to look at all of the buildings around them, trying to pinpoint the place from which that mysterious cougar could have fallen from right into their car.
There was no glass around or in him, and so, it was to be suppose that he had fallen from an open window, and Judy could count a good amount of them. The gazelle paramedics that attended the feline before putting him into the ambulance said that he didn’t had any major injuries and that none of his bones had break with the fall, though it seemed that he had a few bruises into him. Therefore, it was safe to assume that he had fallen from a not very high height, maybe form the first or second floor.
This reduced the number of possible places from which he could have fallen to around eight windows, and six of them were into an angle that it was right above their car. The cougar had to have fallen from one of these windows, now it was only left to know if he had jumped, if he had slipped from the window by accident, or if someone had pushed him.
“Well, wherever he fell from, he was lucky that it was not very high, otherwise he would be going to the dead house instead of the hospital.” Nick said as he stood near Judy, and the bunny continued to look at the buildings, trying to make out from which angle the puma could have fallen to land right into their car, and this way, she could discover from which window he was when he fell.
“And I thought that all cats landed on their feet.” Nick added, but Judy was barely hearing him.
“It has to have been from one of these windows.” She said as she pointed at the open windows that were the closest from their car in the moment of the accident. “He must have been into one of these apartments in the moment that he fell, someone must have seen him or know him.”
“Yeah, because anyone has to know a big cat that falls from the sky.” Nick said, and Judy once more ignored him slightly. She continued to look up, and Nick looked at her, and he put a paw in front of his maw, and imitated the sound of a radio, “Here is Central calling out for Carrots. Officer Carrots, do you copy?”
Judy sighed, and she looked back at Nick. “Nick, we have what could be an accident, attempt of suicide or attempted murder, we need to take this a bit more serious.”
“Hey, I am taking it serious.” Nick said, “That was why I even took the liberty to pick up a photograph of our big friend.” He said, showing to Judy his phone, which now showed a photo of the unconscious cougar, which surely had been taken before he was taken by the ambulance. “He is kind of photogenic.”
“Oh, Nick! Yes!” Judy said, snatching the phone from his hands and watching the picture with exited eyes. “This is way better than just a description, now we can show his photo and give people his name and we can see who recognizes him.” She said, and she remembered about hat the cougar said when they tried to talk to him.
“He said he was with his friends in the building, so maybe they had been together into one of the apartments. Maybe we can show the photo into the lobbies of each building and ask if they cougar was a resident or if he appeared to visit a friend for a reunion. Maybe one of his friends has witnessed what happened and they can shine a light the situation.”
Okay, he had lost her again. It was like that each time that Carrots got too involved into a case and found out possible clues. She became too focused into the case that she nearly forgot about everything else besides the case and every possible lead that they could have. He was already used to it, and he had come to love that determined side of her. It was something that he had learned to admire into that little bunny. Even if sometimes it proved to be quite a challenge to keep up with her as she started to go deep into the case.
Just as Judy was about to lead them both into the inside of the building, their radios chimed, and Nick was the first to pick up. They heard Clawhauser’s voice in the other end of the radio, saying, “Nick! Judy! There is another call for you into Downtown!”
“Clawhauser, can’t it wait?” Judy said, and soon, Ben’s voice came again into the radio saying.
“Guys, we are low in agents! We have been dispatching for the whole Zootopia since the lights flickered! The whole city went dark for a few moments, and many things happened when the lights went out! We have reports of accidents, property damage, wounded mammals, car crashes, fights due to the crashes, we are to our necks into people calling to complain and asking for help of the police! We need to send everyone!”
“Wait…” Nick said, pressing the speaker button of his radio, “That hour when the lights flicked, it happened in the whole town?”
“In the whole Zootopia.” Ben confirmed, and Nick got himself to think.
That event with the lights happened in the whole city? With the cell phones and other equipment too? Now that was really curious, and as he looked at Judy he could see by the expression of her face that she thought it was curious too, but she soon dismissed it as she had a more important matter to worry about.
“But Ben, a cougar just fell into us, literally!” Judy said, “We were about to move with our car when he suddenly fell right into us, he damaged our car!” Judy said, and Nick looked at their vehicle.
It was indeed somewhat crushed. The roof had crumpled a little and there was the visible mark of where the cougar had landed into them. Their lights were a bit damaged, and they would most likely need to be replaced, not to mention the fixing into the metal of their roof. They were lucky it was a cougar and not a bigger feline, or a hippo, or a rhino, otherwise, the damage could have been far bigger.
“Oh my God! Are you two okay?” Clawhauser said, and Judy was quick to answer to him.
“Yes, we are fine, but the cougar was taken to the hospital, and we need to find ut exactly what happened for him to fall on us!”
Nick looked at Judy, and he said, “Carrots, I think we should go to see the rest of the city and leave this alone for now.”
