Behind the Harmony

Chapter 1 - The Meeting

Trees, neatly planted decades ago now were covered in snow. Sunlight, bouncing off the snow sprinkled straight into Ryoko's eyes as she was walking on a dense blanket of white, yet with no footprints nor sign of any living thing. Her eyes were demanding to darken the glasses, but then the beauty of the scenery would go to waste. A winter storm was just over, and Ryoko was sure that she was alone in the forest when suddenly her thoughts were interrupted by a call.

"Yes?" With no enthusiasm answered Ryoko.

"Where are you, Ryoko? Why aren't you home?" Breathless voice of her mother asked almost cutting the girl off. Rushing somewhere, again.

"I'm in the forest, mum. I just went out for a walk." Ryoko answered after a moment of silence, kicking a small hump in the snow.

"Why can't you just use our PHI room?"

"That's not real besides Gordon is always there doing something bizarre and it's irritating."

"All right, but now you should go home. I'll need to go to the company soon, and you don't have the key."

"What about Gordon? Isn't he home by now?" said Ryoko and turned back.

"No. Hurry up."

Ryoko enjoyed walks in the forest, especially in winter. It had a path, but it was too short – only a 15-minute walk. Getting out of the way isn't the best idea – the forest looks the same at any given point, but despite that, in the winter everything was covered in snow.

Ryoko found it effortless to follow her footprints, but then she noticed something strange – crossing her footprints, there were others. They didn't look like those of a human, nor like any animal she knew. Ryoko had never seen such prints before hence she decided to follow them and find out what left such strange paw prints.

After some time Ryoko reached a point, where near one of the trees the paw prints came to an end. It was clear that paw prints led there, but there was nothing near the tree. Ryoko looked up thinking that there might be something in its branches, but there was nothing. After looking around, Ryoko decided to go back. Mum was waiting for her.

But as Ryoko was walking away, something bumped. A faint sound came straight from behind, and when Ryoko turned around, she saw something staggering.

Near the tree, white as the snow around there was something else. And whatever it was, it was very much alive. A peculiar creature with a lizard-like tail and with relatively big wings had curled up in a little ball. Its wings were covering its head, and the body was quivering. Either from frost or terror, it seemed that the thing wished to stick its head as deep as possible behind its wings. The creature was scared to death, or maybe just cold, but Ryoko couldn't tell.

Ryoko reached out and gently placed one hand on the little one. It was freezing, and after a few seconds, she had to move her hand. She squatted down near the creature. Shortly the tiny creature pulled out its head with dark blue eyes, which were very big considering how small its head was.

"My mum is waiting for me." She added, standing up as the little one kept looking at her. "Besides, you might be dangerous. Even if you look too small to do any harm dangerous." Ryoko wondered as she didn't know what to do. Or maybe, "Zulu?" Said silently after pressing the voice button on her S-Z23 model glasses.

"Yes, what can I help you?" Responded a monotonous AI voice.

"What is this thing? Is this a hallucination?"

"No, it is an animal of unidentified species. I see that there's more information, but it's encrypted and stored on the hard drive."

"So, can you decrypt it? I want to know what this is!"