Rain poured down over the floor and roofs of Savanna Central; a summer storm had brewed and the night was going to be a dark one. Despite the fact that the advanced climate control features the city relied on were usually the closest to perfect one may ask for when it came to keeping temperatures and humidity on a good level for each of the five main climate areas of Zootopia, sometimes the forces of nature were too much to handle. That night, Sahara Square inhabitants living near the border with Savanna Cental had been asked to be careful, as some rain was to fall, and the streets in the hottest area of the city were not intended to take any rainfall at all. Even the sprinklers in Rainforest District had been switched off. They wouldn't be needed that night.
But, despite the heavy rain, few drops would never reach the floor, as the small body of a fennec fox made them not end their journey onto their original destination but on his soaked, yellow fur.
His clothes were so wet that they felt like made out of lead, his breath was more and more becoming a string of panting and wheezing, and droplets of blood coming from an oozing bruise on his leg could have been audible when they hit the ground were it not for the thousands of raindrops falling from the sky.
He was being chased. Several cars followed him around the streets of his neighbourhood, which he was lucky to know like the palm of his hand. He made close turns around alleyways that did not appear in any map of the city. The darkness of the night played in his favour, and the fact that the cars couldn't get through the tight backstreets he chose to go for was probably the only reason he hadn't been caught. Yet.
He felt one of the cars right on his tail and decided to run and hide behind a dumpster in an alley connecting Walnut and Sousten. His leg hurt like hell, he had to stop and assess the damage. The cut was unclean, deep, and quite ugly overall. He'd need lots of stitches when he got out of that pickle.
He undid the buttons on his shirt and took off the soaked wife beater he was wearing under it. He then tore the sleeveless t-shirt into stripes and wrapped his right calf with his newfound improvised bandage. The white cloth turned red in a heartbeat, but it was tight enough to stop the bleeding a bit.
While performing this operation on himself, he didn't notice the lion and polar bear, both wearing blue, creeping towards him. Shit. He'd been found. "Freeze!" shouted the lion.
The fennec fox took advantage of his smaller size and run through a small hole on the fence right behind him. He got quickly spotted, and a dart was fired towards him. It hit the fence with a metallic sound, followed by the vibration of the wires.
"Damn," said the bear after missing his target. "Z-240, the suspect is running towards you," he spoke to a radio attached to his shirt.
The fox stepped into Sousten Street. He was very disoriented, the exhaustion and loss of blood weren't helping him. He still knew all the streets in the neighbourhood to a tee, but his brain was going so fast he had to stop for a moment to think.
And that was when he made a mistake. Immediately after stopping to take a breather, he got blinded by a car's lights and deafened by its brakes' screech. The loud siren and bright blue and red lights on top of the car made his disorientation even stronger.
A familiar grey furred bunny got off the police car, holding a tranquilizer gun in a hand and a pair of handcuffs in the other. "Please, don't make me shoot this thing, make it easier for everybody. You owe him that," she spoke.
The fennec fox decided it was over. He knelt down on the wet floor, raised his hands and placed them on the back of his head. "It wasn't me, boo."
With a sad face, the rabbit cop approached the fox and began handcuffing him, while quietly reading him his rights.
"Finnick Fawkes, you are under arrest for murder and resisting authorities," she spoke. "You have the right to remain silent. Anything you say can and will be used against you in a court of law," she kept going. "You have the right to an attorney. If you cannot afford an attorney, one will be provided for you. Do you understand the rights I have just read to you?"
There was no response, though. In fact, he hadn't even understood a word of what she had said. The only thing he could focus on was the red fox inside the police car, with his ears flat against his skull, his eyes fixed on the newly arrested fox and a devastated look in his face.
"Nick..." he whispered to himself.
Author's notes:
Hi! I'm new here and I still have to learn how this works, so forgive me if I mess up.
Anyway, this is a brief prologue for a story that I want to write on one of my all time favourite films. I rated M just in case (this story will contain strong language and detailed description of violent and gory scenes, but no explicit sex), let me know if I need to change the rating.
Also, despite being (argueably) fluent in English, it is not my first language. This means that occasional grammatical errors may happen, and that I will use American and British spelling and vocabulary with little to no consistency. I will gladly take your corrections, though!
Thanks for reading!