“What? Nick we can’t!” Judy said, and Nick looked at her.
“Carrots, come on, the cougar is not that hurt and he didn’t died. The paramedics said that his injuries were not that bad, just a mild concussion and a few bruises into his body, but he was fine. I don’t see the need for us to go investigating it as if someone had tried to kill him.”
“But what if they did?” Judy insisted to him, and she said, “If someone pushed him out by the window wanting to kill him, but failed? If they find out he is alive then they might try to escape, or maybe they even go after him to finish his job! Or if it was a suicide attempt, then the cougar could try again, and in this case, he would need immediate psychiatric evaluation! Not to mention that…”
“Pah, tah, tah!” Nick said, gesturing to her. “Carrots, you are getting into case frenzy mode again.” He said to her with a gesture of his hands. Judy looked at him, as he looked back at her, and he said, “Look, Judy, I know that you are worried with the cougar, and that it could be a case, I know that very well, but we have other things to worry about now.”
Judy looked at him, and he said to her. “Judy, we have no evidence that this was even a crime, and besides, it is late and we are not sure of what really happened. It could very well have been just an accident, he was walking in the apartment when the lights flickered and he slipped into something and fell of the window.”
“But Nick-” Judy tried to say, but Nick was quick to silence her once more.
“Nah, nah! Judy, as you partner I say that we go on with our work, and we can even come back here in the morning, when people are already up and willing to tell us what happened, so we can find out more about our cougar and about what really happened to him. Sounds good to you?”
Judy looked at Nick once again, and she knew that there was no way that she could possibly win that kind of discussion. She knew that Nick was right, and she knew that by this hour of the night, anyone would not be very much willing to talk. Besides, if the things were really as bad as Clawhauser had said by the radio, then they would most likely have their ears pulled by chief Bogo if he heard that they had refused to answer a call only to make a stop for a particular investigation. She knew that Nick had once more won, and it was very clear by the growing smirk in his face.
God, she liked Nick more than any other friend she already had, but sometimes she hated that smile that he had when he proved his point.
Sighing, she activated her radio again, and she said “Clawhauser, you are still there?”
“Yep.”
“Where is the place we are being dispatched now?” She asked, and Nick nodded as he smiled softly at her, and as they both received the address of their call and the situation that they would be facing, they both rushed back to their car and started the engine. Still, Judy was really focused into Nick’s proposal of them investigating it better during the morning, and she was making sure to write down the exact avenue in which the even occurred, as well as any the possible windows from which he fell. She made a brief description of clothes that the jaguar was wearing in the moment he dropped into their car, and of course, she wrote down his name, the most important of all.
The name that he gave to her when he was almost losing his senses and the last thing that he said to her before blacking out.
To Judy, it was already settled. As soon as they had time tomorrow, they would try to find out just how was Alex Hunter.
XXX
Alex groaned. His senses were dull and he didn’t knew where he was.
Had he died? Well, it wasn’t as bad as it had seemed. He was calmer now, and that pain had went away. If that was die, than it definitely was not as bad as everyone always told to him. Now that the scare and the pain had passed, he felt a lot better now, calmer, except for that slightly throbbing of his head…
Wait.
If he was dead, his head shouldn’t be throbbing… and he should not be breathing.
Groaning, Alex tried to open is eyes, only to be momentarily blinded by the strong light that was coming from some window. He was laying, and he was in a bed, he could tell it now. A very soft bed.
Alex groaned louder as he moved his hand to shield his eyes, and at the same time, he used it to fell his own head as the pain was proving to be quite a challenge for him to deal with. Still, it was nothing too big, he already dealt with far much worse things.
Slowly, his eyes started to get adjusted with the lighting of the place, and he was able to open his eyes and take a good look into where he was. He was into a hospital room. The walls were decorated with pastel shades, and there was a nearby window with white curtains that let the light and the breeze of the outside come in. Along with it, came the sounds of the outside, that told him that now he was into somewhere that had movement, as he could hear vehicles in the outside, as well as people’s voices.
He blinked as the memories of the last night came back into his mind with the force of a train.
The building.
His friends and the planned attack.
Stoats.
Bastille, with Misty as a hostage.
Then the whole building shook, and they were all sucked out into what seemed to be a vortex. He and Linda both flew into the vortex before they were separated from each other. Then Alex flew into the vortex and there was that scorching, burning pain as his whole body seemed to be poured with melted iron. Only the memory of that pain made Alex shiver and recoil involuntarily. He was pretty sure that he was going to die into that moment.
However, as he was in there, into a hospital bed, alive and breathing, it seemed that he was wrong. Instead of dying, it seemed that he had instead be transported to somewhere else, or so it seemed. Alex wasn’t really sure, actually, he was not sure of anything that had happened since last night.
