Population Control

Sam I

Tacenda – Things better left unsaid; matters to be passed over in silence.

0o0

Dressed and ready by five, I pulled out the blue peg basket under my bed. Filled to the brim with editions from one specific comic I wasn't actually allowed to have but bought and hid anyway. 'Broken Planet' it was called. The cover a night sky with stars bright, a girl on the front with a human face, human body, and dark human hair. It's about a human girl who learns she's the only one who can save the human race via her best friend Philo. It started when humans colonised Mars and Jupiter, aliens came and put implants in kidnapped humans. The last instalment comes out in two weeks, and I cannot wait to get my hands on it.

I had just reached the part when Philo smuggled the main character, Annie, onto an escape pod so she could fly to Pluto undetected by their radars.

"Sami!" my mother's sharp tone and a single knock at the door was all I had gotten.I didn't think it was seven, I took one look then another at the alarm clock. Oh great: my mother was bound to burst through that door in any second. Faster than I had ever bothered to move before, I managed to successfully throw the comic in the tub and shove it under the bed. "What are you doing?" Mum snapped, looking at me with a semi-glare, "School! School, come on!" she gestured for him to get off the bed. Looking around, she sighed the only way a mother could show disappointment, no matter how big or small the offence was, "When you get back from school, tidy this room, please?" It wasn't even messy, is what I wanted to point out. Instead, I said I would. On her way out, she pulled the door without shutting it.

Nothing about my room needed tidying with the beige walls, grey carpet for the floor, oak wood furniture and striped bedding with different versions of cream. Mum always told me to be grateful: her parents came over from Japan during World War II, and dad only spoke Icelandic, having to learn English while everyone else was miles ahead of him.

Adjusting my uniform, I stuffed my shirt in my trousers and untwisted my tie. Downstairs, my mother told me 'Oh I hope you don't think you're going out looking like that!' and brought out her comb. Quite harshly, she dragged it through the back of my head. If she could pull my hair out, she would. "Where's father?" I asked.

"In the garage, tinkering away again." Was her short reply.

It was half seven, so I really did have to go, otherwise I would be late. "Excuse me!" My mother said, raising an eyebrow. Remembering what I had forgotten, I kissed her on the cheek and grabbed the lunch she prepared for me. "Say goodbye to your father, Sami-chan!" She called after me. Resisting the urge to roll my eyes, I went into the garage prepared to be drawn into one of my father's lectures on being a mechanic or an engineer and how beneficial that would be.

Great, I was late. Well, I wasn't late yet, but I was going to be. And I hadn't had breakfast yet, amazing. Taking out the lunch, I ate the sandwiches on my way there, not entirely focusing on the people walking past or the cars passing when I crossed the road.

It wasn't much of a walk to school: about half an hour. My mom was a primary school teacher and my dad worked as a mechanic, but because of the lockdown, he was still stuck at home until Benson announced that people could go to work again.

Outside, the wind blew my hair askew making my mother brushing my hair completely pointless. I should have put the comic in my bag. Although I've already read it, I needed to be ready for the final instalment.

Whimpers brought my head up from staring at the floor. There was a dog, a black Labrador, lying on its side. Whimpers grew from the dog, but they didn't seem out of sadness, but distress. That was when I saw 'it'. By 'it', I mean a man with the palest skin leaning over the dog, blood spurting from its centre, devouring the meal. If I got closer, I would see its organs.