Here’s my contribution to this week’s Flash Fiction for Aspiring Writers, kindly hosted by Priceless Joy.

Gregor stood unblinking against the endless expanse of red, scanning the horizon for signs of life. Crossing the great desert was suicide, they’d known that when they had set off, but they were dead anyway and better it be on their own terms. Amali absently rubbed her tiny belly as she stood beside him.

Humanity’s solution to an overpopulated, drowning, earth was to dump those displaced by rising oceans on Mars. They helped the chances of survival by establishing hundreds of tiny colonies, scattered over an unforgiving landscape. However the architects of this new world had never planned on their experiment lasting this long, and four generations later most of the colonies had been wiped out by hunger, disease, and our innate inability at getting along.

Survival was dependent on scarce resources, and maintaining a strict quota on births was the only way ensure the survival of the colony.

Those who didn’t agree had no choice but to find themselves a new home, or die trying.