Purposeful Heart

She hovered over the dirty creek, her hands brown from the muck of the shallow stream. The water’s cleanliness didn’t matter... She was just grateful to find an unowned splotch of water, an unlikely occurrence these days. The heart-shaped locket dangled just under her throat, and she was careful not to let it dip into the water. The shape was not that of the cartoonish heart, the symmetrical, romantic image. Her’s was the shape of the very heart operating in the chest of all, but only working in the chest of few. In Amanda’s eyes, the unrealistic symbol served as a prerequisite for the horrors that eventually came, no matter how many years after its creation.

She would never admit it, not even on her deathbed, that she had betrayed her own ideas and resorted to prayer on more than one occasion during her unlikely escape, for the only thing stronger than her character was her pride, and perhaps it even played the biggest role in her choices.

She finished wetting her face and fell back onto her rear. She held the locket up to her eyes with a sigh. The thing was the size of a trinity of quarters but weighed a little less than three pounds. She made a promise to Jasper that she wouldn’t open it again until the time came, and she intended to keep that promise with the hope it wouldn’t be tonight. Although, a piece of her couldn’t help but wonder if the pact of a promise was still valid when one party left the earth. “At least you can die with a soul,” he told her just two weeks before they stormed his lab. She smiled bittersweetly. He knew his demise was imminent, yet refused to run. There was a time when the memories would’ve rained down her cheeks and followed the trail to her thin chest, but the things she had witnessed had hardened her beyond tears. A lone bluejay landed on a tree close by and stayed for no more than a few seconds. She wished she could go to the tree and once again feel her hand brush rough tree bark instead of cold steel. She remembered when she was still a little girl and the leaves would shake with the wind instead of being lifeless green statues. It’s a tragedy that many never experience the grandeur that comes with appreciating the simple joy of nature. It shouldn’t take a drought to make you crack a smile at a roll of thunder.

She looked up from her shaded stone seat to the yawning sun. It was time to move. Her hunters always gained significant ground in the night, and she could feel her separation waning. She swatted at a buzzing insect swarming the back of her neck and missed, connecting with bare skin. She missed her elegant brown hair that hung to the center of her back, but long hair is just another weakness in combat. “The more of you they can touch, the more likely you are to die,” she had been told on the first day of training and had maintained the image of a womanly-refined boy ever since.

She stood, and was blasted by something she knew all along, but only just absorbed: she would soon die. Her legs grew wobbly, but it was no matter. She would walk and run and crawl and climb to get where she needed to. If she could reach the heart of the Ruler’s power she could at least alter the world for a final time before she left it for good. Anyone willing to greet death prematurely is destined to die either a martyr or a madman, and she was grateful to identify with the former, though there is something of a madman in every martyr.

Stepping back into the sun, she felt her neck baking, the sweat spigot resuming and sending the shed liquids down her back.

The blade wedged perfectly beneath his chin. He landed on his face, the ink continuing to gurgle out and coat the ground. Now that it was night, one might’ve mistaken the puddle for an oil spill. Perhaps it was someone she once knew. Absent was the desire to roll the corpse over and discover if so, but even if she wanted to, there was no time. The Center was well-guarded by default, but now they were aware of an intruder.

They were, however, unaware of the tunnel that sat under the ground just outside the reach of the hawkish watch-lights. Only the original eight had knowledge of the clandestine route. All had similar concerns with the world’s new regime and feared the potential atrocities that could come with it. They were all dead now, mostly, a functionally extinct pack of mindful lions who decided to revolt against the Ruler after years of being his most valuable assassins. She would soon join them, but the fight could still be won.

She removed the disc of fake ground that had hidden the hole since its conception, and carefully replaced it evenly once she was inside. There was no way to illuminate the path, but that’s why they designed it with simplicity. Three cramped miles of unbending road lay ahead. Her hands clawed through the dirt, the smooth grains chalking her palms all the way along with a number of unlucky bugs, some small and squishy, others baby-fist sized and gooey. She chuckled to herself with an unexpected lightheartedness, realizing how lucky they were she was the last one left instead of Myles. The way he let himself go toward the end, he would’ve suffocated in the tunnel like an overweight hamster in a tube. A handful of tears wished to fall, but even the fondest remembrances of her chums couldn’t convince her to free the memories from her eyes. She churned along on all fours, a peaceful smile never abandoning her.

