I walked into the classroom with a tray full of cookies. It took a lot of effort to make this, and some ingredients were hard to come by. The only reason we could have warm meals without worrying too much about the fire was because of a cave in the village where a hot spring was located. Pops managed to make an ‘oven’ of sorts, rigging the water to pass through some pipes. But that was about it; not only was it a tiny pool of water, being just 40 centimeters across, or 15 inches, but also the water was extremely hot, close to 100 degrees Celsius, or 212 Fahrenheit. My face turned into a frown when I realized that Pops’ constant nagging was actually working. He was the one who taught me everything about how the metric system was better, easier, and more precise than the imperial one, for the most part. Recently, when we were dealing with the only trader that comes here with a certain frequency, I realized that I couldn’t make the conversions in my head. Hearing that, Rakeen told me to convert every value from metric to imperial as a way to practice, even in my own mind. I never realized that his random quizzes and constant nagging actually made me do the conversions by instinct.

“Miss Cass? Is everything ok?” Penelope, one of my youngest students, was by my side. Looking up with a worried expression.

I smiled and spoke loudly enough for the entire class to hear me, “Well… I don’t know. Marcos was kind enough to give me all these cookies, since today is my birthday and all that. But I’m afraid there are way too many for me to eat by myself. Trying to eat them all will end up spoiling my appetite for tonight’s party, and if I just save them for later, they won’t be as delicious. Does anyone know what I can do about that?”

All the five kids in my class jumped up, offering to help by eating the cookies. I chuckled and kicked a pillow to the center of the room, placing the cookie tray in front of me, “Now, now. Before you all start eating. I want you to do something. Grab a pillow to sit and your stuffy, then come here. I want everyone to be in a circle.”

“Why do we need to grab those toys?” Jake, the oldest of the kids, crossed his arms. He was at that age where he wanted to be treated as a grown-up. After all, ‘13 is already basically an adult,’ according to him. He no longer wanted to play with stuffed animals or stuffies, as the smallest children called them.

I just nodded, knowing that arguing wouldn’t amount to anything, “If you don’t want to grab them, that’s fine. Just take a pillow. But can you do me a favor and bring me my penguin? Because of what happened earlier, today’s class will be about the old world, and talking about the Eaters makes me scared.”

“You are scared?” Jake’s voice cracked a bit.

“I am. Very much so. I need my stuffy today,” I replied, keeping a calm voice. It wasn’t a complete lie. After all, I was still shaken up. However, there was no better time for the kids to learn about this. The birds and the bees talk could come later. They had to understand why those creatures were so dangerous and why we had to hide from them at all costs.

One by one, the kids grabbed their toys and sat around in the circle. As everyone got ready, Michael, a 10-year-old boy with short, uneven hair, came closer to me, “Miss Cass. Can I sit on your lap?”

Giving him a pat followed by a kiss on his forehead, I explained, “I’m sorry, honey. Not today. This is a serious topic, and I need to see your face. Also, everyone needs to be ready to be brave, even if they are alone. That includes me, Penelope, PJ, Jake, Vanessa, and you. Ok?”

Everyone could see the sadness in his eyes as the boy nodded and walked over to the side. Sitting by Vanessa, the other 10-year-old kid in the class. She was quiet, but extremely smart. On an academic level, she was closer to graduating than Jake, but her social skills were not the best.

I gave my students one more look, all of them sitting in a circle, holding their own stuffies. With a nod, I started, “Now, I said that I won’t be holding anyone while I’m talking about this, but if you need, you can hold on to each other. And you are all free to take the cookies now. Two for each, ok?” they nodded, and I continued.

“As you know, the world today is very different from what it was years ago. We generally refer to that time as the ‘old world.’ But people also have a different name for that. The world before the fall. Before the Eaters.”

“The Eaters weren’t always around?” PJ held his lion stuffy tightly, his eyes full of wonder.

“No. They were not. Before them, we had enormous cities. With thousands and thousands of people. Schools had hundreds of students. A single class could have 20, 30 kids, or even more.”

