The Heart that Wasn't a Heart

Thump-thump, thump-thump…

Such a heavy weight around her neck, she could always feel it like a brand against her skin. She kept it hidden away, for if anyone knew what it was she possessed in this tragedy of a world. She’d end up like the rest of them. Once, years ago, beyond thought and most memory it had been different. What she had that now felt like some sort of albatross around her neck was mere commonplace. Before humanity forgot that it was humane. Before they fell into such despair. She knew there were others like her. But they were few and far between. Difficult to find. And even if you did stumble across one, they were even more difficult to communicate with. Such was their burden. Shared but infinitely alone. She, that is to say, the heroine as only some would come to call her was so very Other, nothing could have prepared this new world for her. Elenor was a bright flame that had been hidden for far too long in the shadows. Her time had come and with it a time for all to either be reborn or pass into the afterlife. She hoped they chose wisely and that whatever choice brought them the peace lacking in life.

Present Day

Elenor sat high on the dunes, overlooking the sand and surf. Not many things calmed and centered her as the ocean did. In this mechanical world, cleaning up the oceans was one of the few things the new order of power, Blood Oath, had done. That she agreed with anyway. Though of course, they didn’t do it to save the animals or the water or improve the environment as so many dreamed of all those years ago. No after 150 or so years of polarizing climate change that had almost destroyed the entire planet. Did destroy over 70% of its population. It, in this year 2,173, was simply business, she heaved a deep breath.

Another of her kind had died this morning. Elenor could feel it when another fissure formed early in the morning and the pain almost took her to her knees. Business, she thought to herself, was for the weak. For those that had forgotten what art, poetry, and fucking love were. For those who had forgotten the joys and the pains of a life well-lived. Only to be replaced with infinite gray. Yet somehow they still remembered greed. All the 7 deadly sins were accounted for in that gray area. In the worst possible ways. Shortly after the population was wiped out by climate change and Blood Oath took over. They killed another 10% of the sparse population left to bring people to heel and also hunt out her kind. She clutched at her chest. Sometimes she felt as if she could hear the screams of all those who had come before her. Maybe she could. What little research she’d been able to do and what she’d found out from the Others, what her people called themselves, though they were considered outlaws by Blood Oath. It seemed she had a vast and deep connection to the earth and people. That she could feel emotions. Even when they pretended they had none. Even when they were forced to have none. In the before times she would have been an empath.

Now she was a danger to the new order and their plans to enslave and remove free will and all hint of humanity from those left. Blood Oath started small enough back then, but they had always been a certain faction of society. One with loud and unfortunately charismatic voices. Easy enough to get people to listen to you when you appealed to their sense of superiority, Elenor supposed. Of survival of the fittest. Not that it mattered. While Blood Oath preached a good talk, they had killed all but the wealthiest and the weakest of the ones left. Even their devout followers weren’t left untouched. Unless they had the money or goods to fund the new world order. Or were weak-minded enough to be taken over mentally and made to do and say whatever the powers that be wanted. See once the climate took out the first 70%, those that remained and were too strong-willed or that had what Elenor had. Were hunted down and either executed or enslaved by Oathkeepers. Kept drugged enough to remain compliant. But not so much they couldn’t do what was wanted. Some people thought they were fighting for free will when they joined the Blood Oath movement. Others just liked that it meant their will and beliefs over all others. The latter was the majority.

They thought to coerce and force people to think, act, and speak like them. The most intolerant of people. Women could no longer be educated. Couldn’t choose when or if to have children. Were sold at auctions to wealthy males into harems to be done with what they chose. Some men were less violent than others. You were lucky then. Elenor touched the scar on her face that led down to her neck. Once she had been a great beauty. Fertile, lush in the figure. Flowing dark hair, eyes so green it was like staring into a forest. Tall and shapely, she had grown up outside the Blood Oaths grasp on a farming commune. She was taught as a warrior and as a woman. To be everything she needed to be. One day it was raided and she was taken, forced into the auction. She fetched a high price. Was sold to a man who had not even a hint of humanity left. When he discovered what he had bought. He became so violent she had prayed for death to take her. He was high up in the Blood Oath and believed she was little more than filth once he’d removed her clothes and saw what was around her neck. A plain enough-looking locket, rounder in shape, larger than most, more ornate the longer you stared at it. It was what was inside that was so vile to him. Her heart was housed in that locket.

