Connor Vargstellan's Story

The office was pretty quiet as usual, with the only sound being the muffled footsteps of Cedric scurrying around the room next door, and the rumbling of the kettle.

Connor heaped several spoonfuls of instant coffee into a mug, and as soon as the water boiled, poured it in and downed the drink in one gulp. The sleep deprived manager slumped into a chair and stared at a screen for a few minutes.

Cedric came running in, some sort of box under one arm and several files in hand. He slapped them hastily in a tray, before making his way to the door-

“Stop. Put whatever that thing is down.” Cedric turned around and grinned awkwardly in response.

“It’s fine, it’s just something I found in the attic-“

“Yeah, I thought so-“

"And I was wondering what it does-“

“It’ll probably explode. The last magic object you found dissolved a hole in the floor, the one before that made a wormhole directly between here and the inside of the chimera enclosure, and the one before that froze the whole room solid. Dude, just put it back.”

“Pfft, it’s not dangerous, look.” He pulled the object out of the box. It was a black orb with golden skull ornaments emitting a dubious purple aura. Some kind of nightmarish chanting was emanating from it.

“See? Nothing dodgy about it at all.”

A small bird perched outside the window was singing. The eye sockets on one of the skulls lit up and a jet of otherworldly energy shot out, vaporising it instantly.

“O…K. I see your point.” Cedric said slowly, placing the orb very carefully in its box. He must have put it in the wrong way because something pressed down on it, and there was a clicking noise. The purple aura intensified and the whole zoo was flooded with ghostly wailing sounds for about 3 seconds. Everyone, including all the staff members, guests and even the monsters would hear this. He slammed the lid on and shoved it behind the monitor and in front of Connor, who looked as if someone had thrown their used gym shorts in his face. Several of the staff members had come running.

“Itsfineeverythingsfine.” Cedric lied very badly.

It was a calm morning in the office. Lestelle was humming happily to herself a she completed one of her evaluations of one of the new dragons who'd arrived earlier that week. She'd determined that he should likely be placed in an enclosure with only older males, considering that every time he saw a female he'd scream relentlessly in order to gain her attentions (it never worked, but for some reason he consistently continued with the behavior). Once the report was printed, she bound it with a clip and headed out of her designated office into the main room.

Just as she rounded the corner, she witnessed a small bird disappear into a puff of feathers and ash. Lestelle, in shock from the sight, tripped over her own feet and crashed to the ground. Her report became unbound and papers fluttered around her. Embarrassment flooded through her. Had anyone seen? She scrambled to her knees and gathered the report, hastily clipping it back together (but not realizing that the front page was now upside-down).

Her cool green eyes found Cedric just as an object in his hands flashed bright purple. Her head was filled with the wails of unknown creatures and, frightened, Lestelle let out a shriek and dove into the corner, hands on her ears. As quickly as it came, the sound disappeared.

For some reason, these occurrences were rather normal. Lestelle, who was easy to fright, did not find them funny.

Still needing to give Cedric her report, but wanting less than ever to have to talk with him, Lestelle inched around the perimeter of the room towards him and Connor. When she got within a meter, she tossed the report onto Connor's desk and scampered back to watch from around the corner of the hall.

Connor grabbed the box just before the files hit the desktop, stood up very slowly, and left the room, climbing the stairs to the top floor.

“Er, thank you. And er…sorry about that.” Cedric apologized to Lestelle, sitting down and beginning to sort through the files.

“Oh, the new dragon, of course!” he said, eyes lighting up. “The new fella who screams every time he sees a female. I wonder why he does that, perhaps it’s some sort of mating cry for that particular species…” he continued to ramble to himself, regardless of whether anyone was listening.

Meanwhile the cries of the monsters outside had grown louder all of a sudden. The door flew open and a distraught looking security guard - actually, the security guard as they had only found one person reckless enough to take the job - entered.

“What the hell was that?!” he demanded. This was clearly directed at Cedric, as it was pretty obvious he’d had something to do with it, “The monsters’ve all gone crazy, and the Pegasus enclosure’s in crap shape, they’ll break out at this rate! Oh. Mornin', Lestelle.” he greeted the zoologist. He tried to be polite and friendly to everyone although Cedric's antics were just too much for him.

A slightly battered car parked into an empty slot in front of the zoo. Freda went out of it, humming a rather cheerful song. She took her handbag, closed the door and pushed her car key's button. She raised her brow, as no sound could be heard and pushed the button several more times.

"Huh. Battery problems. Oh, well!" she spoke to herself, continued humming and locked her car manually.

The big zoo stood with its powerful presence in front of Freda, who was in awe.

"This is it," she whispered to herself. "Monster Zoo. My future workplace. As much as I know, it's not like the normal zoo parks. Which means... higher pay!"

Freda entered the zoo and in a blink of an eye her smile wiped off her face. Her eyes widened in shock and her voice exploded in a shriek, as a unicorn was running in her direction. Freda bolted to her left.

Very soon her legs were hurting and slowing down, as she was gasping for air. Apparently running after a six-year-old child and lifting heavy bags of groceries wasn't enough to keep one in shape. She jerked in a side direction several more times, as her speed had no chance in front of a whole horse power. Finally she fell down on the ground.

“You have got to be Kidding me!” yelled the repairman, eventually giving up on chasing the intruder, as he remembered the tear in the enclosure.

“I s’pose I should get to work on this, since they’ve already broken out.” He grumbled, shuffling toward the cage. He began hammering at the base, sending pulses of magic energy up the side which, slowly, began to repair itself.

Lestelle would hear a leafy crash and snorting. A slightly smaller than average Pegasus with a light brown coat had somehow got itself caught in a tree, and was thrashing around wildly. It seemed younger than the others, and the poor creature was clearly still spooked by the voices from earlier.

Meanwhile, Scarlett might notice several Pegasus following the one she was riding, almost like geese flying in a ‘V’. That, and the rather uncanny colouration of this one meant that everyone in the zoo could notice her very easily from the ground.

---

The helmet clad woman’s face split into a beaming grin as Freda introduced herself. She shook her hand back enthusiastically.

“Perfect.” She said, “We’re currently on the hunt for potential keepers. The name’s Hilda by the way.”

It was painfully clear that more keepers were needed. One thing the staff here had not expected, was how much the zoo had exploded over the first week. They had soon found themselves under siege by more visitors than their workforce could handle, leaving them understaffed and with more spendable profit than they’d expected (i.e any at all).

“Why, thank you!” she replied, replying to the compliment, “I’m afraid you might have to wait a couple minutes, we just have a minor issue that needs to be sorted out,” (it was hardly a minor issue) “I’ll call the manager to come here and see you!” and with that, she whistled harshly, calling down a proud looking Pegasus with a pale golden coat, jumping on its back, and gliding off.

A few minutes later, A very tried looking Connor, wearing slippers and pyjama trousers with his office shirt and tie, came running.

“Uh, is there someone here to apply to be a keeper?” he asked.