ROTWOTA: Book 1 - The Beginning of Extinction

A Better Side of Her

That morning, Cody awoke and arose from his bed and went downstairs. Several minutes later, his teacher came down from her room upstairs. "Oh, hey Mrs. Wyatt. I'm sorry if I woke you up." He said nervously.

"No you didn't. Well, I have to go to a meeting at school and I guess I can let you stay longer since you say you need to hide from your parents and i know for a fact that you're being serious. Just stay hidden, and keep safe, I have some stuff that you can have to eat and drink, I will be back at 12:30." She said. "Alright, I'll secure all entrances and keep my sister and I safe." Said Cody.

As Mrs. Wyatt left for her meeting, Cody proceeded to lock any door he could find and close the curtains and put the blindfolds on the windows up for extra precaution. As his sister came downstairs, Cody warned her to stay safe since their parents would be looking for them. "Ok, but when will your teacher return?" She asked. "She said she'll be back at 12:30. We need to make sure we're safe until then." Said Cody.

The two went into the kitchen where they found a box of frosty flakes cereal with a sticky note attached to it. It read "I left this cereal for you two to have breakfast with, I'm sorry but this is all I have for you at the moment but this is my sons' favorite . -Mrs. Wyatt."

"Who cares? We love this cereal!" Said Emma. Frosty Flakes was indeed one of their favorite kinds of cereal and they cherished the fine moment swimmingly.

An hour later, they found waiting for Mrs. Wyatt to come back extremely boring, so they decided to play hide and seek to pass the time. Emma went to go hide first, so she ran upstairs and hid inside of a small closet. As Cody went to find Emma, it took him a while to just search all of the downstairs rooms.

As he went upstairs, he decided to check the bathroom for her. However, when he checked the bathroom, there was a window that he had forgotten to make sure was secured. But through it, he managed to see something was was far from natural.

There were two police officers that were standing outside their car, but neither of them were human. One of them was an anthropomorphic polar bear and anthropomorphic wolf who were talking with a young girl who looked as if she was begging to be let go. Cody felt distressed and fearful as he watched the poor girl being forcefully shoved into the backseat without remorse from the animalistic officers.

As the car sped off, Cody made sure that the window was secure and desperately searched for his little sister. He endlessly checked rooms and closets and eventually found the closet that Emma was hiding in. Needless to say, it was easy to notice her brother in distress from her point of view.

"Hey Cody? Are you alright?" She asked nervously. "No, not really, animals are hunting us down." He said. "What do you mean?" Asked Emma. "Well, I saw that two animals have become humanoid and I watched them take a girl." He said. "Are you pulling my leg Cody?" She asked.

Upon the realization that his sister didn't believe him, he took her to the window where they didn't see any anthros in sight. Emma was utterly confused by this sight, but being young and needed someone older she could trust, she decided to take her brother's word for it.

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Cody and Emma were getting worried about Mrs. Wyatt and how she hadn't come back at 12:30 like she said. The two siblings were hiding within the basement for safety. "Is your teacher ever gonna come back?" Asked Emma. "Something must've happened, but I'm not letting you leave this room on my watch." Said Cody.

Just then, a noise was heard from upstairs. It sounded like someone had entered the house and was searching for them. "Stay down here Emma, if they want you, they're gonna have to get past me." Said Cody. The older brother proceeded to grab a weapon and went over to the entrance to the basement. He carefully owned the door and swing recklessly to his left.

Cody then turned to his left to see that he had almost hit his teacher in the face with a crowbar. "What on earth were you doing?!" She screamed. "I'm sorry! I didn't know that was you?" Said Cody, hoping he would we forgiven. "Oh well thank god that you're ok." She said.

To Cody, that was an unusual response, for his entire year, Mrs. Wyatt was one of the most aggressive teachers in his life. While she wasn't as bad as his 5th grade teacher, she never gave a reply like that to someone who could've killed her!, well not infront of her students. Whatever this was, it was at least a calmer side of her.

"Alright, the reason I'm late is that I got held up in traffic and that I wanted to get you guys something that can sustain yourselves." Said Mrs. Wyatt. She came back with a bag of Chick-fl-a food. As soon as Emma come back upstairs, she dove into her portion of food. "Oh my gosh, thank you so much ma'am." She said with delight.

"Well, the truth is that it's been rough on my part ever since my kids went missing without a trace of my knowledge. They were really big priorities of mine and it's been troubling me since I should've been the one protecting them and I let them down. So I've been wanting to make it up to you to keep my mind off of it." She explained.

Cody listened thoroughly and carefully, realizing that he had done the same thing. He had failed to save Justin and tried spending quality time with his sister to keep his mind off of it. "It's ok, I feel your pain. But your kids or Justin would want us to keep fighting, and we have a chance to get through it all." He said.

"I understand Cody. We can talk more a little later." Said Mrs. Wyatt. As she walked away, Cody could tell that he had made progress in finding a bigger heart that he knew.