'Making a Big City Splash'

A small, red fox observed the two figures from afar. The larger one was a young man in his late teens dressed in dark clothing, his hood pulled up over his head to conceal his face from the rain. The smaller one was a woman with long, flowing, brown hair that stuck to her face as she ran. She wore a long dress that dragged along the ground as she moved, and she practically glided through the mud with light footsteps while her pursuer struggled.

The fox continued to follow them until they both stopped at a large building. It was shaped like a giant rectangle with round lumps on its sides that resembled giant breasts. The woman stood by the entrance and stared at her pursuer with wide eyes. He seemed ready to attack but stopped himself when he noticed that she was trembling in fear. Instead of attacking, he turned around and walked away into the rain.

The woman let out a sigh of relief and watched the figure move deeper into the distance. Suddenly, an idea sparked in her mind. She hurriedly entered the building and passed through its entrance hall before stopping at an open door with a sign above it:

*Information and Questions Desk*

She glanced around before slipping inside and shutting it behind her. A middle-aged woman sat behind a desk typing something on her computer keyboard.

"Good day," she said cheerfully when she noticed Lianne standing by the door. "How can I help you?"

"I need to buy a bus ticket," Lianne said without hesitation. "But I'm not sure where I should go."

"Where are you headed?"

Lianne bit down on her lip as she thought about it for a moment before replying, "Perilous Forest."

The woman's smile vanished instantly and she raised her eyebrows in surprise. Her hand reached for an old-looking telephone that had been placed beside the computer screen but she changed her mind when Lianne looked down at her feet nervously while wringing her hands together anxiously.

"My... My son went missing three years ago," Lianne explained reluctantly before continuing hastily, "He's just a kid! So I'm going to look for him in Perilous Forest."

"Three years..." The woman muttered under her breath before turning back to Lianne with a serious expression on her face. "Do you even know where Perilous Forest is?"

Lianne shook her head slowly as if deep in thought before looking up at the woman again and saying, "No... But I recently heard someone say that they saw people riding some sort of bird around here somewhere."

The woman remained silent as she stared blankly at Lianne who began fidgeting nervously again under her gaze. Finally, she moved back in front of the computer screen and began typing furiously for several moments before muttering something unintelligible under her breath. She then turned back to Lianne who had taken another step forward towards her desk impatiently tapping her foot repeatedly against the floor.

"There!" The woman said finally as she pointed towards some words on the screen, "It says here that there are plenty of birds here!"

Lianne squinted towards the screen and read out loud softly: "There are many birds here in our city." She then lifted her head up again and said excitedly, "So does this mean that my son might be nearby?"

The woman nodded hesitantly while taking off her spectacles and rubbing them lightly against her sleeve before returning them back to their original position on top of her nose again. "I don't think so," she said while shaking her head slowly from side to side, "there are thousands of birds here in our city."

Lianne's face fell visibly after hearing those words but she tried hard to remain optimistic by saying hopefully, "But there's only one person that went missing three years ago."

The woman sighed heavily while rubbing her forehead with one hand while placing the other one on top of Lianne's shoulder reassuringly. "Don't get your hopes up too high," she began kindly by saying softly with a compassionate smile forming across her lips, "you'd best just wait for your husband's return patiently instead of going all through this city trying to find someone who may or may not be here."