Golden Locket of Peace

A heart shaped golden locket was found on the body discovered at the wreckage of the first saucer shot down when they tried to come in peace. The owner of the locket was a young woman and she was inside the saucer when it hit the cliff and exploded. All of her was disfigured and charred, except for this locket. I sense its importance to those who knew her and the nagging question of why she was on that saucer. Somewhere in the time between her getting on the ship and then being shot down, negotiations must have crumbled badly. What happened? Did they even know she was on the saucer? Could she have prevented what happened after?

I decided I was going to find out, but how? The Visitors destroyed everything that was before. Pockets of people exist but everyone is scared shitless and hides or fights or kills anyone that comes near. Then there are the visitors, what they didn’t destroy they keep pristine and heavily guarded by who knows what kind of tech, so they can holiday. It’s like they saw what we had and what we were doing and they put a stop to it at our own demise. All industry across was destroyed and buried but the cities, they played with those like dominos. I was lucky to be far from any of those when it all came down. I was out foraging with my friend in a small urban forest. Good thing for us we like fresh and wild mushrooms. We watched it all happen from a small hilly clearing we were on. The ground shook when the saucer hit the cliff, we ran into the forest and each of us grabbed and hung onto a large tree. Five seconds later just as the ground stopped shaking the sky grew dark as countless saucers almost touching each other descended from thin air. They had it all figured out like the saw the city-zoning map. We watched in awe as it all came crumbling down.

We were safe in the forest, so that’s where we stayed. That’s until I couldn’t stop thinking about that heart shaped locket and women who wore it. What seemed like an hour of destruction was actually just about a minute and then they were gone. All highways, cities, neighborhoods, every piece of human development was turned to rubble and dirty ash in less than a minute. We were smart to stay in the small urban forest that they left alone.

I heard the Visitors back when a band of people found their little Resort and got vaporized when they came within 100 feet from its border. The Visitors must have control of all the areas on Earth that were still left untouched by man. The rest is wasteland. It’s only been a week since The Reckoning, I’m calling it and I’m going to get that locket. I just have to convince my friend to come with me and watch my back.

“Curtis, I’m going to the crash site to get that locket,” I said as he woke up.

“What? No! We have to stay in the trees. That’s what you said. You don’t even know if it’s there! That was just talk you overheard foraging,” Curtis shouted.

“Shut up! Someone one or something might hear you,” I whisper shouted.

“Oh crap, you’re right. We better move from here and find a better spot,” Curtis whispered.

“The crash site. No one goes there. I know because I’ve been keeping an eye on it. Let’s just wait until dusk when the suns shines under the smoke in the atmosphere,” I said.

“Fine. That will give me time to sharpen my staff. What are we going to do if we have to kill someone?” He looked up at me as if I had an answer for that. “I had to ask.” He grabbed a long branch thick as his wrists and turned not expecting an answer after all.

I have yet to see one of The Visitors and I’m more than curious to see what they are like, sort of. We talk about it all the time and really went through the gauntlet of alien well known species: The Grays, the Reptilians, the Whites, the Blobs, the Spheres and my favorite the Pray, a giant Mantis thing where we are the Pray. The sun was now below the smoke and ash and shone brightly creating long shadows and intense brightness because our eyes adjust to the blocked out light all day. Hopping that goes for everything else too. We stayed under the tree line until we had to cross a water channel that was just rippled with cracks. The water was gone so it should be easy. It also keeps us away from the death and still dying that was all around us. The stench was so bad in some areas we had to find another way. I was starting to think maybe this wasn’t such a good idea after all.

“Curtis?” I said when we got to a nook were we couldn’t be seen.

“Yeah?” he answered chewing on a twig he brought from the forest.

“Do you wanna go back?” I asked.

“What? Hell no! This is a blast!” He answered. I couldn’t tell if he was being sarcastic or if he really was having fun. So I just looked at him blankly.

“Seriously, this is fun I was getting so bored in the forest. I needed this. Come on let’s go.” He said taking the lead. I guess that’s what I meant when I said “Having my back.”

Up to the right and about stones throw is where the saucer crashed down after it exploded. But first we have to go through the rubble left from the buildings’ collapse. I kept asking myself why was I so interested in this locket? Was it a symbol of what could have been? Could I ever return it to her family if they even were alive still? What seriously was I going to do rip it off her charred corpse? I have no idea. I had to stop and clear my head. “Curtis!” I shout whispered. “What are we going to do once we get the locket?”

“What? You haven’t thought this through? He stopped walking for a moment and looked back at me. "You wouldn’t shut up about all week. You even talk about it in your sleep,” he said.

“In my sleep?" I said surprised. "Do you remember what I said? "

“Um, I got something like: gate, locket, peace, then you mumbled something I couldn’t hear then you’d snore. That’s it. Why?”

“I’m not sure but I thinking we might be able to bring the locket to their gate of some sort and ask for peace?” I said.

“Wow! That’s sounds like it could turn out really good or really bad. Are you sure?” he said raising eyebrows nodding his head up and down just barely.

“What else we got to do?” I said shrugging my shoulders.

“ All right! Let’s do this.” He opened his mouth to mock a battle yell and ran forward to the crash site.