Chapter 3
After a while of sitting alone and facing the past David decided to deal with it the only way he knew: to occupy himself with everyday tasks. He was wandering if Amber had already woken up, he felt bad about leaving her alone but he didn't want to risk meeting her mother so fast.
The human proceed with his daily routine of checking the traps he'd setup. When he was closing to the last trap expecting to see yet another one annoyingly disarmed he heard some noise but it was too much for a rabbit he wanted to catch. Unsuspecting he just walked out to the open and froze.
On the middle of the clearing there was some anthro with a gray fur trying to free something from his trap. The creature stopped and turned to face him probably to check who had just walked in. The wolf noticed the human and opened his eyes wide in an expression of fright, after a second of hesitation he got up and ran as fast as he could towards the city quickly disappearing from sight.
David was shocked, first he wanted to catch the wolf but what would that give him? He wouldn't force him to remain silent and besides was probably too fast for him. The human did the most sensible thing to him: he hurried back to the camp and started packing.
Deciding it would be safer not to count on nobody believing the wolfs story he wanted to get out he area as fast as possible to hopefully avoid being found. After making sure he didn't leave anything of importance he started walking the other way he expected the searching party to come from.
After several hours of walking he came to a terrifying discovery: the forest he was in was a lot smaller than he had expected. It formed roughly a triangle limited form one side by a city and from the other two by highways.
David seared in his thoughts, he was trapped, there was no chance of going though it without being noticed and runner over. His only hole was to find one of those animal crossing bridges he remembered Frome home.
But when the sun was starting to hide behind the horizon David still haven't found his way out, even more nervous and desperate to hide he decided to spend the night on a tree hoping to remain unnoticed until it will be safe for him to return to normal.
'Or as normal as it was ' he smiled to himself.
When human got comfortable in his spot high above the ground and made sure that he could stay there without making noise for a while he thought he heard some distance sound of talking loudly or even shouting and for a moment he saw flash of light through the trees. Telling himself that he is just imagining things from stress he started slowly falling asleep tied to a tree.
That morning after dealing with wonderful dream just being a dream Amber walked downstairs to Welcome her mother, who ranted about some stupid business decisions others tried to push through at the meeting. Both vixens ate breakfast together.
"You know, it was pretty successful meeting and all but from what we settled I'll have to go and work on the other part of a world for some time ensuring that our new branch is working how it should." Amber's mother started when they both finished eating. "And that creates me a problem, I can't take you with me, Amber, but I'm kind of unsure how you feel about staying alone her with me sever time zones away. If you don't feel up to it than I'll find someone who will do it for me, or try to separate it into much shorter periods of time. So how it will be?"
"Mum, don't worry I'm not a small pup, I'll ..." Amber was cut off by someone's scream.
"HELP! Please, anybody. Call the police!"
"What is that all about, its none of our neighbours I'm sure." Her mother commented "we should check what is happening."
They both went outside here a small crowd surrounded a terrified looking grey wolf. Someone had separated from the crowd and started calling somewhere.
"What is going on here?" Amber's mother asked
"Well, Lara, we both had lived here for a long time and experienced some strange things here but this just tops it all. This wolf right here saw a human while clearing the forest of some traps." Responded their next door neighbour, a very eccentric but likable black and white coloured cat.
"Wait! What? But humans don't exist, he couldn't have seen one!"
"He looks pretty seriously scared to me, don't you think?" The wolf was in fact sitting curled up on the pavement not talking to anybody, just starring with wide open eyes at the forest behind the houses.
"Your right, we have to call the authorities."
"Police is already on the way, it starts to look as a very interesting day, anyway I'll better go and check how has doing" And with those words the cat returned to the crowd.
"Amber, I know that joining the search sounds great to you but I think that we should both stay home and track everything from news." Lara told her daughter.
"I'm fine with it" was all that Amber managed to say.
There were so many questions, would David escape, how will he react it they find him. She was a bit angry because she didn't tell him about how her civilisation dealt with such things. They were pretty open, ensuring that the intruder would stay safe and helping him to join the society. She had reasons to believe that human would expect more unfriendly welcome, both from yesterdays movie and what Amber knew about human society.
Soon police arrived, taking the wolf to psychologist to help calm him down. Not long after search parties disappeared into the forest. Everyone knew that the human had to still be there, because someone would have noticed him crossing the highway.
Amber spent next hour or so watching TV with her mother, the human was all about news, everybody speculated how the first contact would look like. Some "experts" talked about humans life habits.
When they started to lose interest one of the teams returned because they found traces of a camp with clear traces of human being there. Everybody was pulled out of the forest. They started waiting for someone. In the mean time news channels showed photos of that camp, with several dead rabbits and prepared traps taking it as a definite examples of humans predatory character.
Nothing really happened throughout the day, nobody was allowed access to the forest. Everybody was waiting for those special teams to arrive and continue the search.
It was late evening when several trucks parked outside the forest and with the new assets the search was continued.
Someone declared that if there is really a human there in the forest they will find him until midnight. But both Amber and Lara were tired so they decided to go to sleep early aware that they might miss a chance to see the human (at least Lara was a little concerned about it).
Sometime later deep into the forest David was woken up by some noises, he couldn't remember if it was a dream or did someone really said something. Human started looking around for the source of the noise, but he only thing out of the ordinary was a small light visible through the trees.
"What is that thing?' he wandered, while the light was joined by others, lighting up small areas here and there. And it finally got to him: 'those are flashlights! They must be searching for me.'
David decided it would be safest to try and remain hidden on the tree than making a run for it, so he tried to blend in with the outline of the tree and hoped for the best.
Soon the group wandered close to his hiding spot, he could clearly see they all wore uniforms, but to his surprise none of them had any weapons. when they were directly below him David heard what he didn't want to hear: loud barking.