As he started to have his mind clearer, the first thing he thought about were his friends. He wondered if they all had been caught by the strange vortex, just like him, and if they too had been transported to somewhere else like him.
If they did, then where? Were they okay? Were they even alive? Misty? Linda? All the others? Where would they be? And how Alex would find or even contact them now?
Alex was about to raise up, when a sharp and throbbing pain in his head made him stop and squirt his eyes. He felt on his head and he could feel a lump under beneath his short hair.
His hair… felt a bit shorter than he remembered, but Alex didn’t had the mood or the time to think about it now. He was far more worried in find out other things, like where he was and how he was going to contact his friends.
Of course, that headache was proving to be a true pain, not to mention the blipping of that machine they had attached to him, the repetitive sound was really not making things any easier, and it was not helping to ease the throbbing feeling in his head emanating from that lump.
The sound also seemed to be a bit loud…
Suddenly, he heard a door opening, and someone walking in, with steps that clicked into the ground, almost as if they were hoofs. And a voice said:
“Well, looks like out patient here is walking up.”
Alex groaned. Did the doctor needed to be so loud?
“Headache, huh? Well, it is no surprise, considering that you fell into a car last night.
Fell… in a car? Alex remembered only vaguely things from after the vortex. They were confuse, almost like a dream, but Alex was able to remember it. He had dropped hard into something, and that pain in his head and into a few parts of his body maybe were because of that. He remembered being pulled out and hearing voices, but not much more than that. That pain in his head was preventing him from thinking.
“Well, we had all your radios and they seem to be okay, you have no broken bones and only suffered a minor injury.” The doctor said, continuing as Alex tried to get up, still squirting his eyes due to that pain. “Oh, go easy man, only because you got only minor injuries doesn’t means that you don’t need to go easy.”
Alex panted a bit, and he was able to slowly put himself into sitting position. “Doctor, I was with friends… They are in here too?”
He was too focused on his pain to give the doctor a description of his friends, but he wondered if they had landed next to the –lace where he did, and if they could be in there too. The doctor soon said, “I’m afraid not, Mr. … Hunter, we had not much entries in here last night. But maybe they are, could you give us the species of your friends?”
“Well, one of them was…” Alex started, but them he realized that the doctor had said “species”, and he opened his eyes to look at the doctor, to ask him what he meant by that. However, as soon as he put his eyes into the doctor, he blinked, as his vision was blurring, but he was pretty sure that there was something off.
“Doc… what kinds of drugs did you gave me when I was out?” Alex asked, and the Doctor looked back at him.
“Only some minor painkillers, for the wounds you suffered, but they might have worm out by now.”
“There was something wrong with them.” Alex said, as he massaged his eyes, “Maybe their validity expired or something… I can swear that I just saw horns in your head.”
Alex was expecting the doctor to let out a surprised exclamation, or to agree with him that he was hallucinating, but instead, the doctor laughed a little, and he said: “Well, it is natural, after all, all male moose have horns, right?”
Alex did not understood what he meant. Was it some new kind of joke that medics did. Alex opened his eyes again, and his vision was much clearer now. He was able to look at the doctor real good this time, and now, he was totally loss of words as he simply stared at the strange being before him.
It stood in two legs like a human being, and it wore the clothing of a medic, but that thing was surely not a human. Starting with the large face, with a long maw ending into a bulbous snout, and with a face crowned by a big pair of horns. Two hands, each one with three fingers ending into blunt talon-like fingers that held the clipboard and pen into it. The creature looked back at him with hazelnut-colored eyes, and it seemed to be expecting to what he was going to say.
Alex was in shock with the strange being before him, but he was indeed more shocked with the fact that he was soon able to recognize what kind of creature it was, exactly.
“You… you are a moose…” Alex said, almost absently-minded, as he looked at the strange being with wide eyes and a neutral expression, which the doctor was finding to be hard to decipher, as he looked at him.
“Well, yes, I am a moose, I hope you don’t have reservations about being attended by a prey species, but, if you would be more comfortable with it, I would not mind into calling out a predator to be your medic.” He said that, he was clearly being professional and polite with him, and he was speaking as if Alex was supposed to understand what was being spoke to him.
Alex, however, could only stare at him with these wide eyes, and the doctor, after a few moments of that silence, cleared his throat and decided to continue. “Well, Mr. Hunter, maybe your friends are among the ones that arrived after what happened last night, but, we have to keep in mind that this is a hospital that is more specialized into taking care of big species. If their species are not as big as our regular schedule, or if their species require a specific kind of environment, then it is really possible that they have been sent to a more specialized hospital here in Savanna Central, or maybe some hospital into another precinct.”
Alex said nothing, and only continued to stare at the strange being before him, as if it was simply the most natural thing in the world for a moose to be walking in two legs and wearing clothes and talking to him as if he was just another patient.
