3000

Chapter One

Hello, my name is Hammy. I like chasing squirrels and chewing on bones. I think that humans were stupid creatures. I am partially linguistically impaired. After all, I do live underground along with with the rest of my pack.

Today marks the 976th anniversary of human extinction. After the nuclear war of 2022, the fallout blocked out the sun, freezing all crops and killing most of the planet's wildlife. Herbivores were forced to eat meat or die. During the first year, humans began their shift to insanity. Preying on their pets and each other, most of the population was depleted as a source of food. Only the richest survived, buying slaves and slowly killing them to fill their empty stomachs. After the second year, a mutated virus spread around the world, first infecting and killing the slaves. As the rich population's only source of food, they had nowhere to turn and were, too, killed.

With the human population gone, their beloved pets were set free to roam the barren wasteland which was once what humans called home. The mass amounts of radioactive material in the atmosphere mutated the animal population's genes, fortifying their bacteria immunity, cold resistance, and greatly increasing their lifespan.

Along with physical buffs, animals also gained intelligence and began colonizing. The weaker animals sought refuge in the sublands, away from the larger predators who dominated the overlands. The pets who survived the hunger of their owners joined the weaklings underground; however, cats and dogs remained enemies. My master was one of the first to go, so I'm one of the oldest residents of this subland district.

Its been a while since I've been to the overlands. I still remember when the world wasn't a frozen block of ice...