There were several "dogs" with the group, but they were different from ones David was used to. They were really big, all of them had short, dark fur and on top of that they had six legs. It all combined into a scary creature, for some reason reminding him of the Cerberus.
'And here goes my safe hiding spot... Damn it!' Human thought when he realised they have spotted him.
"Human, come down from the tree! We do not mean any harm to you'" someone shouted.
"Ok, ok. I'm coming down." He complied regretting not trying to make a run for it.
When he got to the ground weird silence followed. Everybody started at David, you could feel slight hint of fear in the air. The strange dog like creatures went silent and stepped away from the human. Nobody spoke a single word. The human being afraid himself slowly put his bag away, knelt and put his hand on his head waiting for their next move.
Finally the guy in charge slowly approached David and extended his open paw to him:
"You are our guest here, not some criminal on the run. Now please get up, so we can talk normally.
David still on the edge got up and looked down on the officer, who stepped back slightly and continued to talk.
"It's pretty late now, so we will take you to the police station for the night, tomorrow well handle the paperwork and the press. Is it fine with you?"
"No, it's great, I'm just a bit... well confused now." Responded the human.
"Let's go then, we will try and keep you away from cameras for now. You three take his bag with us. Come on human you have a long night ahead of yourself." With this words everyone started walking back towards the city.
The walk was still awkwardly silent, David sow how others took a quick glances at him. He was feeling like an alien here, everything just being so strange and out of place from the beginning and that ashore awkward conversation didn't really help. He could see solder who carried his bag wandering what is inside and nervously peeking at him along with the rest as if expecting him to attack them or something.
Finally they got close to the edge of the forest where a car was already waiting for him. David got inside and was quite surprised when body else got inside, it was only him and the driver. Fortunately he was a bit more talkative helping the human relax and process what is happening with him now:
"Just... Wow." The driver started " if someone would told me I would have a human sitting it this car with me yesterday I would tell them to limit their doses but now... Everything is changing, you'll see, you will influence our entire society."
David wasn't really sure how to respond so he just nodded "Mabel.."
"Well, it has to be quite a shock for you too, I guess. But here are my manners! I'm Adrian what about you?"
"I'm David, nice to meet you." He responded still quite nervous.
"Same here. My daughter is not going to believe why I wants home for the night."
"Oh, you have a daughter?" David tried to keep us the conversation.
"Yes, she's just seven years old, bust she is smart little lady... We are almost there look at all those TV crews around the station, the news get around them faster than through best army communications, amazing."
"Don't tell me they are all here because of me, just... I..."
"Well, better get used to it, you will be mighty famous now. Here we are, s any way good luck to you David."
"Thanks for the ride Adrian, good lick for you too, say hello for you daughter for me, ok?" Human said living the car.
"I will don't you worry" David shut the door behind him.
When he turned round she saw three furs standing in front of him, probably the night shift here, he was afraid of another weird silent siring moment but luckily it didn't happen.
"Welcome human to our home police station." One of the policemen started to talk causing others to giggle. "It's nothing special, but it is quite comfy, and nobody will be as social awkward as in the army." Then he busted into laughter. 'Well, they sure are more friendly' David thought, he smiled not sure how to respond.
"Anyway, I'm jack, the suspicious guy on my right is Dave, and that role model for police officer on my left is Rick. Fellow me, I'll show you where you can sleep tonight."
"Nice to meet you guys, im David" he decided to just go with the friendly atmosphere, nobody here bothered with who is superior to who like the soldiers did.
Human was given the most comfortable cell to sleep in, but after living his things his newly acquired friend took him tithe cafeteria for some warm midnight snack. They explained to David what will happen to him now, very step to his citizenship here.
"Ok, it's all nice and clear but why do you have such laws here? I mean it's rare that things like that happen here so why have such laws?" David wandered.
"Yeah, your right. Its kind of a strange story, half legend really. It is said that there was an out world visitor here once, it was a long time ago, but nobody bothered to cancel that law and it was left for centuries." Jack told him.
"Wow, you made it sound like a true legend." Commented rick.
"Who was that "out world visitor", do you know?"
"Well..." Started Dave "The legends say it was actually a human, unfortunately nobody understood him language and he didn't understand ours. They brought him into the town and through the night the council created new laws to allow him to join the society, but..."
"But what?" Human was a surprised by a sudden change from happy to series in Dave's mood.
"The human had food and water, besides he was guarded all the time but if to believe the legends he just curled up in the corner and died, just like that. No injuries, nothing."
"So that is why we take it as a legend, nobody can die just like that! Right?" Jack finished.
"You now the scary part is, that it is actually possible for human to die, commit some kind of internal suicide when faced by a lot of stress. In most cases they just don't wake up bit yeah..." David realised that his explanation completely ruined the mood, so he just finished his keel quickly and added about one more thing:
"Do you have a shower here? I should get one, I haven't washed with warm water in ages!"
"Yes just when you go out of your cell turn left and then the second doors on the right." Wow, I never expected to say that it anyone!" And everyone started to laugh, causing the atmosphere to Improve as fast as it has been ruined.
David happily took the shower, the whole experience remanding him of home before everything went down the drain. He was expecting the following day to be tiring, so without further delays he went to sleep on a mildly comfortable bed, which was still better than sleeping on a tree laky he had done forth the first part of the night.
In the morning, on the outskirts of the town Amber and her mother ate breakfast together while catching up with the news, they heard that the human was found but nobody knew any details or have seen him, everyone was waiting for him to show up outside the station soon.
Amber deciding that it is the best time to say it, and hoping that David wouldn't mind it anyways, because his existence wasn't a secret anymore. She hoped that it would increase her chances of meeting the human again soon.
"Mum listen, I have something important to tell you, just listen to the entire story..."