Alex continued to stare at him for a few moments, before raising his own hand and pinching his own arm hard.
“Ouch!” Alex said as he flinched, and he rubbed his arm as he continued to look straight at the moose in front of him.
He was still there, looking at him as if he was truly evaluating him.
The door opened again, and someone else came in.
Better saying, something else came in. This one was dressed like a nurse, and it too walked into two legs, but it was clear that it was not human. This animal was more slender than the doctor, and it didn’t had a bulbous snout like him, but it had a long face ending into a slender maw, and it too had two long and slender horns coming out of the top of its head. The head was covered into light-brown fur and white into the area of the mouth and neck, and light-brown fur into the slender arms that ended into hands with three fingers that ended into these blunt talons. It was a gazelle, and Alex was not sure if he had seem many of them on TV, but he knew that it was a gazelle.
She was pushing a small trolley that had a few cups into them, as well as a teapot, and a salmon that smelled very good, and that was companied by a set of flatware.
She stopped as she looked at the doctor, and she asked, “So, how is our patient today?” She spoke that as if it was perfectly normal two animals standing like humans and wearing clothes simply talk to someone. Alex looked at both of them, and he pinched his arm again, but harder.
He almost wailed in pain, and he rubbed his arm to make the pain go away. He looked back at both animals, and they were both still there, and they were looking at him as if they were worried. Alex turned his face away from them, and he blinked madly, and he even slapped his own face.
“Mr. Hunter, are you okay?” The doctor asked, and Alex was able to come with an answer.
“I’m trying to wake up.”
Alex had to be dreaming. That just could not be real. There was simply no way that he could be in a hospital with a pair of animals that were walking on two legs like humans, like these old children movies, and who were actually a doctor and a nurse, as if that was natural. This had to be some kind of twisted dream that he was having, and Alex was sure that he was going to wake up and soon he would forget everything about that dream.
But he was taking far too long to wake up.
He slapped his face again.
“Mr. Hunter…” The doctor tried to say, but Alex nearly jumped to out of the bed, saying something like “stay away from me” as he sprinted to the door, as if it was the way out of that strange dream.
However, as he crossed the door, it only seemed that the dream had got weirder.
Everywhere he looked, he could see all kinds of animals walking around in two legs and wearing clothes like humans would. Some were dressed as hospital staff, and some were dressed up as patients, and some and all of them were walking around as the regular schedule of the hospital, with the patients being taken care by the medics, and the nurses walking around to help the medics, and the medics themselves were moving to go tend to their own patients and schedule.
Alex looked around with wide eyes, almost in a daze as he saw all these animals around him, behaving just like humans. He saw a rhino with a patched leg, walking around with the help with walking sticks. He saw a lion in a wheelchair, being pushed by a leopardess nurse and they passed by him. He saw two nurses, a tiger and a bull chatting about some patient that he didn’t truly heard, as the intercom of the hospital requested for some doctor Lahove into the radiology.
All around him, there were these animals, and no matter where Alex looked, he could not see a single human around.
What was that?
What kind of strange dream was that?
That was all that could pass by Alex mind as he looked around in a daze, almost like a zombie. He barely heard the moose doctor talking to him, until he felt that hooved hands touching his body.
“Mr. Hunter, I really think that you should go back into bed.” The doctor said, as he helped Alex back into the room, and Alex allowed himself to be guided inside, as both the doctor and the gazelle nurse looked at him with worried expressions.
“You are not fully well yet, and you need to calm down.” The doctor said as he closed the door.
“OUCH!”
“And you need to stop pinching yourself.” The doctor added, and Alex answer was.
“I didn’t pinched myself, you stepped on my tail…”
“Oh, sorry!” The doctor said, removing his hooved foot from the appendage. However, Alex barely heard his apologizes, as he immediately realized that he had said “my tail”, and he now looked at it.
It was long and slender, and it had a soft blonde color, due to the fur covering it. It twitched lightly as a lot of conflicting thoughts filled Alex’s mind.
“W-what…” He said, and he tried to catch it, but it moved away from him. “What?” Alex said, as he started to chase the tail slightly, walking in circles as he tried to get it, and he finally was able to grab it with both hands. He continued to look at it, and after a while, his gaze turned back at the doctor and nurse, who both looked at him with a very worried expression.
“I… I have a tail.” Alex said, breathless and seeming to be in another half-daze, half-shock. The two animals shared a look as the nurse said. “Huh… yes?”
“I didn’t had a tail before.” Alex said, looking at them, “I wasn’t supposed to have a tail. Why do I have a tail? Where did it came from?” Alex asked them, sounding more and more alarmed at each phrase he spoke. The doctor and nurse continued to look at him, and they truly seemed to be very much worried, before the moose spoke slowly.
“Well… I don’t know you personally, so I can’t say if you should or not have a tail. But I know that cougars normally have tails, and you are a cougar, so, it was to be expected for you to have a tail.”