You see with the climate changing over the 150 years, so did people's bodies, and their natural hearts simply couldn’t handle the strain of the new, evolving world. In its place, a mechanical heart was created and inserted into people starting at birth. But there were some, like Elenor who had their natural hearts in these lockets. Doctors who had worked with the Others to save as many as they could. It could only be removed in death or by extreme brute force. And one wished for death if force was used, as it drove a person mad. There was a thin tube at the back of it incased in the same metal of the locket that went into the skin and wall of the chest, that acted as a sort of conduit between it and all the other veins and organs in the body. It made her alive in a way they could never hope to be. Unless she could save the Others that were left and those that danced on a tight rope waiting.

So they were correct. She was a danger, she thought with some brittle amusement. She wasn’t merely waiting idly by the dunes soaking up the sun. She was waiting, watching for the moment to strike and put her plan into action. She was going to set fire to their ships which they used as a means to keep everyone prisoner with their weapons and as very real unbearable prisons for those who disobeyed. Elenor saw the person she’d been waiting for approach her location and gathered herself, cloaking her mind. Emptying it except for the screaming part of her soul. They’d be able to hear it as they wore telepathic devices as part of the uniform. A way to screen for those with shreds of humanity left. With that she started running down the dunes straight at the officer, screaming like a banshee in mind and voice, wielding a knife she’d stolen off another one last night. She hit him hard with a full-body blow that sent them both tumbling into the sand. Elenor needed to enrage him enough he’d take her to the largest ship where she could do the most damage. So she scrambled up from the sand playing the part of mad women and swiped the blade across the back of his knee, then his thigh. Higher still, until she reached his face as he was roaring in anger coming up from the sand. He swung out a meaty fist and she made herself not dodge it. Felt it hit her face. Then darkness….

She woke exactly where she needed to be. On the floor of a grandly outfitted room with several guards by the door and a single male behind an antique desk in front of her. “You didn’t think you’d escape me forever did you Elenor?”, the man behind the desk asked. Elenor slowly sat up, working through the pain in her body and pushing it aside before answering. “No Silas, I was quite sure we’d find ourselves together again. I see age hasn’t treated you kindly. And that my mark hasn’t faded from you.” Referring to the nearly identical mark she’d carved on his face before she’d stabbed him and escaped him after the auction where he’d made the mistake of purchasing her. She saw his eyes flare in rage before he smirked at her and said, “Nor mine on you. I wouldn’t think you’d be so calm considering where you are though. If you still have that heart locket of yours, you’ll be insane soon enough once I take it.” Elenor laughed as she stood up to her full height, “Silas for someone without a heart, I find you ever so amusing darling boy. Your mother would be proud. But I’m bored now. Surrender this ship, its occupants and contents over to me or I’ll make you long for the day I merely cut your face and stabbed you.”

Elenor could practically see the rage coming off him in waves now. She’d not only insulted him by implying he had a heart, but he hated to be reminded of his mother. His mother who herself was an Other and kept her heart locket until she died from it breaking at what her son had become. An idol in the community of resilience and justice. “While that’s all quite laughable so I can see why you’d be laughing at such a funny thought Elenor, it’ll never happen. Guards, please see to it that our newest guest is placed in solitary until I decide when and how to deal with her. Feel free to be as rough as needed if she causes any trouble. Even if she doesn’t really.” Silas sat back down after that little speech and thought to ignore her. At that point, Elenor calmly took off her jacket to reveal the weapons beneath. Silas looked up as she did to make another comment about her stripping only to roar in anger as he screamed at the guards, “you didn’t pat her down and take away her weapons?! Imbeciles!” But he was already staring death in the face and he knew it. Elenor shot the guards first and moved to Silas next. “You thought to own me, to abuse me. Just like you and the Blood Oath do with the rest of the world, but instead I, and the Others like me will wash this world clean of your filth.” Click. Boom.

Thump-thump, thump-thump…The ending is the beginning of the start to an end.