“Wow…” PJ’s gasp made me smile. It was a bittersweet smile, but a smile nonetheless.

“Yeah. Do you remember that picture? The one on the postcard Pops showed you? That was the city of Nashville, in what was called the state of Tennessee.”

“Searching for solution,” PJ said.

“PJ? What do you mean?” I asked, a bit confused.

“What’s a state?” PJ asked. I must have misheard.

“I’ll tell you about that another time. This won’t be important for today. But that city wasn’t even one of the biggest ones. There were much larger places all over. Cities that would take days to walk across. Places with buildings that went so high that you couldn’t even hear the people from below. They could be taller than mountains. There were even tunnels, kilo- I mean, miles and miles of tunnels with large metal carriages that took people from one side of the city to the other. We could even fly. There were these things called airplanes, and they took people from anywhere to everywhere.”

All the kids were starry-eyed, imagining these incredible places. And I knew the next part would shatter any of their dreams, “But that was only until the Eaters appeared. No one knows for sure where they came from. Some say they came from space, others that they were here before us. Some say they come from a different universe or that they are envoys of a god or a demon. Like I said, no one knows, and I don’t really think that matters. Not now, at least. Let me read you one thing. A page from Pop’s journal,” I reached into my pocket to pull up the page. It was one he would read to his class before retiring as a teacher. He was there when the fall happened. He was there when the world ended, and I felt like there was no better way to explain what happened than using these words. But I noticed that there was a line that I never seen before, in a much neater handwriting.

The tale has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

[Solution found. It will require use of nearby available resources. In addition, solution requires temporary relinquishment of motor functions.]

After blinking, that strange passage was gone. Not wanting to make things worse for the kids, I just continued as if nothing had happened.

‘When Humanity was looking to the stars and preparing its brightest and bravest for the first journey to a neighboring planet, we were attacked.

Were they aliens? Old creatures trapped on ice? Animals from the depths of the ocean who evolved or mutated? Elder beings coming from the darkest depths of the universe? No one knew, and it didn’t matter. The roiling masses of tentacles, claws, and teeth never gave us the chance to discover or study them. They only had one desire, one goal.

To consume.

First, the monsters hit our power grid. Our dams, our power plants, and even our kilns.

Eating the very energy we created and throwing our entire society into the dark ages once again.

Scared to lose our way of life, we turned to the army and to the militias, hoping they would be able to push back those creatures. That’s when they turned to us. Maybe they recognized us as a threat after our attacks, or perhaps they decided meat was tastier than fire.

Nevertheless, the result was one. Those creatures started to eat.

They ate our power, they ate our food, they ate our cities.

They ate our families.

And when we decided to use the strongest weapons available, they ate the radiation. Leaving behind only the skeleton of rock and steel that once was our civilization amidst the craters caused by our own attempt to defend ourselves.

Unlike what some say, the world didn’t end with a whimper.

It ended with a bang, followed by the sound of crunching bones drowned by the scream of those who failed to escape.’

I gave a moment for the words to sink in. I knew this was a bit too graphic, especially for kids this young. But if an Eater appeared again, and they made noise. We could end up like those who tried to escape, being devoured alive by those creatures. There were also a few things they didn’t know about, like radiation, but I could give them a quick explanation and add that to a class for a different day.

“They… ate families?” Jake finally asked after a few minutes of silence.

“They did. My parents, for instance, were eaten by the Eaters. If Pops wasn’t there, and he didn’t find me when he did. I would have been devoured as well,” I replied bluntly. Trying not to let my emotions show. It was one thing to tell them all this, another to let them see their teacher freaking out.

“And… no one was ever able to kill any of them?” PJ asked.

