Heart's Treasure Lost

“When I was young, the world expected Armageddon with bated breath. It became a culture, a form of entertainment. We expected bombs, wars, plagues, earthquakes, alien invasion, or some other form of total destruction from one day to the next. We were so focused on fearing the apocalyptic destruction of the world, we never noticed that Armageddon came like a thief in the night, sneaking away with the world as we knew it, one piece at a time. The world had been coming to an end for years and no one noticed until it was too late…”

“KEITA! What are you doing? We gotta go!” Jarrow shouted from the doorway. Keita jumped at the sound and shoved the small notebook she’d been reading back into the case slamming the lid closed. She looked again at the ancient skeleton in the rotted chair, once more baffled that millions of people seemed to have sat and waited to die. Shaking her head, she stuffed the case into her knapsack and swung it onto her shoulder.

“What’s coming?” She asked Jarrow, as she moved toward the opening in the wall they had climbed in through.

“The next floor down is teaming with those massive roaches, and I saw a snakeskin bigger ‘n me. Heavens only know what else is hungry in these old ruins, but the roaches are bad enough on their own. Didn’t you hear them coming?” Jarrow grabbed a solid chunk of kudzu vine and started climbing down. Now that she paid attention, she could hear rustling and clicking coming closer. Keita followed Jarrow out the hole, but as she faced back into the room she saw the first roach enter at a run. Those bugs could move fast, climb walls, and were often hungry enough to chase live game, not just carrion. They weren’t picky; if they could catch it, they would eat it. While they were only as large as a cat, there were so many of them they could easily overcome much bigger foes.

“They must be hungry! Swing for it!” She shouted, as she yanked on her vine and kicked away from the wall, loosening her grip to aid her decent as she swung downward. The vine slid through her grasp as she plummeted toward the ground, Jarrow close behind her on a neighboring vine. As the ground got closer, Keita tightened her grip to slow down so she wouldn’t break her leg when she crashed through the kudzu at the bottom. Tossing a look over her shoulder to see how close their pursuers were, and make sure Jarrow was with her, Keita took off at a stumbling run. They had gotten ahead of the roaches, but those monsters moved fast and could climb up and down the walls at a run.

They dodged and plunged through the ancient ruins, that had long ago been overwhelmed by kudzu, and into the surrounding forest, making for the defenses of their village. The village was built inside a massive hollow in a nearby rockface. The cave provided shelter from the worst of the elements and a defensible structure to keep out the worst predators, both animal and human. The roaches were shy of the light in the clearing around the cave entrance, but more importantly, for 300 feet in any direction around the gates into the cave, the ground was covered with mint, lemongrass, garlic, bay, and rosemary. The village carefully cultivated a large swath of those herbs around the cave they called home. The aromatic plants were toxic to the roaches and kept out the snakes and other dangerous critters. The plants also made for some interesting flavors for dinner or tea.

Reaching the sunny herb belt, Keita slowed to a swaggering walk and laughed to Jarrow as the pursuing hoards veered away from the light and the invisible cloud of pungent scent. Their job that morning had been to sprinkle a large perimeter around the clearing with a somewhat noxious brew of herb tea, made by Aunt Tena to pump up the repellant properties of the plants. “Guess Tena’s tea still works!” she shot at Jarrow.

“I just hope whatever you found was worth the risk, my ma’ll tan my hide if she finds out we went to the ruins!” he shot right back. They reached the shade of the massive ancient tree that grew alone, halfway into the defensive herbs. They climbed up to their special haven, a “house” they built in the tree when they were younger. Once they were safe, hidden, and comfortable, Keita opened her knapsack and pulled out the case she had been looking through earlier.

She lifted out the book she had been reading and set it aside, Jarrow wasn’t interested in ancient stories about how the world ended, he lived for today. Keita would read the book on her own later, she wanted to understand what had happened to the woman in the room high up in the ruins. Beneath the book were pictures on thick but brittle old paper. It was amazing they had survived so many centuries, not much had. There must be something about the case that protected and preserved the contents.

Keita looked at each picture and carefully passed it to Jarrow, who glanced at them and made a casual pile beside him of the precious and fragile relics. The pictures told a story of a different world. There was no Kudzo, no forest, and so many sharp, clean new buildings. More people marched before their eyes in those pictures than they had ever seen in their lives. From the size of the ruins, Keita had assumed that there were more people then than now; she was overawed to see proof of just how many there had been.

Beneath the pictures was a smaller case, black and fuzzy. Faded silver letters stamped on the top of the case read: “Where your treasure is, there your heart will be also”. This interested Jarrow, something useful must be stored in such a special box. He leaned over to look inside as Keita pulled the lid open but sat back disappointed in what he saw.

“All that climbing, searching through that smelly old reck, blisters on my hands from the vines and running for our lives from R.O.U.S.’s. All we get for it is some dumb pictures, a moldy old book and shiny trinkets?” He exclaimed in disappointment.

“R.O.U.S.’s.?” Questioned Keita, looking up from the case with raised eyebrows.

With a soft huff of amusement, Jarrow explained “It’s what Simmi’s old uncle calls the roaches. Roaches Of Unusual Size, R.O.U.S. He says that before the end of the world, they weren’t that big and they didn’t eat people and animals, only garbage. He probably read it in an old book sometime.”

Keita smiled and looked back to the case. She ran her finger over a shiny plain golden ring, and another with a large diamond. There were tiny designs and letters etched in the rings that made them match. Some such rings had survived the centuries and the village chief owned 2 that she and her husband wore, but Keita had never touched anything so precious before. Lifting out the larger plain ring, she slowly read out the etched words, “Forever my heart”.

Jarrow shrugged and said flippantly “Bit obsessed with hearts, weren’t they?” He reached over and lifted out a gold chain with a pendant, almost the size of his palm, strung on it. “Look, here’s another one, a golden heart, what’s the point? You can’t eat it. You can’t kill food with it or defend yourself with it. You can’t use it to build something. It’s just shiny!” He rubbed his thumb across it as if to make a point about its shiny properties, and his thumb caught on the edge and flipped open a latch. Startled by the movement and afraid he’d broken something, Jarrow dropped it.

The pendant struck the floor with a muted thump and sprang open. Keita leaned over and picked up the now wide-open metal heart to look inside. Nested inside the locket was a strange key. As she lifted out the key, she saw that both parts of the heart were painted on the inside with a tiny map. With dawning awe, Keita looked up at her best friend, holding up the key and repeating the words “where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.” She showed him the map and they grinned at each other.

Distantly, Keita heard someone shouting their names. The treasure hunt would have to wait, today they had to help with dinner. Keita carefully put the key back and packed the locket into its space in the black case. They gathered up the pictures, now more valuable to Jarrow, as they might hold clues to the treasure. Once everything was back in the larger case, it was hidden in the bottom of a bin to keep it away from nosy younger kids.

Keita and Jarrow climbed down from their haven in the old tree and ran together toward the cave and their responsibilities. Both smiled as they imagined the adventure they were going to have. They laughed together about what they might find when they found whatever the key opened. Maybe this haul had been worth getting chased by carnivorous roaches after all!