6 Orientation 2 (1/2)
Teras.
Hearing this name that had been referred to in front of him multiple times already, Aaron's eyes lit up as he was looking forward to finding out more about all the mysteries of the world.
All of this still seemed…ethereal. As if he was in a waking dream that he wished wouldn't end.
Many times, especially in situations where it had looked like that was it for the two of them, Aaron used to wonder whether this was all there was to life. Hunting, running, sleeping. Years of his life had gone by doing just those three things, and it would have been surprising if it hadn't gotten monotonous.
Still, he had always been grateful for Woof, who stood by him no matter what danger threatened to end their lives. On multiple occasions, Woof could have run away to save its own life, but it had stayed back to help protect him. These fights were mostly the reasons behind the many scars on its body, which were hidden underneath its snowy-white fur.
It wasn't just him: the eyes of the rest of the children also started to shine when the woman mentioned that name.
Seeing this, Jenny chuckled and continued.
”Yes, Teras. I know all of you have been hearing that word since you were born, but I bet most of you don't know about how it came to be. Well, it's time for you to find out.”
Saying so, Jenny first led the group to the second rectangular plaque on the wall, on which there was a picture of a globe that was very different from the one they had seen before.
There were two images of it: one showing each side, and it looked as if the entire landmass had shifted into just three regions, unlike before when there had been many.
”Before that, let's see what the Earth changed into after the core quieted down. The tectonic movements and the heat of the core which reached the surface caused much of the oceans to evaporate, resulting in a planet with much more land than before. In essence, the figures shifted: where before there had been 70% water and 30% landmass, after the apocalypse, the ratios shifted to more than 70% landmass and 30% water. Some say that the size of the Earth, itself, changed.”
The way the woman phrased each sentence allowed the children and Aaron to imagine and understand just how much of a drastic change this was.
Many gasped with shock, while others 'aaaw'd and 'ooo'd.
”What you see before you is the final form of the Earth. Yes, each landmass is in the shape of an orange peel. In technical terms, the shape is called an 'ellipse' with the top and bottom end being pointy. Three such ellipses lie side by side across the Earth, with oceans between them. These 3 oceans meet at their top and bottom at the two massive, round arctic areas which retained their names from the pre-apocalyptic times: the North Pole and the South Pole.”
Hearing so many details, confused expressions appeared on the children's faces.
Some even started to enter a daze as they tried to understand everything the woman had said.
Laughing out loud on noticing this, Jenny said, ”Leave all of that. I get a bit carried away because it's so fascinating. You just need to know that there are three major continents which are separated by oceans. Got it?”
”Yes, ma'am!”
The children all chimed the answer, feeling happy that they didn't need to study what these 'ellipses' were.
Aaron, on the other hand, just nodded and followed along.
He had understood what an ellipse was the moment the woman uttered the word. A few facts about the north and south pole even started to surface in his mind, such as the fact that the conditions there, which had been hostile even before the apocalypse, were even more extreme now. No human could step foot there normally and not freeze to death, no matter how many layers of clothes they wore for protection.
Initially, Aaron had only been excited about finding out more about the world, but now, as he saw that what he was learning was triggering more memories to leak from the 'wall', he truly felt that that fluke accident that had led them in this direction had truly been a stroke of fortune for him.