"... and she loved her pet more than she sometimes loved her sisters. Her big sister could be careless and sometimes even a little bit mean, and her four younger sisters could be too giggly and sometimes they took, and even broke, her toys - but her human was always sweet-tempered, and he needed her as much as he loved her."
"I wish we had a human."
"Yes, wouldn't that be fun?"
"So why..."
"You know that there are no humans any more."
"There are! Daddy told us. They have their own homes, and their own towns."
"And what did daddy also say?"
"I know. They went to a country across the mountains..."
"And over the ocean..."
"And across the desert. But they could come back?"
"No dear."
"Maybe daddy could go there and get one? "Perhaps."
"Why on earth did you say 'perhaps'?"
"I don't know. She looked so sad - and who told her that story of a country on the other side of the mountains?"
They looked at each other and smiled; a tender smile but one that didn't quite hide the sadness underneath, or the horror.
"Nine already."
"Yes."
"Our parents were right. Children do grow up too fast."
"Yes."
"So maybe I'll tell her I'll go look for a map?"
"To find the Land of the Humans?"
"Yes."
"What will she think of us when she finds out?"
"What we thought when we learned the truth, I guess."
"Yes."
"In two years. It seems so soon, and so unfair."
"Yes."
They both thought of the day after they'd turned eleven. How their teacher had taken them to one of the six huge, white towers on the edge of town. How they'd entered it and seen the skulls. All those skulls. There was no Land of the Humans, not any more, but each village, however small, each town, however far away, had one or more of these towers. The skull towers, and a handful of old children's tales, were all that remained of the species.