Gif done by me using Canva
It was a disgusting job. He knew it and his mother did a great job of always reminding him. "Desecrating an animal's final resting place is just wrong." She always said. What could he do though? He and his family can't eat steam. In this forsaken planet where the ground is too hot to plant due to the volcanoes eruption 25 years ago. Landforms were changed, plenty livestock and animals grew extinct and humans looked to be next. That is until Bone Corp. came around.
Bone Corp was a company that found a way to genetically reproduce an animal's body from a piece of it's bone. Whoever brought a bone they gave the person and his family every month, a copy of the animal, whose bone dey uncovered. At first people were skeptic of eating an animal who was genetically regrown from a piece of bone. That was until a family brought a chicken bone. It was dry and hollow, seemed like something even before the eruption. Surprisingly the next day they gave said family a live chicken, that's when the rush came.
People went digging and bones came up in thousands; buffalos, goats, rams, chickens, you name it. Some peculiar people decided to try looking for bones outside the range of livestock; monkeys, dogs, lions and a few human bones (although the human bones were respectfully declined). Humans were eating again and all seemed well, that is until Bone Corp decided to leave one last message. Their machine is running out of fuel and it uses a particular bone to get powered. Sadly this bone is from the rarest animal alive or at least that was alive.
The dorsal fin bone of the vaquita. A porpoise that was critically endangered. Since the search of the bone began the Bone Corps stopped accepting bones of other animal's, thus the lack of food was increasing again. The Bone Corps guaranteed that whoever found a vaquita fin bone is guaranteed food for life. This announcement was made 5 years ago. After 5 years of searching, it seemed like a wishful claim, thus the vaquita fin bone was dubbed the Wishing bone.
My mom was against us digging up the bones of an extinct animal. Being a marine biologist and a nature conservationist I understand her plea, but what am I to do? The way I see it if I find this one bone it's over. I'll just sit at the shelter and chicken, geese or whatever food they duplicate is brought to me and my family.
"A small marine-like excavation site has been found at sector 13B." From the criers voice and the location it might be a lake which is a bust. Thanks to my mom being a marine biologist I know the vaquita was an ocean mammal. Best to stay on my current route. I continued digging, seeing sharks and octopus bones, I was encouraged. From my calculations this should be the middle of the Pacific. The water moved a bit after the volcanic eruption. Now it's spread in a bit of a lake up North. Here still gets flooded in Summer -at least when it's meant to be Summer. "Never thought I'll be digging for bones at the end of the world."
I dug a few more metres and I saw it. Too small to be a dolphin and the shape of the snout was too long. It had to be a porpoise, now it's the moment of truth, I measured it. Yes!!!, It's about 5 feet long from head to tail. I nearly cried, I've found it. 5 years of digging and me and my family are free from poverty. I noticed some people coming back from other sites and I quickly bagged the fish bone. A bit chipped from maybe a previous digger who didn't have the strength nor sustenance to continue digging.
As I got back home, my mom saw the joy in my eyes and new what I had done. She shaked her head sadly but I've already gotten my wish. The next day I went to submit my bone. After scrutinizing it for a bit,he took it smiling and left.