The urban parkland, with its grass and trees and ponds, melded gradually into downtown Serenity City, with its traffic and businesses and mile-high towers. Where the two disparate quarters touched and intermingled, rows of quaint shops and residences lined peaceful avenues. Tourists and shoppers glided along the slidewalks, stopping whenever a window display caught their eye.
Dexter Gray and Alex Dalton walked hand-in-hand across the lawn towards the closest group of stores. In the shade of a particularly large birch, Alex stopped and stared off across the field.
"What is it?" asked Dexter, craning his eyes in the same general direction Alex was looking.
She pointed. "There, you see it? That big animal."
"Animal? Here in the city?" Dexter looked where Alex was pointing and spotted the thing she'd seen. It was big, brown, hairy, and walked on all fours. He also spotted a mother and two children playing near a pond, right in the path of the lumbering animal, and they hadn't noticed it yet!
"We have to do something!" he blurted in alarm, and sped off towards the unsuspecting people with Alex right on his heels.
Dexter tore across the park as fast as his legs would carry him. He cleared low hedges and a small dog like an Olympic hurdle runner. The hulking animal was approaching the playing children with deliberate stealthiness from behind the cover of some shrubbery and would be on them in a matter of seconds. Dexter could never cover the distance in time. He waved his arms frantically and yelled between huffs as he ran, but the youngsters and their mother were too engrossed in what they were doing to notice.
The huge animal stopped behind the shrubbery and stood on its hind legs. It's blunt snout parted revealing fangs like daggers and it reached up with one massive forepaw, and then...
...it snapped a picture with the tiny camera it held in its clawed fingers. It twisted its muzzle into another toothy smile and turned and shuffled off in the opposite direction looking for more photo ops.
The steam propelling Dexter in his mad dash fizzled and he slowed to a halt, his selfless heroism suddenly turned into embarrassing naiveté. Alex plowed into him from behind.
"That wasn't a wild animal," said Dexter. "It's just a tourist or something."
"What?" asked Alex, confused. She apparently hadn't seen what had transpired.
"It had a camera and took those people's pictures," explained Dexter pointing at the oblivious children.
Now that they were closer, Dexter and Alex could see that the being they had mistaken for a wild animal was indeed some sort of intelligent life form. It was strolling upright through a small grove of alders, looking up at something in the trees, maybe a bird or a squirrel. It wore something like Roman sandals on its feet, and had a belt around its waist from which depended several small pouches. In one hand it carried its tiny camera, while the other held a partially unfolded sheet of paper, possibly a city map.
"Huh," said Alex noncommittally. She shrugged, turned, and started walking back towards her interrupted shoe shopping. "I wonder what sort of alien it is," she said idly.
"Dunno," replied Dexter. "I've never seen anything like it before. Maybe it's a Sasquatch!"
"Oh don't be such a doofus."
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