There was a word for the Tads: Cephalopod. Cephalopodian.

The Law referred to them using the actual word, Cephalopodians, as if giving them an exotic word would somehow make them more humane, more beautiful. As if somehow, the word would make the Tads less like half-aliens that hatched like tadpoles from a tentacle monster raping a human sacrifice, make them more like humans, and make us looked past the fact that they tentacles for sexual reproductive organs and gills flaring under their ribs and jaws. What it did, though, was marking them superior in the society hierarchy, in the eye of the government and the politicians, reminding us to be obedient because the Cephalopodians knew every inch of us even if we didn’t know anything about them.

The Tads looked like humans, but they weren’t humans.

A lot of people struggled to accept that.

The Tads may have carried the physical appearances but they weren’t some facets of the dead human’s sacrifices. The Tads weren’t parts of the dead person’s soul, or representing the sins the human committed. The Tads weren’t anything human.

Most people tried to explain the Tads’ existence beyond the interspecies product, the same way they tried to reason It existence. Always cycling back to the human as though we would be the most powerful part of the equation.

We weren’t.

It didn’t care. It just needed warm bodies—warm incubators—to mass produce hatches and clutches of itself.

The wallaby bodies that littered Macka Lake bank prior to human found plugged up and filled with alien eggs was proof of that. The deformed wallaby-with-tentacles that chased after and healthy wallaby was more than enough to drive home the message.

Maybe humans were the most compatible. Maybe not. Maybe, it didn’t matter.

Maybe, this disaster could have been stopped if we were so egoistic and assumed It was after us, if we just packed up and moved away from the Lake instead of waging a war against this creature, instead of sending down marines and men to eliminate It only to realize too late that we were providing It ammunition.

Though it didn’t matter, now.

We were stuck here.

⸻

The Picking Date was announced the next day. The time plastered on the front page of every newspaper—the numbers stared wide-eyed at me, screaming in all-caps, rigid and bold.

Three more days. Seventy-two hours, before the next sacrificial deadline.

On Sunday.

We would be home for dinner.

Mum pinned the newspaper clip on our fridge and helped us select our best outfits, because in our death, we must still look presentable. She knew fully well it didn't matter, but the sentiment helped her prepared for the uncertainty, so we let her fretted. Both Dad and I had come to terms with wearing whatever she laid out for us on the Picking Date’s morning, grimacing our way through.

Ame was different. She meticulously shined her dress shoes the whole afternoon. She chose a simple, long blue cotton dress that accented her lanky, skinny adolescent frame, and borrowed a ribbon from her friend to tie her hair.

“It’s an honour to be Picked,” Ame said for an explanation. She swirled in circles in front of the mirror.

I paused, but didn't lift my head up from the atlas spreaded out on our shared study desk. "Are you planning to volunteer?" I said slowly.

Ame straightened an invisible crease at the front of the dress. "I don't know."

I closed my eyes and took a deep breath, stilling the tremble of my hand. I thought about the two crumpled letters in my jeans' back pockets.

"Okay. Good," I said.

⸻

Friday, Dad stopped by the supermarket and bought T-bones.

The whole neighbourhood was buzzing, all houses were throwing some sort of parties or backyard BBQ. Lorgan had to park two blocks away from our house.

I laid back on the green grass that was growing a tad too tall. Lorgan brooded under the eave of our porch, his normally dark eyes turned a translucent, vibrant, soft brown under the summer evening sun. We chatted about nothing over the beers I had whisked from Lorgan’s trunk until nightfall, the smoky sky smelled like roasted meat and spicy vegetable. The dew-soaked, night wind bought a comfortable gentle chill on our skin.

It was easy to fool myself into believing this was the norm—this was the every day I could have.

⸻

I walked Lorgan back to his car, leaving Ame and Mum to clean the griller. The Tads' distant, shrill screeches from the Lake was almost undetectable from the wild off-notes karaoke singing and laughter rang out here and there from our neighbours' homes.

Lorgan lighted a cigarette, rolling his shoulders and let out a long exhale, sighing like he was physically fatigue.

The street light blinked on, illuminated the car-packed street.

"Ame thinks it's an honour to be Picked," I blurted out.

"Whatever that means," Lorgan said.

"It's fucked up."

The orange tip of Lorgan's cigarette glowed. "In a few years, it won't be."

⸻

The first letter was from the City, reminded me that I was selected to clean the Chamber, encased with an Instruction Sheet.

The other from the Mayor Eidel.

Ava, it read, Thank you for volunteering. We would love to have you over for supper for tomorrow evening. I have tarts. It’d be wonderful. I look forward to your response. Signed, Thereas Eidel.

I reread the second letter over and over again until the words imprinted in my retinas.

⸻