She finally emerged, pushing a loose patch of ground aside and climbing into the shower room. This room was chosen for two reasons: it would be easy to hear when occupied, and it was unlikely any furniture would ever be added and the hole covered. She crept along the slick floor, greased with water and soap, careful not to slip and fall or squeak her boots. At the exit, she peeked both ways for anything with two legs. It was lifeless. The lights were even lower than she remembered, making her envision herself in a horror movie, an alien or demon at her heels.

Her steps, light and soundless as a misty snow, nevertheless echoed down the tall hallway. The guards and infantrymen she was waiting to derail her never came. She was as she had been for the last three months: alone. And then, as many of us so often do, she made the mistake of becoming too eager at the sniff of victory. Two gates stood between her and success, monstrous steel squares fit to be a giant’s shower curtain, penetrable by only an individual code… a code she could never forget.

Four-four-two-three-five. Her smile rose with the gate, then torpedoed from heaven to hell when she saw the other side. Standing across from her with his boxer’s frame and dazzling, polished smile was the Ruler, surrounded by six of his best men. His long black beard hanging to his chest separated by two ponytails.

“Ahh. Amanda, my dear. I was wondering when you would join us,” he always appeared polite, even with the illest of intentions.

She bit her tongue. It’s difficult for warriors to accept failure.

“My dear,” he wagged his finger three times while sucking his teeth the same amount, “did you truly believe you could ever get behind this door again? You would squash me like a plum in combat, it's true. But how dare you try to out-maneuver me? What made you think you could match my cleverness? Eh? I knew about your little tunnel since it began construction, you see. I figured, knowing where you would come in, if the day ever came, made our fight unlosable. Is that a word? It is now, if not. It is? Good.” He focused back on her with more severity. “Was it worth death?”

“Dying is nothing to me,” she answered defyingly. “Same as taking life is nothing to you.”

“Taking a life is even less to you than it is to me. It's what you’re trained to do. Me, it is a necessity for ruling. I dislike it, to be honest. The more people that die, the less there are to rule. And ruling is what I love most,” he grinned.

It was a troubling angle, but one she could accept. “Maybe you’re right. Maybe killing has become routine and meaningless to me. But I would never kill someone I love. The apple tree watching over your sister’s grave says otherwise for you.”

“She was having relations with another man. The man who baked my bread,” he scoffed in disbelief. “What was I supposed to do?” He wagged his finger again. “You’re wrong though.

That friend of yours, started with a J… Jaime?”

“Jasper.”

“A stupid name. I like Jaime. Do you know why Jaime was so easy to find? Because you never changed your route. Week after week, you passed the same buildings, the same trees, the same birds. Do you know how many birds remain in this world with factory-built trees?”

A rat crawled into her throat and began nibbling on her heart. A single detail overlooked was the cause of death for her best friend and occasional lover. She killed him the same as the team aiming at her. The Ruler felt his words plunge into her skin, and was content.

“Make your peace with whatever and whoever you believe in. The time has come.”

All the training in the world, all the ruthlessness compiled, everything embodied by becoming a warrior, and yet, nobody is truly detached at the prospect of death. The greatest heroes do the noble thing and cover their face with a blank mask while their breath jump-ropes in uneven skips. She didn’t dare stop herself from doing the same. But, a failed mission was not to stop her from fulfilling a final promise. Her dirt-covered hand trembled for the locket. All she needed before they took her was one look. One final, heartfelt, purposeful glimpse at…

BANG! A single shot from the rifle of the man to the Ruler’s left found its way to her skull. There she laid, in a pool of her own blood and brain, never realizing her final moment. Enraged and seemingly befogged, the Ruler reached to the man on his right, pulled a pistol from his hip, and shot the killer just a notch above the ear.

“Did anyone else hear me say to fire?” he asked, daring one of the other replaceables to speak up. “Because of him, you will stay in your position for the next hour.” Not one groan was sounded. They would do their duty.

The Ruler moved to the dead girl, noted the bullet’s ferocity, and snatched the locket from her chest. “Good gold,” he studied it as he walked back to his team.

He opened it. Inside was a small painting of a couple nudely embracing in a luxuriant tropical paradise. What could it mean? Why did she carry it? The Ruler wondered until his ears caught something coming from the locket.

Tick-tick-tick it clicked like a mouse on hardwood floor. The Ruler’s eyes told the final sentence. All those years of repression and feigned stoicism… it was only a matter of time until her heart blew.