Zootopia Adventures

The Stranger II: Trip to the Camp

As expected, not a single living soul was at the school. Heck, even the school's massive wrought iron gates were still locked. I kicked the roadside curb disappointingly as I readjusted my rather cumbersome backpack, both hands holding firmly onto the bag's straps like an experienced hiker. It felt right to have them clinging to the shoulder straps as I have seen many of the professionals do it in the documentaries when they were out finding interesting species of animals in the depths of mother nature. I had been watching those shows so much that it has admittedly become my second nature to utilize the same gestures and similar decisions like the guys on television. Not wanting to carry the abundant package on my back as I waited for the hour, I proceeded towards one of the public benches for a sit-down. I briefly propped the bulky backpack right beside myself as I stretched my arms out; Boy did it feel heavenly to have that burdensome weight lifted from my shoulders. Sighing in relief, I pulled out my smartphone. There weren't any available accessible community wifi which I could connect to, thus limiting the source of entertainment in my phone to the small selection of installed mobile games which I had downloaded beforehand and default applications that came along with the phone's contract.

I stared at the phone screen blankly; no idea of what to do in order to kill time. In all honesty, I was not really interested in the games which I used to have played a lot during the school's break times. I frowned. Sometimes I do hate how humans always yearn for better - It was the main driving force that we had managed to advance till the modern era but getting bored easily was the vice that we all succumb to eventually. Comparing it with the plenty of wilderness documentaries that I had watched, I wondered what if animals were granted intelligence and were as civilized as mankind. Perhaps the same outcome, I concluded; although there might be a few differences as they possess a thing which us humans do not - and that was the natural instincts which they are all born with. Hold on, wasn't there a movie which I had watched recently that was similar?

"Zootopia," I blurted out absent-mindedly, before realizing that I had voiced my thoughts out loud. Slightly embarrassed, I hastily scanned around the surroundings; relaxing as no one was nearby enough to hear my sudden exclamation.

But truth be told, that new feature film by Disney did portray the world where animals - only mammals, though, were evolved like us; and they did an exceptionally good job on interpreting the outcome and its effects between Prey and Predator mammals. It was entirely composed of animals capable of assuming a bipedal stance and were anthropomorphic, which in layman terms, meant that they walk on two feet, wear clothes and perform daily actions like what we do as well. I had caught the movie's screening with a few of my classmates when it first came out in the theaters. The girls were into it because of two sole reasons - one being that it was made by Disney and the other was that it contained such adorable looking characters. They literally were holding back squeals of awe every moment or so. As for me? Well, let's say that I was intrigued by the story and its plot ... also because it contained animalistic behavior which I found to be an interesting study. Being a movie for kids, it also underlines the problems we face in the real world indirectly; It was quite a masterpiece to be able to cater to both the young and old audiences. I continued scrolling through the phone's menu.

"Damn Richard! You are up super early, did you fall off the wrong side of bed today?"

I looked up.

"Darren! Thank god you are here, was starting to drift off," I chuckled. We were close buddies, always seated together as a pair at the back of the classroom. That however, did not place us anywhere close to the people who were not into studying, ironically we were always doing well in the top ten academically every semester. I guess that makes us two students that our teachers did not have to fret about. I checked the time; it was about six thirty. I raised an eyebrow at him. "Speak for yourself - why are you that early as well?" I questioned in suspicion.