He was a… cougar?
“What?” Alex said without understanding, and he looked back at the tail, and he only them took a good look at his own hands, and he let go of his tail as his attention focused into them. His hands still looked like hands, but now, they were different. They were covered in fur, and instead of five fingers long and ending into nails, it seemed that now his hand had four fingers, somewhat chubby, and all of them ending into claws. The palm of his hands had pads, much like the ones of a cat, and Tyler stared at it.
“W-what?” He said, and he stepped back, and he looked back at his feet, seemingly noticing for the first time that he was shoeless. He was even more shocked to find out that his feet had changed too. They were now paws, and Alex grabbed one of them to look at the sole, and it too had pads, like the ones of a cat.
“What?” He said, breathless, and he looked around, and he saw a drawer next to the bed he had been laying, and he saw that there was a few objects over it, like a vase with a flower, a table lamp, and a mirror.
Without even thinking, Alex nearly pounced at the drawer and grabbed the mirror. With his shaking new hands, he raised the mirror until he could see his own face reflected in it. However, as he looked into the mirror, instead of the face of a human with short blonde hair, he could see the muzzle and face of a feline creature, staring back at him with wide eyes and with ears pressed into the back of the head.
Alex blinked at the figure, and he raised a hand to touch his own face. He touched himself and felt a long muzzle in his face, while the cougar into the mirror did the same movements he did. Alex passed his hand-paw over his muzzle, feeling it to be long and ending into a slightly humid snout, and he passed it by his muzzle, now opening his mouth. The cougar in the mirror did the same, showing off a set of big and sharp teeth as he did. Alex passed his claw into the inside of his gums and could feel big and sharp teeth, which he knew that humans normally weren’t supposed to have, inside of his mouth. He passed his hand into the top of his head, feeling the fur, but now not feeling his hair, and he felt his ears, both on top of his head, just as the ones of cats were supposed to be. He touched them slightly, and they felt a little sensitive.
That creature was different from what he knew that should be into the mirror, looking back at him. It was most likely a face that he never saw or expected to see in his life. Still, that face was familiar to him. It was him. Alex knew it by the moment he looked into the same green eyes. Somehow, that cougar looking back at him in the mirror was no other than himself.
He continued to look at the mirror as he touched his own head, and the doctor and nurse continued to look at him as he did so. Alex had even forgotten that they were there. Then, he finally lowered the mirror and slumped to his knees; as he used both hands-paws to grab the drawer form which he had caught the mirror.
“I… I am a cougar.” Alex said; seeming to be lost into yet another daze, as the two other animals looked at him.
Suddenly, Alex bashed his head into the drawer, again and again.
“Wake up! Wake up! Wake up!”
Alex wanted to wake up! He HAD to wake up! Because that had to be a dream. Otherwise, it would meant that he had completely cracked and lost his mind, and now was into a very deep hallucination from which he would never wake up.
However, the only thing he was succeeding to do was to cause himself a stronger headache.
The two animals were startled for a second, before they rushed to him. “Mr. Hunter!” The moose said, and Alex moved away from him as he shrunk into the bed.
“Why am I a cougar!?” He said to no one in particular. “How!? What in the world is this!?” He was frantic, and the doctor and the nurse only looked at him as he continued it, and then, it clicked into Alex’s mind.
“The vortex!” He said, and the Doctor said:
“What?”
“That vortex!” Alex continued to say, “That vortex that sucked the whole building, it did this to me! Turned me into a cougar and sent me to this world! But… what was that vortex? What caused it? WHO caused it? And why they turned me into a cougar!?” Alex asked, and he was talking to the two animals who were eyeing him as if they could miraculously hold the answers that he wanted.
The moose doctor and gazelle nurse, however, only traded a very brief look among themselves, and looked back at the cougar, before the moose said. “Well… it is good to see that you are recovering, Mr. Hunter, I think we’ll let you here in your room so you can rest.” He said, and he and the nurse both started to retreat, and Alex noticed that neither of them was taking their eyes out of him. As if something could happen if they blinked. Alex took only one moment to recognize that look of fear and doubt that there was in their eyes and realize it.
They thought he was insane.
Alex had already received many looks like that in the past, as if he was a dangerous lunatic that would jump into people in the first moment that they gave their backs to him.
“Anyway, I have other patients to see, so I’ll allow you to rest and recover.” The doctor said, and soon, he and the nurse moved to out of the rom and closed the door. Soon after, Alex had heard the unmistakable sound of the door being locked.
So… there he was. Into some short of alien world, turned into something that he was not supposed to be, and now being considered mentally insane by the strange creatures that saved him.
The situation was complicated, maybe more than any other that the young man… or cougar… had ever been in his life. Alex looked at the door, and he looked at the room once more.
