calash

Repost from :History Class by Calash

“Quiet Class!”

The teachers voice echoed out over the children, who were lost in chatter and thoughts of recess. At the sound of her voice they swiftly grew quiet, except for one little boy who continued to talk.

“Billy, I said be quiet!”

The laughter of the class drowned out his response. Quickly the class returned it’s attention to there teacher, there young eyes eager to hear what she had to say.

“We only have a few minutes until Lunch break, lets cover the first part of this.”

“Awwwwwww.”

The teacher moved to the front of the class where a large white screen. She stood for a moment, a soft smile gracing her face before she started on the lesion.

“Ok, who can tell me when the first dragon eggs were found?”

“2011”

The young girl who responded was named Susan. She was at the head of her class, and quite the teacher pet, something that got her laughed at by her peers many times.

“That is correct Susan. In 2011 a team sent to study volcanic activity found 3 eggs preserved in the lava from the Jurassic period. They were the only evidence ever found that Dragons existed at the same time dinosaurs did.

During there analysis they found something remarkable. One of the eggs was still alive, damaged but still alive. The team of researchers took the difficult task and in 2013 hatched the egg, bringing alive the first dragon in millions of years. Does anybody know what they named him?”

“Smaug”

“That is correct Susan. Smaug was much smaller than the dragons of legends. Unfortunately he was also very sick, and died only a few months after being hatched.

It was not until 2 years later that a cloning lab purchased Smaug’s remains and, after 3 years of research, produced the first cloned dragon. From there it was only a matter of time before some of the larger corporations saw the potential and began to sell small dragons as pets.”

She moved out of the way and pressed a small button. The white screen lit up with several slides of baby dragons playing with people. The class responded with ooh’s and aww’s at the images.

“Dragons became the most popular pet of all time. One out of every three households in America had a dragon as a pet, even more in other countries.

However, the dragon owners underestimated how intelligent there new pets were, and in 2022 a group of pet dragons ran away from there owners and began to attack nearby towns.

It was quickly determined that dragons were too dangerous to be pets. Production of new dragons was halted and the existing dragons were hunted, removed before they could pose a threat to humanity.”

The teacher paused for a moment, reflecting on the events of the past. Every time she went over this section she could feel a tug at her heart. The loss of life was tragic, no matter what species it was.

As she went to speak again a loud horn flooded the classroom, alerting them it was time for lunch break. The children wasted little time, leaving at breakneck speed to go play outside. The teacher smiled as she watched them leave, they would have to finish the lesion after lunch. As she turned she noticed Susan was still standing there, an inquisitive look filled her eyes.

“Yes Susan?”

“If there were so many of them, where did they all go? Where are all the humans now?”

The teacher smiled softly, and raised a claw to pat the child on the head before speaking.

“We will go over that after lunch, go play now.”

“Ok.”

Susan ran for the door and leapt into the air, her young wings barely able to carry her weight as she flew with as much grace as she could gather to the rest of the children who were playing keep away.

DaveKuzminski

It's brutal time.

You have an interesting premise. I'm not bothered by the fact that an egg is still viable after so long an interval, but you could have gone with something more recent and linked it to the Middle Ages. However, before you even reach that point, you need to do something about spelling, capitalization, punctuation, and grammar. Plus, your dialogue is too stilted and formal.

Then you run into a bigger problem. Despite a decent beginning, you louse up your science with the dragons propagating on their own which is a conflict with the fact that they had to be cloned. You have, after all, only one gender. Also, it's unrealistic that one in three families would have one as a pet because manufacturing logistics for producing them simply wouldn't be able to reach that point so quickly and the danger of owning them would have emerged well before reaching those kinds of numbers. Finally, you don't give the reader a viable reason for why humans became extinct.

This story isn't beyond recovery. What it needs is careful thought into the processes that would answer the reader's questions just enough to satisfy them even if the entire process isn't actually feasible. Then you should consider that this should be more than a short story. You have at least a novelette or novella in this idea. Just develop some sympathetic characters to carry the story much like is found in Planet of the Apes which is the same kind of story, except the intelligent apes came from the future. By the way, you don't have to end the story with the cliche of humans becoming extinct. You could work out a different ending that surprises the reader.

MsJacquiiC

Oh good gawd... It's science fiction...

I think the premise is fabulous and speaks of redemption, which is always lovely, considering how brutal people can be towards other people. I do agree the spelling needs work --- Lesson instead of lesion AND their instead of there...

Other than that - isn't the point of writing a story to amuse the readers? If this is the case I think you succeeded wonderfully CALASH...

I think a really enjoyable read - especially the last "Ooooo!" When Susan runs for the door and flies.

Thanx for the sharing.

Jacquii.