NaZooverse - Book 1: The Risen Curtain

Chapter 1: The Last Day Before the Storm

"Reality is something fickle.

We all want to believe that reality is something firm and solid. Immutable. Something eternal, in which we can rely on to be constant. To be something that would never change, so we will have an anchor to our own existences.

But reality is not like that.

Reality changes. The world changes with each revolution, and no matter how much we want it to remain the same, the world will never stop spinning for a moment, and no mammal in the world is able to force it to remain, not even with all of their power and influence, for the nature of reality is to change. The nature of the world is to change. At one moment, what we see as fact, might prove itself to be wrong, and at this moment, all of our values and perceptions will be put to the test, as the new reality will make us question what we think to be the truth, and challenge us to adapt or abandon our truth.

We might not like to accept change, but once it happens, we must, because otherwise, we will be left out by the changes, and we will invariably be crushed by the weight of the changed reality.

For reality, as much as it is fickle, it is absolute. We must always accept reality, no matter how strange it might seem. As we, mere mammals, can hardly force reality to adapt to our ideas, and as so, we have to adapt our ideas to reality, like all mammals who live in this world..."

"NICK!"

The fox nearly jumped out of his own uniform and fur as he heard the voice of the bunny screaming on his ear after she had pulled the phone that was on it as he heard the speech of a character of a short movie on his cell phone at EweTube. A sci-fi thing regarding alien contact.

"Have you listened to what I have just said?" Judy asked him, looking straight at his face as the fox said nothing, and he merely removed the phone from his other ear, rolled the phones up, and deposited both it and his phone back on his pocket.

"I'm sorry, could you repeat that?" He said, trying to look smug, and Judy only sighed, and she turned her attention back to the road as she continued to drive.

"As I was saying..." Judy spoke, as she drove them across the road. "Chief Bogo said that we will be in charge of investigating that new ring of illegal fighting that is going on in Downtown. I was saying that it would be nice if

we could talk to one of your contacts on the matter, ask them if they have heard anything over the subject."

Nick listened and nodded.

"Well, we could actually try, but I do not assure that any of them would be willing to talk to the cops." The fox said, matter-of-factly. Ever since Nick had changed his profession, exactly one year ago, on that very same day, most of his old "associates" had moved away from him. Of course, as he had moved from a simple street hustler to Zootopia's first fox cop, the kind of people he used to hang out with didn't quite felt like being around him anymore.

"Well, it is still worth a shot." Judy said as her amethyst eyes continued to look forward into the road ahead of her. "We can try Finnick first. You two were always very close, and he knows his way around the city as well as you do."

"Yeah, still, I feel like the little guy and I have been drifting apart ever since I started wearing blue." Nick said to her, "For instance, he used to tell me about all of his girlfriends, even though I didn't ask him, and just last month when I asked him about his 'special lady friend', he looked like he was ready to bite my nose off." He said, remembering the event, "I think the badge was the only thing that actually held him back."

Judy chuckled as she rolled her eyes. "Okay, Officer Wilde, enough talking." She said as she continued to drive across the road, taking a turn and now heading Downtown. "We have work to do."