He looked back at the rolling trail that the nurse had brought, to the food that she had brought to him. He noticed that the flatware he saw earlier was gone. Of course, if they thought that he was crazy, then of course that they would not leave anything that could be used as a weapon near him. The nurse surely had picked them up very subtly as she and the doctor were leaving.
He continued to look at the room, and he focused into the back of it. He saw a set of clothing into a nearby chair, and he took only a second to realize that they were his clothes.
Alex looked at himself, and only them he realized that he was wearing patient clothing that the hospital gave to you when they needed to get you naked. Passing his hands… paws over himself, Alex felt that he was wearing only his underwear underneath it, and the back was open.
Alex would have become greatly flustered by this, if it wasn’t for the whole situation that he was in the moment, and that was far more important than people seeing his undergarments.
Alex didn’t knew what was going on. It could very well be some kind of trick, or insanity, or even some short of event that he would never even be able to only imagine that would happen to him. Still, Alex was sure that it had to do with that great vortex that sucked him, the others, and the whole building, that was something that he could deduce by all of the past experiences that he already had in his life.
Alex also knew that, being that real or a creation of his own mind, he would never get anywhere if he simply sat in there and waited like a sitting duck… or cat. Actually, he knew that he should not stay in there for long, because the moose, thinking he was clinically insane, surely went to call some other animals that would come there and would force him into a straightjacket and put him into a padded cell.
And that was an experience that Alex was not willing to go through again.
Alex knew what he needed to do: he needed to get out of that hospital, and fast.
XXX
“-cougar in his late twenties, wearing white shirt and jeans pants?” Judy asked, and the zebra at the door said:
“Sorry, I never seem him before, I wish I could help.” And she closed the door, leaving Judy and her fox partner at the door. She was the last one of the apartments.
It was the morning following the incident of the cougar and, as Nick had promised, he and Judy had went to the apartments to see if anyone knew something about that mysterious cougar and how did he dropped into their car.
However, they were having little to no luck. The two animals passed at the reception, but the got who was taking care of it insisted that he had never seem the cougar in his life, he was not a tenant and he had never came to visit or even to make a delivery, and the goat claimed to be very good with faces.
Anyway, they tried to see the apartments one by one, to see if anyone could recognize the cougar, but they were once more unlucky, since no one seemed to had ever seen the cougar before. They could even get a view into some of the apartments, and none of them showed any signs that there had been a fight in there, or anything that could suggest that someone threw a cougar by the window.
The two cops had just talked with the last tenant of the last possible apartment, and they received the same answer, now it seemed that they were out of clues. “Well, can’t say it was totally unexpected.” Nick said.
“I told you we should have did it last night.” Judy said as they both walked to the stairs. “Now the lead has got cold.”
“Come on, Carrots, it was not a murderer.” Nick said, “The cougar is still in Savanna Central Hospital, breathing and everything.”
As he said that, Judy stopped for a moment, as if she suddenly remember it. “Yes! He is in the hospital! We can go talk straight to him and ask what happened!”
Nick immediately cursed his own mouth, and he said, “Hey, hey, Carrots, the guy fell into our car last night, don’t you think he might want to rest a bit after that?”
“We are just going to check on him.” Judy said, and she added, “We can just go talk to the doctors and ask if he is okay to receive visitations, anyway, if he is not, then we can leave him be for a while. Of course, if he knows something and if he wants to talk to us, then maybe we could listen to him and shine a light upon all of this situation.” She said with a smirk that Nick knew far too well, for he had seem it many times already.
Nick looked at her, evaluating her, before he gave his own smirk. “Sly bunny.” He said, and he sighed, “Well, I guess this dumb fox will just have to go along with you in your dance.”
She smiled, knowing that she had made yet another score.
Soon, they were back into their car, and driving in direction to Savanna Central Hospital. It was one of the hospitals of that area of Zootopia, and it was specialized into attending to all cases involving medium sized mammals, like that cougar. There were several hospitals in each precinct of Zootopia, and each one was specialized to certain cases of mammals. Smaller species were directed to other places, and species that were sensitive to the environment and needed a specific kind of environment to survive were redirected to hospitals in other districts.
Luckily for them, cougars could live comfortably into the area of Savanna Central, enough for them to not needing to be redirected to other hospitals to further care. They knew that their cougar was in there, and they knew that, by now, he would probably already be up.
They entered into the hospital and they saw a lot of mammals in there, in several different degrees of need for care. Some were only sniffing with a flu or something of the like, while others were with a few broken bones or exposed wounds. They all waited in line for the care that they all would receive, and as they passed, the cops looked straight at the receptionist desk, and they saw a moose doctor talking with the receptionist.
“-we need to find him as soon as possible, his case is very delicate.” The doctor said, and the officers stood behind him. They traded a look, before Nick cleared his throat.
