A Planet of Strangers

Thursday mornings always started like any other, I'd get up at 5am and go down to the kitchen to make the sandwiches for Jake and Amelia to take in their lunch to school.

Then after that was done I would put out some food for our dog, Baxter, and then start breakfast for the kids and my husband, Hunter.

Two bowls of coco pops and a plate of eggs and bacon would be sat on the table waiting for them as they all sleepily came down the stairs, one after another.

Now for the most important part of my morning, the part that filled me with mass amounts of both hope and dread that would start a battle in my chest.

I would go out into our garden and over to our vegetable patches.

As I approached them, I would pray that at least one of these plants looked as though it might produce something soon. I don't know who I was kidding anyway, after 30 years of unshakable faith, this world had shown me that there was no God. You see, this planet is now a whisper of the sanctuary it once was. It's hard to believe that at one point in history, Earth was home to over 7 billion people. What's not hard to believe is that those 7 billion people needed to use the Earth's resources, and they didn't do so gently.

Sometimes I try to imagine what the Earth was like with that many people living on it at once.

There are just under 3 billion people alive today, less than half of what there was 90 years ago.

But now we struggle to eat and feed our families, the farm lands are baron, infertile soil growing nothing more than bitter disappointment and desperation. The lakes and reservoirs where we once sourced our water, now poisoned with chemical spills and undrinkable. Sure, there are filtration systems you can buy to keep at home, but with a recommended success rate of only 62%, most people prefer to wait for the water supplied in the ration kits.

The ration kits, surprisingly, are very generous. Every household gets one ration kit delivered every Sunday and they contain everything you'll need for that week.

The basic kit comes with enough bottles of water for each person in the household to have three per day, a selection of four meats, twelve eggs and enough vegetables to freeze for the week.

Everything you were given was measured in exact amounts so that nothing you were given would go to waste. The basic kits were divided into three categories, green, orange and blue.

The categories signified how much money your household was earning, green was for the poor and minimal income, orange was for the average household income who still have money spare after all of their bills had been paid, and blue was for the rich and the wealthy.

My little family fit nicely into the orange category. My husband worked on one of the few farms in the area that was still thriving, and his job was to attend to the livestock. Because the farm was of such a high value to society, everyone who worked there was paid well.

Anyway, the kits all still came with the same basic supplies regardless of category, the difference was the little order sheet that came with them. This order sheet had a number of special items listed on it that you could order in addition to your basics and the more money you had, the more items were on the list.

Special items were thinks like coffee beans or tea bags, or maybe nice smelling shampoo and conditioner. Things you didn't need to survive, just little luxuries. Just because you ticked the box to order a special item, didn't mean you were guaranteed to get it, but you had about a 70% chance which was good enough for us. Now, I don't want to mislead you and make you think that the Earth was a dire, depressing place to live. Yes, everyone struggled, but we all got by and everyone was pretty happy. Hunter would go off to work after breakfast and come back around 3pm, and the kids would go off to school and be back after about 3-4 hours. Our town was very small now and so there was only 26 kids in their entire school, not so great for the social skills, but great for one to one learning with the teachers.

But this Thursday morning was going to be very different from all the others.

It has been one month since the MarsOne astronauts landed on Mars in the hopes of securing a new home for us. Today, we are to be addressed by the president with their initial findings of the planet.

Obviously, no one is expecting us to be told too much just yet, but you can sense the excitement and giddiness of everyone around, as if it were an audible buzz.

Everyone in our town had been given the day off to travel to see the announcement live, or to watch it at home on the TV. Jake had been looking as though he was getting sick for the past couple of days, so we decided to stay home and watch it so we didn't make him worse. All of us sat on the sofa, Amelia and Jake sandwiched between me and Hunter. The broadcast was due to air at exactly 12:00 so it was going to begin any second.

"I'm so excited, my hands wont stop trembling." I smiled at Hunter.

"Oh you're excited about this babe? I wouldn't have guessed from the constant stream of space talk you've been spewing all week." He smirked at me.

"I know, I know, I've been talking about it a lot it's just- Shh! Shh! It's starting!"

The president walked across the screen and stood behind the podium in the centre. There wasn't a sound being made across the entire crowd as everyone waited eagerly for him to start speaking.

"Good afternoon Ladies and Gentleman. I want to thank you all for being here today and I want to especially thank every single person who worked tirelessly to get the MarsOne mission into the sky and onto Mars. Of course, let us not forget about those incredible, brave humans who have risked their lives, to forge the path for a new life for humanity on Mars."

The audience erupted into cheers and shouts as the president looked down at the sheet of paper with his speech written on it, in front of him.

"Now, I know you're all here because you want to hear the findings of the first report from the MarsOne astronauts. I know that you all came here with hope and promise in your hearts, but I'm afraid I have to disappoint you."

The audience went silent again as a man in a black suit shuffled next to the president and whispered something in his ear. The president waved him away and began to speak again.

"The man you see beside me is telling me to make sure that I stick to the words written on this piece of paper. But I'm not going to do that. The people of this country deserve better than that, the people of this country deserve the truth. Admittedly, we don't know much yet, but initial findings are not good."

He paused and looked sorrowfully at the people standing before him in the audience, his people.

"It's been reported back to us that the astronauts of the MarsOne mission found fossilised human remains buried in the surface."

"Mr. President, that's enough." A second man in a black suit could be heard saying as he rushed over to the podium.

"I don't just mean a couple of remains either, we're talking hundreds. They've found hundreds of fossilised skeletons on Mars and they're finding more every day.

