Astral High - Chapter 33
#35 of Astral High
Hmm... Is the story getting too weird? If so, well... it arguably gets weirder as things are explained. However, weirdness can lead to awesomeness. I mean, society seems to think of us furries as weird. We prove that wrong on an hourly basis!
I entered second period the following morning holding hands with Seth. We sat down next to eachother, and within three minutes, everyone was there except Titus. With only fifteen seconds before the bell rang, he and some other kid walked in and sat down at our table. The kid was opposite me, but I'd recognize that ungodly, sinful, satanic, demonic face anywhere.
"You worthless fuck." [Me]
"Oh god no..." [Valen]
"You two know each other?" [Gavin]
"He was my first boyfriend, and he's an asshole." [Me]
"Says the guy who told my parents!" [Valen]
"So what, your parents were awesome, I knew they wouldn't give a fuck if they found out!" [Me]
"Well- ... Okay, fair enough, but still, that's really mean."
"Woah- what the shit happened to your arm!?" [Dante]
"Oh, this?" Titus turned his right arm towards the center of the table, exposing massive burn, singed fur, and charred skin.
"Why didn't you go see a doctor!?" [Ted]
"Oh, my mom and her new husband went on their honeymoon, so I'm alone, and... Well... Dustin knows what happened from there." We all turned our heads to Dustin.
"Hey, don't look at me, I can only guess. I wasn't there." [Dustin]
"Wait, did you tell him?" [Dante]
"... Maybe."
"You idiot!" [Gavin]
"Hey, he already had the effects figured out, he just didn't know the cause. Now he does, and now he won't question our mettling." [Dustin]
"Hm. Actually, knowing Titus, he's probably not gonna shit about it." [Dante]
"Could somebody please explain what you're talking about?" [Me]
"God no!" [Titus]
"You know, I hear Ms. Ardenstal knows." [Gavin]
"What do I know?" Gavin nearly jumped a foot when he heard her voice behind him.
"Uh, well... Uh..." [Gavin]
"Praecantatia!" [Titus]
"Oh. And the four of you... right, okay. I'm gonna assume you just figured it out, at some point you're gonna lose your mind. So, do you four know what's inevitable?" [Ms. Ardenstal]
"Yeah, but you can't possibly teach everyone in this class to use it, right?" [Dante]
"No, not at all, I intend to teach you how to work together. Let's be honest, the only way we're going to survive is if we allow ourselves to get over each other's differences and move on."
"Hm. So, after the first phase, how many people do you think will know?" [Titus]
"Oh, Millions. Even after the last day, there'll still be some conjecture about it, and society will hold together. But it will begin to fray at some point, and that fraying will exponentially increase until our borders can't contain it any longer. Then the second phase will begin, and it'll spread like a wild fire across the world."
"... What are you people talking about?!" [Valen]
"We don't know either." [Ted]
"Oh, you guys don't need to worry about it. You'll be ready for it as long as you pay attention in this class- and Ted, make sure you really piss of Tanner when you play the song." Ms. Ardenstal walked over to her desk and started taking roll.
"How did she know about that?" [Ted]
"... It is inevitable. We've only been trying to post pone it, but there's no reason to even bother..." [Gavin]
"That's what I've been trying to tell you guys." [Dustin]
"Well congratulations. You were right." [Dante]
"Ooh... This is so cool, all of this is so cool..." [Titus]
"Okay, let's begin! For once we're actually going to do something in this class, now that we have all twenty four students. Twenty seven would be better, but who cares?" Ms. Ardenstal walked over to one of the white boards around the room and started to write on it.
"Now, we all agree that people are wired in different ways. Some people are better with math, others are better with English, some more are better with science, most can handle social studies, and there's a lot of idiots who are only good for sports." She wrote each subject along the top of the board, putting space between.
"But, we're also better with even the dynamacies of each subject. Some of us are better with equations, while some prefer geometry." She wrote the two words under math. "Some can write a story, others prefer to persuade us and make us worship them." Everyone laughed as she wrote politics on the board. "Scientists argue over which is more important, chemistry or physics, or biology or astrology. And so on with the other subjects. We're all wired differently, yet, we need to over come these differences to work together as a society. From now on, every Tuesday through Thursday, you'll work on a massive project with the people at your table, and you'll need to get past your differences to make the right decisions." She grabbed a stack of papers off the table and set eight at each cluster of tables. Afterwards she handed us all two packets, both different.
"Now, before we get too far into this- should've done this earlier- we need to put these desks in the center of each table. Come on, let's move the tables." We all got up and had to half rearrange the class room to do this, but the desks fit perfectly in the tables afterwards. The desks had four massive monitors on them that stuck out about four inches from the desk. We all sat back down and tried to figure out how the thing worked and what it did. Valen flicked some switch and the displays turned on, showing an image of a blank, white circle with a black background.
Ms. Ardenstal sat down at her desk and grabbed some tablet that I assume was hooked up to the same program. "Now, give me a second to set this up... Okay." Some animation played, and the circle slowly became a blue color, and shapes raised from the now-apparent water. The geometry was recognizable as mountains, deserts, plains, and forests. All of a sudden it froze as an image, and a weird effect over the image took hold as the planet slowly spun.
"Okay, everyone choose a place to begin. Talk it over with the people at your table, pick a place, and then from there things should make sense. ... Oh, they're touch screens." Everyone got to work, and by the end of the period we understood the project.
It was based on the idea that we should learn to work together, so, we chose what we believed was the best spot on the map, and from there, we had to decide what our plan of action was, how we were supposed to develop as a community and such. We were able to discover, manage, and use resources. Each day was supposed to represent one year of progress, but for the first day we had starting resources. Among ours, we found small amounts of gold, steel, and diamonds, and the rest of our one thousand points of starting resources was food, so we could easily get straight to work the next day at developing technology and fortresses. It seemed like an interesting idea to me and I couldn't think of anything else for the rest of the day.