Zootopia: Where The Wild Things Are

Chapter 6 - Pieces Come Together

I can't sit here anymore! I refuse to lay around and do nothing! Nick had his paws crumpled to his chest, laying woozily on Judy's small creaky bed.

His eyes were glued to the white popcorn ceiling, watching the dark, deep blue light from the blinded windows move like snails across the room.

His stomach tickled with anxiety, but his brain was heavy with laziness. He was tired of sitting around in Judy's apartment all day, and doing nothing but keeping himself locked up in there.

Maybe it was because he felt safer in there. Away from the harsh wind of the real world.
The sharp barbs of reality.

He felt like everything was okay there. Like everything was fixxxed.

The fox's eyes darted to the window, where the dark blue light of the evening city pressed through the pane of glass.

Sighing, the fox kicked his fuzzed body off of the bed, landing on his feet, and stretching his back with a dizzying yawn. Regaining stability, the fix walked towards the front door, and opened it to find the woes of the outside world.

The air was sweet with the scent of cut grass and fresh rain, and the world was painted blue from the neverending coulds shrouding the city in its eternal December-esque twilight.

The fox felt a billow of cool air curl between his legs, and he rubbed his arm with the opposite, shivering.

"Momma look, it's a fox!" A voice echoed from down the balcony, where a little bunny and her mother at their apartment a few doors down.

The mother held her child's paw tight, her other arm clutching a brown sack of groceries; and Nick saw her face drain of blood. "S-sir, no predators are allowed in the c-complex."

Nick cocked his brow, and felt a little anxiety build in his core. "J-Judy didn't tell me about that."

The mother's face suddenly relaxed just a fraction, and she twisted her head, somewhat confused. "Judy? The police officer who lives in 304?"

Nick swallowed hard, and turned around to see the door number, which he never really noticed. Small black numbers stapled out 304.

He turned back to the mother. "Y-yeah."

Nick had nothing else to say. What would stop this mother and her daughter from having him removed from the apartment? Arrested for being there, or even, killed from the collar? All of it was rational thinking, that was the scary part. Anything that could even be considered crazy in an irrational world, well, had every reason to be rational.

Silence covered the balcony again, only to be interrupted by a sudden crack of thunder across the deep blue sky.

The little bunny squeaked, and the mother flinched with a fleeting shock of instinct, and she spilled everything in the grocery sack under her arm.

Nick watched pitifully as the mother sighed discontently, squatting down to attempt and salvage the mess of food, sundries, and.... a remote.

Nick felt a little tinge in his stomach, as he saw the remote was an exact clone of those the ZPD used to kill or forcefully shock predators via their collars.

Only the ZPD logo was non-existent on the deep blue remote. The same, deep dark blue of the world around Zootopia.

Nick's anxious feeling ebbed away, into some sort of... dull anger. His hand snatched the remote, and he almost snarled at this thing.

The mother gave a whine, and tried her hardest to seem demanding. "Hey, give that back, thief!"

Nick looked down to the mother, his brows furrowing into a condescending fury. "Thief? These are illegal for citizens to have!"