Part 1:
Sennel Wright had a fairly predictable schedule on the weekends. At nine in the morning he would take the number 62 bus down to Forest Line Road—appropriately named for the large wood nearby—and then walk seven blocks to an inconspicuous warehouse owned by the Darling Home Company. He stayed in the warehouse until six in the afternoon. For the duration of Sennel’s nine hour workday, he packed various “sample kits”: packages of various appliances and cutlery that the weekday employees would ship out to what he had been assured was a vast number of sales representatives to help them set up demonstrations. As the only employee on site during the weekends, Sennel had a great deal of time to himself. Sometimes he put on the radio. Other times he listened to audiobooks. Today, however, the radio was on the fritz and Sennel had no new audiobooks to listen to. This was convenient, for had Sennel been otherwise occupied he might have completely missed hearing telltale sounds of a man falling through the roof.
“The hell?” Sennel asked as he navigated the maze of shipping crates to the source of the yelps, yips crashes, and cracks. There, sprawled on top of the remains of a crate of bath towels, lay a surprisingly uninjured individual. The man did not appear to have suffered more than a few scrapes to his hands and his clothes—tweedy and worn as they were—weren’t ripped or torn in the slightest. Looking up, Sennel could see the gaping hole through which he had fallen.
“Urg...” the man groaned as he pulled himself up. “Not the best way out but I suppose it worked.” He paused upon seeing Sennel. “Oh, hullo! Sorry about the abrupt entry; not intentional if that makes anything better. Hope you were spared from a fright. My name is Flynn, by the way. Have you seen my fox?”
Sennel, who was unaccustomed to strange men falling through roofs and asking for foxes, had no idea how to respond. The man—Flynn, apparently—took this silence as a request for more information.
“About the size of a breadbox? Orange fur, black paws, wearing a collar, answers to the name of Coby?” He asked Sennel as if this was something he should already know. Sennel was spared from responding by a sudden rustling from the pile of towels from which out popped an extremely ruffled fox.
“Oh! There you are!” Flynn exclaimed happily. He scooped up the animal and turned back to Sennel. “So, yes, this is Coby. He would greet you himself, I am sure, but there is an obvious language barrier.”
Sennel, having finally found his ability to speak, took the moment to ask what had suddenly become his most pressing question. “Why is your fox wearing glasses?”
“Eh?” Flynn blinked and looked down. “Oh! I was wondering where those went!” he chirped. Once properly bespectacled he added, “Alrighty then! I have Coby, I have my glasses, and my ley-inductor is lying melted somewhere in the middle of the woods. Time to take my leave. Nice meeting you, Sennel, hope you have a nice day.”
“Wait!” Sennel shouted louder than he intended as he moved to block Flynn from exiting the row of crates. “You can’t just...fall through the roof and leave just like that!”
“Why? Is the front door locked?”
“No but—”
“Well, then Coby and I could very easily fall through your roof and leave ‘just like that’. In fact, an unlocked door means that we should do so as quickly as possible.”
Sennel was losing patience. “Listen,” he hissed, “putting aside how you got onto the roof and whatever it is you were doing up there, my boss is going to come in on Monday and ask about that hole in the ceiling. So start talking before I call the police.”
Coby—who had been surprisingly quiet until now—climbed out of Flynn’s arms and began yipping.
“Not now,” Flynn muttered. Addressing Sennel with a sigh he said, “Very well. If you must know, I was working on a bit of... let us say ‘pest control’, when things got bit pear-shaped and I lost my ley-inductor. I needed to make a quick escape and underestimated how well it could climb.”
“’You underestimated how well ‘it’ could climb?” Sennel repeated. “What would ‘it’ be, exactly?”
“Well I could explain but that really would just raise more questions and in order to give a satisfactory explanation I would have to spend several hours and utilize numerous diagrams so that—ow! What is it?” Flynn interjected as Coby suddenly headbutted his leg. He raised an eyebrow in response to something over Sennel’s shoulder and began talking more quickly. “Ah, I see. Now, Sennel, I can try to give the Cole Notes if you would like but the best thing at this instant is if you could move a bit over here...”
He grabbed Sennel’s arm and slid him about a foot to the left. “Now then, to answer your question—”
*WHOOSH*
A sudden roaring sound and blast of heat were the only warnings Sennel received before a blast of flame struck where he had been standing moments ago. Whirling to face where the fire had shot from, he was greeted with what should have been an impossible sight. Perched atop a shipping container of oven mitts was a monstrous hound. Its skin was a searing red and stretched tightly around a muzzle filled with teeth so large they should not have been able to fit inside. A sinewy tail lashed behind the creature, tipped with a single, pitch-black claw.
“—this would be the ‘it’ I was referring to. I hope you understand my need to escape using your rooftop.” Flynn finished, mildly.
