Mother

“You need to be quiet.” Ben was rubbing his hands from the cold while I played with my necklace. It was the last thing my mother gave me before she left. No one knew where she went, whether she was dead or a morph or something more sinister, if there was such a thing. The necklace was a simple chain with a golden heart-shaped locket. Inside, there were pictures of my mother and father before the world went upside down. Before the morphs. Before the government abandoned their people.

We were on the roof of our assigned house in our regulated town, just outside of Sydney. We had never seen an unregulated area before, at least not close up. Only those in the government could set foot into unregulated areas. Those who weren’t part of the regime and were dumb enough to explore almost always went missing.

“I’m not bloody talking.” I whispered back to my brother. We were waiting for the sun to dip past the horizon. “You just did.” Ben turned to me and grinned, happy to have won the conversation. I huffed a laugh before turning back to the descending sun. We’d never done this before, but our father had told us all about the morphs. So long as you stayed out of their eyesight, they wouldn’t attack.

We sat there for a few more minutes, the chill biting at our bones, until day became night. That’s when we heard the sounds, more intense in the fresh air than when we heard them from inside. They rang louder, more piercing, like someone was destroying their vocal cords with how much pain they were in. “Holy shit.” Ben spoke softly so only I could hear. He pointed and my eyes caught sight of what had scared him.

There. Right there, walking with a limp, was a morph. The first I’d ever seen. It was terrifying. Its hair was thin, almost non-existent, and it had barely any flesh on its bones. It looked like a walking skeleton, like something from hell. I leaned forward on tiles, trying to get a better look.

I heard it before I realised what had happened. I heard a jangle of metal and then a small thud as whatever had fallen landed on the ground. It caught both my and the morphs attention at the same time: my necklace. It had broken and fallen off. I swore under my breath. I saw the morph move, far too fast for a normal human, toward the glinting gold. I watched, tears stinging my eyes, as it attempted to pick it up. Its weak, broken hands struggled at first, but then it hooked a finger and I saw my necklace, the only memory of my mother I had left, dangling from its rotting flesh.

Something took over me at that time, some kind of bold idiocy, and I started moving. I heard Ben say something but I couldn’t digest the words. I was already descending the roof along the gutter and down the drainage pipe. I felt my feet hit the ground, my body finally registering what I was doing as my hands began to shake. I ignored them, walking around the building toward the morph I knew was standing with my necklace in its hands.

At first, it didn’t see me as I walked forward. It was too enchanted with the glinting metal in hand. But then my footfalls came closer, and its ears pricked. The creatures head swung my way, and it staggered backward, like it was scared. Time seemed to slow for a moment as the morph registered what I was, what I was doing. Then it charged.

I knew some self-defence from my father, and when the creature began sprinting toward me, dropping my necklace in the dash, I began to calculate how best to take the thing down. It came toward me, hands held out and mouth open wide. A moment before it reached me, I kicked up a pile of dust from the ground, sending it straight into its eyes. The morph stuttered, screaming as it tried to clear the dirt from its face. I attacked then, swiping the monster’s legs out from under itself and tackling it to the ground. It was still screaming the ear-splitting sound, but I kept as calm as possible.

I punched its face over and over, breaking its nose, until the crunch of bone was all that I could hear. It had stopped screaming, and it was gone. I stood on shaky legs and made my way for the necklace. Just as I was about to pick it up, I heard more screams not far off. I felt my heart beat race, knowing that I was almost certainly about to die. I snatched the necklace off of the ground, racing around the house to the pipe I had descended from. Just as I was climbing up, I felt a mangy hand grab my foot.

I was pulled back to the ground, fingers grabbing at me as mouths circled above. I knew I was destined to die, just as everyone else in this world was, but I didn’t think it would be like this. I closed my eyes and waited for the pain to start, for my end to approach, but then I heard an especially deafening scream. I lay there on the ground for a moment, just listening as feet moved, scurrying away. When I found the courage to open my eyes, I was alone again. I glanced around, worried I was dreaming, but I saw Ben’s wide, frightened eyes staring back at me from the roof. He was gesturing for me to climb back up, to get to safety.

But I couldn’t move. I was glued to the ground. I still, somehow, held my mother’s necklace in my hand. I knew then, that if I was about to die, then at least she’d be with me. Looking at my brother, I watched as his eyes caught something not far from me. His face went from fearful to shock in a second, his eyes wide with questions. I looked, craning my neck, to what he was staring at. And standing there, as if not a day had passed, was my mother.

She still had that wild bushel of golden hair, and bright green eyes. She wasn’t a morph, clearly by the tan of her skin and the thick, hourglass figure she always pertained. She was human.

She walked toward me, smiling sweetly. I thought, I must be dreaming, but then she knelt in the dirt and picked up her necklace from my hand. She flipped open the locket, looking at the pictures of her and my father. Her smile vanished, but she gently placed the metal back into my palm. My head swivelled as it searched for morphs coming to get us, but I found them standing in a group, staring. There were dozens of them. They didn’t move. Their mouths were open, their hands were twitching at their sides as they ached for our flesh, but they didn’t move.

“Darling.” My mother spoke, her voice cracking from misuse. She extended her hand for me, and being the fool I was, I took it. She helped me up, slinging my arm over her shoulder so she took some of my weight away as we walked. I looked behind me at Ben who was yelling something to us. “Mum, what about Ben?” She shook her head, disagreeing with the thoughts circling my head. “He’s too much like your father.”

As we walked away, I kept glancing back to Ben, who couldn’t leave the roof in fear of the morphs. He was screaming for us to turn back, to take him too, but we kept walking.

I learned that night how to control the morphs, and that my mother was still alive.

I never saw Ben again.