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Humanity: The Predecessors

Chapter 3

Friday morning came, and everyone had all their permission forms and syllabus sheets ready to turn in. This included Jack, Roger, Ava, and Linda, who were utterly shocked to find the forms filled out and ready for turn-in when they retrieved their syllabus sheets. Roger, Ava, and Linda were thrilled at this finding, while Jack could only moan with disdain. He really didn't like anything involving human studies.

Today, the class was going to be interesting. Since Mr. Shawnak's first topic was going to be about the humans' disapperance from the world, he thought he would hold a discussion about that. The old wolf would never have expected some of the responses he would get.

"Good afternoon class." Mr. Shawnak greeted his students with a smile, "As you all know, today is Friday, and I'm sure you all can't wait to get out of class and start your weekend." This was met with general approval from his students. "Now, I know today is suppose to be your first day of class instruction, but I don't like to start new topics on Fridays. That's just how I am. So, instead, I'm going to simply have a class discussion and possibly some debates. My first discussion topic: What so you think happened to the humans? Who wants to go first?" He searched the room for someone to answer. Everyone seemed nervous and unwilling to start the discussion. "Well, since nobody wants to open up the conversation, I'll just have to pick someone. How about... You."

He was pointing at the raccoon boy, Jason. "Me?" The raccoon looked around, hoping he had meant somebody else near him.

"Yes, you. Jason, isn't it?" The teacher said, looking at his attendence roster. "Tell me Jason, what do you think happened to the humans?"

"Uh, well, I think they were exterminated during the Humanthro War, like we were taught in middle school."

"Of course they were. Most of them anyway. But honestly, with their population reaching nearly 6.5 billion when the war began, do you really think that they were all killed? We started out with barely one billion, and our population is still not as high, today, as the humans' were back then. I'd be willing to bet you never learned that in your middle and high school classes."

"I never knew there were so many of them," Jason thought out loud. The rest of the class seemed just as surprised. For some reason, these numbers never showed up in basic human education classes in middle school and high school classes. It was something generally unknown to most anthros. Jason went on, "Well, sightings of humans stopped after about 3100. that much was taught."

"Yes, you are right about that, Jason. Tell me something though, if your species was being hunted and slaughtered by another species, and you still had a world-wide information system, what would you do?"

"Well, I'd either fight them or find a good place to hide and tell everyone else to do the same."

One of the students, a green and tan lizard species, spoke up now, "Mr. Shawnak, are you saying that these humans are just in hiding, and aren't really extinct? If that was the case, wouldn't HARP or some other archeology team have found them after almost a thousand years?"

"Yes, you would think that," Mr. Shawnak said, now addressing the reptilian student. "But think about this. If humans managed to create us, then shouldn't they know how to hide from us?" Leaving the young lizard to ponder that, he moved on to another student. "Ms. Linda," he said, adressing the meercat next, "what about you? What do you think happened to the humans?"

She thought about this for a moment, then came up with her reply. "Maybe they're living right with us. Like in those movies! You know, how they have the fancy, high-tech look-alike suits? Just like that!" Most of the other students just laughed at that. Linda's ears laid back, flat on her head, and a little red was visible through the sandy colored fur of her cheeks. She slumped in her seat, trying to hid her embarassment.

Mr. Shawnak, however, wasn't laughing. "That's enough!" He said, stearnly. "I will not tolorate this behavior. You will all respect one another in this classroom." The laughter quickly died away, and the old wolf went on, the anger in his expression receeding. "Thank you for sharing, Linda. Now, lets see what Ilex has to say."

Ilex, who had been laughing particularly hard, was only slightly surprised by this. He took a moment to collect himself, then quickly came up with his response. "Well, I think they may have flown into space. They had space travel at the time, maybe they went and hid on Mars, or one of those moons around Jupiter and Saturn."

"That's crazy," Zena said, laughing at her brother's ridiculous idea. The rest of the class joined in, and soon the entire class was in an uproar again. The instructor wasn't laughing, though. Instead of getting angry this time, he simply sighed and shook his head. They would get serious once they found a part of the class that interested them. Mr. Shawnak's classes had never ended with someone not interested in some part of the course. He knew this time would be no different, it would just take time.