Have you ever looked up how many people are alive on the planet?
I feel like everyone must have looked at that at some point in their life. Out of curiosity, or for a school project, or something. But even after the Super Surge of the 50’s, the human population had only just topped 11 billion people.
And that just wasn’t enough.
Have you ever looked up how many animals are alive on the planet?
There are about 2.16 million species. Finding a total number of animals is hard because the truth is, no one knows. Because there are too many to count. When you look at mammals, birds, insects, invertebrates, fish, and reptiles, it’s an overwhelming number. But safe to say it’s much, much more than 11 billion…
No one knows why, and the theories that came out were absolute trash. But the bottom line is that the animals finally rose up against humans. Humanity was a plague on the earth, and the earth had finally had enough. All over the world, animals turned feral and aggressive. Even the most tame of house cats showed their claws and teeth in the most violent manner, and turned against their humans.
Bears and wolves and giant cats ransacked houses without provocation. Birds and small animals created roving gangs that destroyed all in their path. Even insects swarmed together, doing damage in horrible, unthinkable ways. Those that ran from their land animals onto boats met up with pods of dolphins, or shivers of sharks, or even huge collections of whales that broke apart the boats to drown all those aboard.
There was nowhere on the planet that wasn’t already discovered and populated by mother nature, so there was nowhere safe to run. Absolutely nowhere to hide.
I happened to be releasing mice, birds, and bunnies from an animal test facility in the north when the Great Uprising began. I didn’t take the time to look back at what the newly freed animals were doing, I was busy running for my life. I couldn’t go to jail again for this, so I just opened cages and ran as fast as I could. I never saw what those mice and rabbits did to the people in white coats that chased us.
I didn’t even know anything was out of the norm until I slammed open the emergency exit and nearly ran right through a pack of the biggest wolves I’d ever seen. They leapt on and demolished any white coats that managed to escape the tiny claws and teeth of their previous captives, but not me. Me, they stared at with a serpentine interest. Me, they watched while the other humans were literally ripped apart only feet away from where I stood. Me, they contemplated a different ending…
You wouldn’t believe how many pets are kept in tanks and cages. Or how many pet stores there are in a single state. Or how many companies actually do animal trials and testing. I’m apparently needed, thanks to my opposable thumbs. I have a job to do, and my masters are now the wolves. They never let me out of their sight, and if I make any movements they don’t like, they bare their teeth and remind me they can end me in a moment. But so far, they haven’t hurt me at all.
It turns out, I think, that I am now their pet.
I can only hope it’ll be more like the fluffy dog on a pillow, rather than the beaten and starved dog chained to a fence.