The doctor almost gave a jump as he looked back, looking to the sides as he searched for the source of the sound, before he looked down and saw the two small mammals in officers’ clothing, and he almost seemed relieved. “Oh, thank goodness, I was just about to call the police.”
The two officers exchanged looks, and Judy said, “Ahem, officers Hopps and Wilde, ZPD. We came here to check on a cougar that arrived in last night. Alex Hunter.”
“You know him?”
“He dropped on our car, literally.” Nick said, and Judy completed, “We were with him when the paramedics arrived.”
“Oh, yes, of course.” The doctor said, “It is exactly aobut him that I wanted to talk about.”
The two shared another look, and they turned back to the doctor, as Judy asked, “What? Something happened to him?”
The Doctor seemed about to start talking again, but he stopped and looked to the other patients waiting in the room. “Follow me.” He said, and he guided them away from the waiting room, and into a desert hallway. As soon as they were out of the hearing of others, the doctor turned back to them.
“Sorry for that, but we need to keep this quiet for a while, we don’t want to cause alarm.”
“Why? What happened?” Judy asked, growing concerned with the situation “Is the cougar okay?”
The doctor took a deep breath, and he said, “He woke up around one hour ago. We had examined him and he didn’t showed any visible symptoms of signs of problem, so we supposed that he would be fine. But, when he woke up, he seemed… confuse.”
“Confuse… how, exactly?” Nick asked, and the Doctor continued to explain.
“For a while, he just stared at us, and he kept pinching himself and slapping his own face, as if he seemed to believe that he was dreaming. He tried to escape the room and next he was acting as if he was astonished.”
The two officers heard it carefully as the doctor explained to them. “He seemed to have been scared at his own tail, and when we told him he was a cougar, he acted as if he didn’t even knew that. Then he started to bang his head into the drawer and he seemed to be scared of us again. Then he kept repeating that he was not supposed to be a cougar. He started speaking about a vortex of light that sucked him and a whole building, and he claimed that it had turned him into a cougar.”
The two mammals remained in silence for a long time after they heard what the doctor had to say, and then, Nick said, “Wow… or our cougar hit his head harder than we thought, or he needs another kind of doctor.”
“I was worried with his behavior, as you can imagine.”, the doctor continued “So I left him locked into the room while I went to talk to a friend into the psychiatry wing, and we brought a few residents to transfer him there, for safety measure, of course. But… when we arrived in the room he was… gone.”
“What?” Judy and Nick said at the same time. The doctor sighed, and he continued explaining.
“We don’t know how he managed to get out. He might have escaped by the window, but his room was on the third floor!” The doctor said, still being visibly shaken by the seemingly mental impaired cougar having escaped.
“Maybe he did, didn’t they say that cougars are great climbers?” Nick asked, but Judy seemed not to have heard him, and she asked the doctor.
“You think he is still in the hospital?”
The doctor shook his head “We search in all of the wings, no one has seen him around and there is no sign of him around the place.”
Judy nodded, and she saw that the doctor was still nervous, and she knew that he had his reasons, as well as for wanting to keep it as subtle as possible. If the patients suspected that there was an insane predator roaming by the hospital they could panic. The same way, if people heard that there was insane predator roaming free around the city, they could get just as scared.
Even with all the years of peaceful living and with the acceptance, the fear of predators was still something that seemed to be deep into the minds of all of the animals. The idea of an insane mammal roaming around, that could possibly represent a danger to other as much as to itself, was the kind of thing that made any mammal feel uneasy.
“Have you checked the security footage?” Judy asked, and the doctor said:
“We were about to do so, as soon as we called the police. We have our own security, and we gave them a description of the cougar, if they see him their orders are to not attack unless he poses a threat.”
“Well done, we need to search for him too.” Judy said, and Nick agreed with her. A lunatic walking around the city was a serious matter, and their job, in that case, was to find him and to bring him back so the medics can take care of him.
“Yeah, but it was an hour ago? He can have went to another part of the city by now.” Nick pointed out, and Judy said, “Maybe Clawhauser can help us track him. I’m gonna call him.”
Judy said and she activated her radio, and as she did talked to Ben, asking for help of the cheetah, Nick continued to speak to the doctor. “So, he was really saying that someone had turned him into a cheetah?”
“I found it strange too.” The moose said, “It might be mental confusion caused by the fall or an impact in his head, or maybe something in his bloodstream. We requested some tests for drugs, is a routine in here. We might have the results in a few hours from now.” The doctor seemed to be genuinely worried with the cougar, as it was the job of any medic to be worried with the safety and wellbeing of someone, especially if they were mentally unstable.
“The poor lad seemed so confused.” The doctor said, “I don’t know what is going through his head, but I’m pretty sure that he might not be very comfortable walking in this city alone. He probably will be lost and scared.”
