Locket

Locket

By Adam Montano

She felt her cheeks splash with warmth from the newly formed tears cutting through the dirt upon her face, as she gazed longingly at the heart shaped locket that was clutched between her fingers.

From her spot in the dirt atop the hillside, she could only glance between the last love token gifted to her by Michael, and The Monument crashing down upon the city in a triumph of flames.

“So they’ve finally done it,” she thought compellingly,”they have finally taken down The Order.”

The Order which had ruled over the last of the human race since the turning occured, had finally been destroyed by the wrath of the people.

Sarah thought back on when they had taken control. The Order, who had filed lines of person after person, and ending whatever lives they deemed unfit to remain in the new society. She pondered at how horrified Michael looked ahead of her in line, visibly shaking until the moment they had judged her approvingly, where he stood still as stone, until they deemed him unfit. She sobbed horribly then, and more tears fought their way out of her rose-red eyes now. The Order who had marched them all to “The City” which was really just the last city left. How they forced them into labor camps, watched their every move, heard their every word, knew their every dream and thought. Privacy had become no more, and all that remained was the last thousand human beings, and their government, who was to only be served.

Sarah’s eyes winced at the memories, which happened to be among her last. The Monument, the so loathed and hated capital of The Order, the beacon of the small city, the only skyscraper remaining, had finally been overcome, and the consequence? The impending final death of the human race, as they knew it.

She clutched the locket tighter and tighter in her grip at the sound of every explosion, and every scream. She glanced to the outside of the Biodome, at the still unbreathable air of the outside world. The debris lay still, as it had done for the last ten years, and as it would for the rest of time.

Sarah angrily slammed her fist into the dirt on her side at the horrid remembrance of her and her love as they thought The Order was really there to save them, on that dreaded day the nukes came. How they thanked and at first worshipped the men who had brought them to safety within the Biodome, and how wrong everyone had truly been.

“How could we have known?” She asked herself in a regretful whimper, accompanying her angering thoughts.

She ran the fingers on her right hand through the last patch of grass she could see, and shuddered at the sound of a large explosion, which shot her sight into the sky, towards the ceiling of the biodome, where a large mushroom cloud was forming.

She didn’t cry any harder, didn’t scream or wail, she merely glanced down upon the locket once more.

“I’ll be seeing you, my love,” she whispered as she clicked the locket open.

It split in two, and she gazed upon the two pictures of them, her favorite pictures. The first, they were standing in front of the Eiffel Tower, holding each other close, laughing. The second, pictured them in Egypt in front of a great pyramid, where they had spent their honeymoon, not a month before the beginning of the end.

She could feel the heat approaching quickly, and could feet the dust and dirt cutting her eyes. The power of the blast, whatever it had been, was going to take the biodome, and every last person with it, and Sarah decided that she was okay with that. Ten years without Michael, without her love, without any sort of happiness or glee since the day she escaped the city, was far too long. She had escaped them, afterall. It wasn’t in vain. They all, it turns out, had escaped them in the end.

She looked fondly on the great escape of last month. From her one bedroom apartment, which was shared with ten people total, she had looked longingly upon the dilapidated cabin atop the hill that had served as the last remaining building unoccupied by humans. It was beyond the large electrified fence that surrounded the city, beyond the river which surrounded the fence, and upon the only hill. Day by day she wished to be there, whether she had food, or company, she just wanted to be alone.

On the first day of the previous month, Sarah had awoken and like every other monotonous day, turned to the small screen embedded in the front door, which stated the schedule for all occupants of the household.

John Crane - Lumber Yard

Taylor Crane - Infirmary

Eduardo Garcia - Lumber Yard

Edwin Finn - Crop Fields (Carrot)

Horace Goodwin - Crop Fields (Wheat)

Forest Williams - Construction Site

Zoe Yinn - Crop Fields (Wheat)

Elizabeth Grace - Infirmary

Reginald Gleeson - Janitorial Building

Sarah Winstein - Fish Dock

So Sarah, after eating her ration of one egg, and one slice of toast, walked around the block, down the gravel path, and to the Fish Dock, which was the only area of the city unguarded by the electrical fence. She grasped a pole, and a container of worms, and found a spot at the very end of the deck, where she would normally have remained until Dusk, fishing for as many Bass as she could. Only today, a boost of excitement had awakened in her soul, at the realisation of something that changed the remainder of her life ten-fold.

As Sarah had journeyed towards the Fish Dock, she had noticed two things that remained extremely peculiar. The first, the usual guards that were stationed at the beginning of the Dock, were nowhere to be seen. The second, the only other person who had arrived at the dock so far, was an old man who was busy collecting worms from the dirt, as he had been scheduled.

Sarah quickly looked around, and realised that for the first time in her ten years stuck in the forsaken Biodome, she was alone, and wasn’t being watched.

Till the final day of her life, she didn’t remember the point when she decided to jump into the river and swim towards the cabin atop the hill. It hadn’t been a conscious decision, she had just done it, given the first chance she had had. She decided nothing, all she did was take another glance behind her back, and then jump.

The rapids had been greatly strong, stronger then she had anticipated. She hadn’t swam in ten years or more, and to swim straight across, as the river tried to push her down, was a great feat. After what felt like a half hour (which was really only two minutes) of pushing and pulling herself across as hard as she could, she had finally made it to shore, choking and coughing up water, her muscles screaming, and her sense of sound muffled to an extreme by the water sloshing in them.

With a strong sense of anxiety, she turned and shot a glance toward the dock, and what she had witnessed had made her grateful beyond relief. Around a dozen or so people, who were all standing in position around the edges of the dock, were smiling at her. They weren’t clapping or cheering, only smiling down at her, with a sparkle of triumph in their eyes. Sarah had mouthed “thank you” to them hurriedly, and then she scattered through the bushes and climbed her way up the steep hill, to the cabin and home she had longed for. When she had finally arrived, she had found it was indeed abandoned, and to her surprise, canned foods and goods were plentiful in the pantry. She cheered (quietly of course, as she was still afraid of being caught) and cried at the realisation that she had successfully escaped The Order. That night, when the alarm had sounded, signalling an escapee, she had smiled with glee.

Looking back now, as the hot ash and smoke cornered her against the wall of the Biodome, with the locket clutched in both hands, Sarah supposed she had probably started the movement amongst the people that had caused her to be in this predicament, and she smiled. A wide, genuine grin of happiness. Forgetting the fire, the screams, the smoke and ash, the pain and torment of The Order, she laughed. Laughed loudly for the first time in over a decade. She laughed in victory, and decided that none of this was to be seen as a disaster, or a failure, or even a catastrophic event at all. This was the true victory.

Sarah, in the last seconds of her life, crying tears of joy, only stared at her two favorite pictures in her cherished heart shaped locket, and smiled wide. She had escaped the firm grasp of The Order, and she now, as the fire enveloped her, was momentarily transporting to wherever lie ahead of this life, truly free, finally free.

“Finally I can see you again my love,” she said to the pictures coated in fire held in her hands,”Finally we are free.”

“Better to die fighting for freedom then be a prisoner all the days of your life.”

-Bob Marley