The wind blew across the desolate landscape, whistling through the decaying bark of the ancient trees to create an eerie moaning. The darkness of the swamp was all-encompassing; the sounds of owls hooting and bats screeching were made into the ghoulish caterwauls of potential monsters lurking in the blackness. In the darkness, a child began to cry; she had taken shelter among the roots of an old tree. The darkness disoriented and terrified her; she could do nothing but cry pitifully to herself and curl into a tight ball to hide from the outside world. A swamp cougar stalked quietly through the shadows, its large paws nearly silent as it crept up on the small child from its place on a branch. Just as it was about to leap, the girl looked up; she saw the predator and screamed. Tensing its muscles, the cougar sprang-
Thwack.
The crows perched in the nearby trees squawked and took wing, flying into the cloudy night sky above. The cougar lay dead on the ground, its neck broken. The surprised and startled girl looked first at the cougar, then at the silhouette that had appeared on the roots above her.
"Are you alright?" A smooth voice asked. The girl nodded, but shrank away as the figure leaped from the root to land on the ground before her. The faint rays of the barely-there moon shone into the clearing, bathing the figure in dim light. He was tall, thin, and clad in bright red. The four gold buttons on the front of his tunic shone like jewels amidst the blackness of the swamp. The scarf around his neck fluttered far behind him in the slight breeze, which was also ruffling his short silver hair as it moved past him. His eyes were strange - they were all blue, an icy blue, with no whites or pupils to be found in their sparkling depths.
"I won't hurt you." Albert's voice softly reassured her. He crouched, his cape dropping to the ground behind him like a silk sheet, and opened his arms to her, the look in his blue orbs one of gentility and compassion. She reluctantly crept out of the hole she had found and into his outstretched arms. He stood, holding her close, and asked softly of her, "Which way do you live?" She pointed to the northeast, and he nodded. Albert then jumped sprightly up onto a branch, then to a higher one, then far up into the air, clearing the treetops with relative ease. The girl turned to bury her face in his uniform, cringing as she looked down at the ground nearly 50 feet below them.
Albert frowned as he hurried through the swamp, landing only briefly every now and again to find another branch to use for his powerful leaps. He knew he had better things to do besides helping a lost stranger, but he couldn't just leave a little girl to be devoured by cougars. Suddenly, a tiny siren went off in his head, caused by the radio receiver that had been implanted into his brain. He grit his teeth; he was late.
The little girl pointed down at a lit house on the border between swamp and city. "There!" She cried, squirming in his arms. There were three people outside the house; 004 could faintly hear them calling for the little girl. He cursed mentally as he landed on the edge of the swamp, a few yards from the house. He set the girl down on the soggy ground, and as he straightened, she began to speak. He hurriedly placed a finger to his lips, a small smile hastening over his features; the little girl giggled and clapped her hands over her mouth. She then turned and hurried into the arms of her worried family.
004 smiled and backed into the shadows, watching the reunited group fondly for a few moments before turning and leaping onto a branch and launching himself into the air once again, heading rapidly back to the sea.