A bird was singing as it perched on a balcony; the bird saw a girl doing pull-ups one morning. This was a routine the girl carried out every day to make sure she was fully awake.
RING! RING! RING!
The sound of the telephone ringing in the living room downstairs still reached the girl's ears. "99… 100!" said the girl before coming down and stepping back onto the wooden floor.
She grabbed a towel and walked out of her room, wiping the sweat from her body—she didn't want her flatmate to get angry because of the smell of sweat—and I'm terrible at apologising.
The telephone continued to ring until I picked it up. "Hello, this is Red speaking," I said, and shortly afterwards I heard a soft voice.
"Oh? Red? That's unusual—is Alice out?" It was the gentle, affectionate voice of an elderly woman; she was our boss, who often gave us work.
"Yes, she's gone to do the shopping."
"Well then, I'll get straight to the point… I have a task for you." Mothet then began to explain the task she had given me, and once she'd finished, I hung up straight away.
I turned around and found Alice standing there, staring at me with a brown paper bag full of groceries in her hand. She looked me up and down as if I were a protected endangered species.
"What?" I glanced down at what I was wearing—a black tank top and long grey tracksuit bottoms—what was wrong with this?
She glanced at my abs before moving her gaze to my arms and finally back to my eyes. "No… I'm just still surprised you've managed to keep those muscles despite eating so much sweets." I could detect a hint of jealousy in her voice.
"And I'm still surprised you can put on weight so easily just from eating a little." I teased before moving closer to her to see what she'd bought. "Did you buy ice cream?"
But Alice immediately stepped back. "You smell of sweat! You'd better go and have a shower." She said, holding her hand out to keep her distance.
"Ugh, fine," I said, turning around and heading for the bathroom. "By the way, Mother called earlier and said she'd given me a mission."
"After we've had breakfast, we'll go straight—wait, just you?" Her hand paused as she was putting away the groceries she'd bought, and her gaze locked onto me as I stood in front of the bathroom door.
"Yes, and you've been told to look for Robin again—because, well, we haven't managed to catch him yet. " I continued before going into the bathroom and closing the door; but just a few moments after I'd gone in, the door swung open again.
"Just you?!" She tried to confirm again.
"Yes, you creep." She began to annoy me, "Why on earth do you look so panicked?"
"Simply put, you're stupid," as soon as those words came out of her mouth, I immediately slammed the door shut and locked it so she couldn't get in. "If you're in trouble, just give me a call straight away!"
"Ugh" I was being treated like a child. It's true that whenever I carried out a mission on my own, I always ended up having my pay docked—but at least I'd managed to get it reduced from ninety per cent to seventy per cent.
After a shower, I headed straight to the location Mother had told me about—I didn't say goodbye to Alice because she'd surely give me loads of suggestions and advice if something went wrong, and that rambling was just so boring to listen to.
I then found myself surrounded by lush, leafy trees. "Mother said... a girl disappeared and was last seen entering the forest..." I muttered, remembering what Mother had asked of me.
I walked towards the door before stopping and was about to knock, but my hand paused in mid-air. After a long silence, I grabbed the door handle and pushed the door open.
The door wasn't locked.
I slowly entered the house and looked around. I noticed three bowls of porridge on the dining table.
I approached it and took a spoonful of porridge and sniffed it. I didn't smell anything dangerous in the porridge, so I immediately put the spoon in my mouth.
"Ugh, it's too hot." I muttered and took a spoonful of porridge from the bowl next to the one that was too hot.
When I tried it. "This one is too cold."
I glanced at the last bowl, took a spoonful of porridge, and immediately tried it. "Mm, this is delicious," I said, not feeling poisoned at all.
I hadn't had breakfast yet, so I immediately finished the porridge, wiped my lips, and continued walking.
I saw three chairs and one of the chairs had a broken leg. I was curious about what happened, but before I had time to move my feet—I noticed there was a staircase leading upstairs.
I glanced back at the chair with the broken leg, I looked around the chair and saw nothing suspicious, my curiosity took over and I immediately walked towards the stairs leading to the second floor.
I stepped on each stair until I finally reached the door; I opened it and saw it was a room with three beds.
I looked around and was startled to see a little girl sleeping on the small, soft-looking bed—she was the missing child, I was absolutely certain. That golden blonde hair couldn't be mistaken.