Red lights pulsated in the barren streets. A klaxon alarm sounded. And, in the sky, the sun shone brighter than any normal sunshine would. The solar flare was beginning.

The planet would be scorched with heat, causing mass destruction and death. All plant life would be killed immediately when hit by the flare, and famine would entail due to the devastated crops. But the worst: the radiation. The particular solar flare had 4x10^24 times more radiation than the average solar flare, certainly enough to cause mass mutation for the unfortunate remaining survivors. We were doomed: like lambs heading to the slaughter.

Scientists had predicted it for decades to come, yet only a few weeks ago the public had been notified: for "the public's overall safety", the government's reason for the delay.

We were doomed: or were? Because, thanks to a particular Mr Goodman, cryogenics was now safe and practical to use, able to pause a human's body for an extensive amount of time, all while preventing aging and mutations. It was genius: and now a complex of bunkers was ready to house a section of humanity, including some plants and animals, to outlive the flare.

Not everyone had been selected to go to the bunkers however… only 45% of the population could go inside the bunker. A lottery had gone round in the mail, telling each person if they were chosen for the bunker: a life or death letter, if you thought of it like that. Luckily, I had been chosen… but my parents, not.

The day when the solar flare would come, I remember my parents outside the bunker entrance, trying to convince the entrance guard the fraud letters they had gave him were real. They so desperately wanted to be with me, and I so. The non-selected had crowded round the bunker door, protesting for their accommodation within the cryo-pods. Soon, they had become violent, trying to punch the many guards surrounding the facility, and doing all they can for their non-existent redemption. I never saw my parents again after the bunker door shut. I still don't know what happened to them.

As I headed down into the facility, the air around me became more chilly with each step. I was heading deep into the ground. After a mile of walking, we entered into what seemed to be a cold storage room. Icicles hanging like bats from the ceiling, a thick cover of frost on nearly everything, and dozens of pods lining the walls were the prominent features of the room. I felt a soldier grab me forcibly into one of the pods, and closing the pod door behind me. I began to feel cold, awfully cold, and just as my temperature dropped to zero, my senses dropped into the darkness of unconsciousness.

As far as I was concerned at the time, the flare was scorching earth to a crisp currently. Yet, what I did not know, that the solar flare had barely missed the planet, only giving a dose of minimal radiation. But that radiation caused a massive change in history… somehow, a mutation from the flare had boosted animal intelligence greatly, and they had managed to become bipedal and civilized. The boosted animals created animal cities based upon the wreckages of human cities, and created their own movies and books inspired by the movies humans had originally created. As for the humans not in the bunkers, they had disappeared from the face of the earth, to somewhere I would find out later. All while I had slept in my bunker, every trace of humanity had gone from the face of the earth.

I am Henry Smith Adams, and this is the story of me and Zootropolis.