“Yeah, because crazy people always get scared when they are in the middle of many mammals.” Nick said as a joke, and he added right after, with more seriousness. “And that is when they get to be more dangerous.”
XXX
The moose doctor was somewhat right.
Alex was indeed lost as he walked into the streets of that city, but he was far to controlled to be scared. Instead, he was oddly fascinated and on the verge of freaking out at the same time.
He had managed to sneak out from the hospital by sneaking into the window and over the edge of the building, and he managed to find his own way to reach the ground. Alex was very happy that he was able to do so, and that he was able to reach the ground safely after being stuck into that tall place. Strangely, Alex didn’t felt as much insecure by the height of the place as he supposed that he should be, and climbing and balancing had been surprisingly easy for him, more than regular, actually. Anyways, now he was walking for a little more than an hour now, and he was able to see that this place was surely a big city. There was definitely no doubt about it. Still, the place was different from anything that Alex had ever seen, for instead of humans, it was filled with these anthropomorphic animals. All of them walking around and doing their daily chores much like humans would do. Some of them were wearing uniforms, and others were dressed more casually, with clothes that someone would wear to go for a walk or to go to the drugstore.
He saw all kinds of animals, from small mouse and gerbils to big elephants and tall giraffes. He also saw many other animals, like zebra, lions, tigers, stags, rhinos, hippos, gazelles, bulls, bears, wolves, he even saw one or two pandas passing by. The ways the animals moved around also caught his interest, as he could see some hippos coming out of a miniature river and dry out into a blower of hot air, and some gerbils moving around into something that seemed like tunnels from the labyrinth of a hamster. However, no matter how much he searched, or how much he forced his sight to see, for more than an hour looking in the middle of that strange, animal-dominated city, Alex was unable to see a single human face as he walked, and neither anything that remembered a human, like a gorilla or a gibbon.
At some moment, Alex even stopped someone at the street, a zebra, and asked him if there was any humans in that city.
The zebra’s answer was: “Hu-mans? Is that a new brand of fertilizer? You should search into the gardening stores.”
That answer was more than enough for Alex to convince himself that humans seemingly didn’t existed into that world he was in. So, he returned into walking into the city, without having sure of where he would go, as many doubts floated into his mind.
How did he ended up in there? Why he had turned into a cougar? What kind of strange world was that? What was that mysterious vortex that had enveloped him completely?
And what about the others? Did they had been transported to that strange world again? They had also be turned into the kinds of animals that inhabited that world? Were they as lost and confused as he was, if they were even alive?
If so, then how would Alex find them? How would he even recognize them if he found them? If this was a whole world, then how could he find them in anywhere? He didn’t even knew where he was…
Stopping in his tracks, he looked around, and he sighted an animal that didn’t looked as threatening. It was a wolf, but for some reason, Alex didn’t thought him to be so dangerous. Approaching him, he asked.
“Excuse me?”
The wolf turned to him, and then Alex said, “Do you live around the place?”
“Since I was a pup.” The wolf said, with some kind of pride, and he said, “Yeah right, look, I’m kind of lost...”
“Oh, a newly arrived?” The wolf said, and Alex nodded, the wolf then laughed, as if it was some kind of joke. “Man, you are going to love in here! You should see our beaches, they are the best for surfing.”
So, they were near the ocean…
“And later you can sky on the snowy fields.”
Snowy fields? Wait, they were near snow? The climate felt warm…
The wolf, as if perceiving his confusion, laughed more, and he said, “Man, you really don’t know the city, do you?” Alex looked back at him, and shook his head slowly.
“Yeah, I supposed, well, this city has four major precincts: Tundratown; Sahara Square; Rainforest District; and Savanna Central, just where we are now. Each precinct has its own climate, specific for the kinds of mammal that live in there, so they can be comfortable. After all, a polar bear would fry in here, while a camel would be cold, don’t you agree?” The wolf was speaking as if it was the most perfectly natural thing in the world. Alex only looked at him for a few moments, before he was able to form words again, and he said:
“So, are you telling me that this city has a desert, a tundra, and a whole forest in it, along with the urban area we are in?”
The wolf laughed at him, and he said, “Welcome to Zootopia.” He said, turning around and letting out a small howl as he went his own way, leaving behind a slightly stunned Alex Hunter, who stared at him, before turning back to the world that surrounded him.
“Zootopia…” Alex said, letting the name mull over his tongue and into his own mind. He continued to look around, with all the animals walking to do their daily activities, and Alex, with his new cat-like appearance, was just another face into the crowd.
Putting his paws into his pockets, and looking at the path ahead, Alex continued to walk.
A new world, with no humans and ruled by intelligent animals who talk and walk around like people.[i/] Alex thought as his eyes still travelled to all sides, not fixating in the face of any animal for too long.
Alex Hunter, you are definitely not in Kansas anymore.
