This time wasn't like the others, when I would wake up late and they would have gone out to breakfast or for a morning walk.
This time was different.
I twisted the spiraling cord of our old fashioned line buzzer, waiting as both of their recorded cellphone messages chirped through the line.
Downstairs everything looked the same. Dirty dishes the collectors hadn't yet picked up for cleaning, socks on the floor and coats still damp from the rainy day walk we had last night. Even the old monopoly game they were so proud of sitting on the coffee table.
I padded across the tile floors of our kitchen, the freezing stone biting through my thin footy pajamas.
There was a note on the table, a page ripped from one of the fancy spiral notebooks filled with neat curly handwriting.
Tate, I read.
I am so sorry this had to happen, but it is no longer safe for us at home. Daddy and I left last night with Simon and Marie. We are safe now.
Check the news.
Love you always,
Mommy
Each time I pressed next I got the same result. Each Teller channel delivered the same robotic mans voice repeating the same message.
"If you have not yet filled out a Diaspora Form, and you feel threatened by the Extirpation Alteration 45 mutation, please resort to your local police station for transportation to the nearest vessel."
The only other result I could find was an add for Flora's Just 4 U Spa Day, which cut after five seconds and turned to flashing the same yellow words as everyone else.
The worst part wasn't that they left without telling me, or that I now had nowhere to go, it was that my parents leaving didn't even surprise me.
They weren't the first to leave. When they thought I was asleep, mom would turn on the TV, clicking through the Teller's, each one talking about how dangerous things were here with us, and how it would be safer on the new stations.
That week I let at least fifty other kids stay in our now empty home, each one in worse shape than the next.
Our parents saved themselves without knowing they threw us to the wolves.
Now, the only way to survive being the prey, is to hunt.
To hunt our own kind.
ns 15.158.61.8da2