Judging by this and other findings, it looks as though our ancestors were born on Mars thousands and thousands of years agp and once they used up every last drop of life on that planet, they had the same idea as us and tried to start a new life on Earth."

It was becoming very hard to hear what he was saying as man after man went onto the stage to try and stop him from talking.

"There is no hope, there is nothing left. Mars is dead and so are we."

"Somebody cut the God damn TV feed!" One of the men on the stage screamed just as you could hear the sounds of the audience erupting into hysteria.

Within a second the screen had turned to static.

"What. The. F**k." Hunter said still staring at the screen.

The next few days were a blur of uncertainty and panic. No new information was given to us about the status of the MarsOne mission, in fact no information was given to us at all. Everyone started to murmur about this being the end of the world, but I know that for at least the people I knew, we were clinging to the hope that the ration packs would still be delivered on Sunday. But then Sunday came and went. No ration packs. That's when the panic really started. In fact, panic isn't the right word. The chaos started.

Within days shops, chemists and banks had been looted. Fires had broken out throughout the town and when a group of youths set fire to McCluskey's farm (the same farm Hunter worked for) everyone knew that there wasn't much hope of coming back from this. Over the days since the TV announcement Jake's sickness had gotten worse and worse. What started off looking like it was just a cold had turned into a fever with vomiting and a weird blotchy rash.

On the Tuesday, five days after being told of our imminent doom, we took our little boy to the hospital.

They kept Jake under observation for a few hours whilst the three of us sat and waited in the lobby outside. We watched as person after person came in with burns from car fires, gashes on their heads from street fights, or because they were simply to weak to survive on such little food.

A couple of hours after lunch, one of the doctors, Pete Bordeaux came by and took the three of us into a quiet room and started to discuss Jake's condition with us.

"How is he, Pete?" Hunter asked, his face weary and tired.

"It's not good, you guys. It looks like it's meningitis."

"Meningitis? Oh my God. But you can treat that right?" I asked feeling my heart sink through my chest.

Pete looked down at his shoes and paused for a few moments.

"Pete?"

"Sam... Normally, yes we would be able to treat this with some antibiotics and rest. But... I'm afraid we just don't have those antibiotics anymore. Our supply is completely out and we can't source any from anywhere."

"So you're just going to let him die?" I asked breathlessly, feeling my legs go weak as Hunter put his arms around me.

"Without those antibiotics, there's really nothing we can do for him Sam." Pete said very softly.

"He's only nine years old, his life can't be over yet." I pleaded with him.

"Honey, don't you realise? In a month or two when we run out of food, all of our lives will be over. Take your boy home, enjoy your time while you still have it."

So that's what we did. We took our beautiful boy home to die.

We set him up in his bedroom with all his favourite toys and put his favourite films on his little TV. A few of our close friend's and neighbours came by and said their goodbyes to our brave little soldier.

It was a couple days after we got back from the hospital that we found out that Jake's cousin Simon had contracted the disease from him which he had then passed on to his neighbour's boy too. Within a couple of hours, word had spread of the illness making its way through the town and the fatalities that would follow suit.

By 5pm that night, there was a knock on our door.

"Miss, is this the home of Jake Brixton?" A man in a suit who I definitely did not recognise, asked me.

"Yes... but, who are you?"

"Miss, it's been brought to our attention that your son has contracted a deadly contagious disease for which we currently have no cure. Because of this, the source of the illness and all those who have been exposed to it must be terminated."

"Terminated? What? I don't understand. Hunter! Hunter, help me!" I screamed as more men in suits came and escorted me away from my home.

As I looked back behind me struggling to get away from them, I saw strange men enter my home and take my family in the same way that they had taken me.

"Don't worry love, it'll all be over soon." A man said as I was shoved into the back of a transit van.

"Sam! Sam! Wake up, Honey."

"W-what?" I asked dazed as I was roused by Hunter shaking me by the arms.

"Where are we?" I asked breathlessly.

"We're at home, honey. You were having a bad dream. In fact a night terror by the sounds you were making." Hunter told me as he sat up in our bed.

"I'm so confused. What day is it?"

"It's Thursday, babe. Today's the big day. The president is going to address us all about the MarsOne mission." He smiled at me as he squeezed my hand.

"Oh my God, it was all a dream, I'm so relieved. And we should really get Jake seen by a doctor." I told him.

"Why? Did he die from the common cold in your dream?" He joked.

"Shut up you idiot." I smiled back at him.

I floated through the rest of the morning with such an overwhelming feeling of relief. When it was time to watch the announcement, I almost didn't even want to watch. It didn't matter what was happening on Mars right now, I had my family and my quaint little life and I didn't want anything more.

I know that you all came here with hope and promise in your hearts, but I'm afraid I have to disappoint you. I was sent out here to lie and tell you we have minimal information. But I'm not going to do that. The people of this country deserve better than that, the people of this country deserve the truth. Admittedly, we don't know much yet, but initial findings are not good. It's been reported back to us that the astronauts of the MarsOne mission found fossilised human remains buried in the surface. I don't just mean a couple of remains either, we're talking hundreds. They've found hundreds of fossilised skeletons on Mars and they're finding more and more every day. Judging by this and other environmental findings, it looks as though humanity was born on Mars thousands and thousands of years ago and once they used up every last drop of life on that planet, they had the same idea as us and tried to start a new life on Earth.

There is no hope, there is nothing left. Mars is dead and so are we."

No. This can't be real. It was just a dream, this can't be real. But as I watched the suited men try to wrestle the president from the stage, I realised it was real.

There is no hope, there is nothing left. Mars is dead and so are we.