“According to Pops, yes. We were able to kill a few of them. But we needed massive weapons. Missiles. Those are… giant metal arrows that explode when they hit their target. Only the Eaters that were very close to the center of that explosion died. The others only got injured,” Jake was about to say something. Probably along the lines of ‘then we can beat them!’ but I had to make things clear, “For you all to understand the size of this. A missile capable of killing, let’s say, 5 Eaters would be able to destroy a village 5 times the size of ours. Killing all the people and destroying all the buildings. Making something like that also took a lot of time. Two years, even in the old world, with all the structure they had in place. For us? If we can even make one, maybe 50 years. If we are lucky. We even used a special missile. One that could destroy an entire city like the one in that picture we talked about. Even then, we killed maybe 100 Eaters out of the millions that were there.”

“But… My dad said that there was something called a gun. It was like a small crossbow that could kill things from very far away. Dad said that some could even kill a bear in one shot!” Jake almost stood up. It was heartwarming how he wanted to find a solution and how the hope that things could change was still there. But that was also dangerous. Believing in something like that could get him killed.

“Yes, those were all over. And at first, they did work. But it didn’t take long for the Eaters to adapt. Their skin became stronger. They learned how to evolve at a speed that no one believed to be possible. To make matters worse, guns used something called gunpowder to fire. That is dust that can create a small explosion that would launch the bullet, a tiny metal arrow, to the target. That powder ended up being a very big target for the Eaters. They went after the factories and stores that sold that and ate everything. Guns might still work, but only in a few cases, and the biggest problem is the noise. They are extremely loud and have a sound that is more clearly artificial than the bell we have. At some point, the Eaters learned that a gun meant people, so if you want to attract them, guns are the best thing for it.”

There was another pause, Jake processing what I just said.

“Are the Eaters coming after us?” Penelope’s eyes were watering, but she still held herself back from crying. This was how the world was. We couldn’t allow even children to cry in fear of attracting those monsters. Ever since they were born, their parents would teach them not to cry out loud under any circumstance.

“Yes, and no. The Eaters look for energy. Electricity, fire, things like that. Now, remember how we talked about our brains? How we use electricity to move and think?” the kids nodded. They were good kids, “That is something they can also use. That’s why they look for us. Because we can make electricity. But we are low on the energy production scale, even when considering how effective burning fat is. That being said, today we had proof that Pop’s barrier works.”

“Pop’s barrier?” PJ asked.

“Yeah. Have you seen that black circle on the ground around the city? It’s something Pops made. I’m not entirely sure how it works, but it makes us invisible to the Eaters. But they can still hear us.”

“Oh… that’s why the Eater left, because we were quiet?” Vanessa asked.

“Yep. So we should be safe here,” I smiled, doing my best to seem confident.

“What if… What if an Eater is after us? Can we do something to run from it?” PJ asked.

I thought for a moment, “Well. The only person I know who was able to escape an Eater was Pops. Here is what he told me. If an Eater is after you, you can try to show it a different power source. Fire works, but electricity is better. If you can lure it to a place that has it, you might be able to run. But, Eaters are… they hold grudges. So if you are running and fight back against one of them, they will chase you till the end of the world. So don’t do it. If you want to survive, do your best not to attack it. Just run. Aside from that…” I stopped myself. What Pops told me was to bite my own tongue myself before being caught by one of them. Suicide would at least be less painful. But even with all of this, I couldn’t tell them that. Not these kids, “No, that’s it. I can’t think of any other thing.”

I paused, waiting to see if this was too much for any of them. And one more time, they surprised me. I could see the fear in their eyes, but also the strength. Something that showed how they were willing to push through even when facing those monsters.

“Do you have any other questions?” I asked.

They started by asking more about the Eaters, like why they ate us, how they looked, and what else they could do. Unfortunately, I had very few things to tell them. Despite my first-hand experience, we barely knew anything about the Eaters. Then, the conversation shifted to the old world. What incredible things were around during that time and such. By the end of the class, it seemed like they were doing ok. In fact, they looked better than I expected. I wouldn’t be surprised if they had nightmares later, but maybe that wouldn’t last long. Pushing those thoughts aside, I focused on the next part of the day. My ‘birthday party.’