The Ghost and the Locket

My story begins a few years from now. How many exactly? I don’t know, but I’m guessing seven or eight.

You see, by the time the story starts, the world has become such a mess, we have even lost track of time. That’s one of the many, fun side effects of constant war; days blend into weeks, months, even years, and you’re too busy staying alive to care about your birthday anymore. And the bigger the war, the more distracted you get.

By the time you’re reading this, you guys have had the two great wars that you know, and you can barely imagine anything worse. What you don’t know, is that the next one is (was?) right around the corner. Imagine a war so big and so long (seven years?), they actually ran out of nukes, but the armies insisted on fighting for years after the nukes ran out. Entire counties were destroyed, and then neighboring cities were killed by the fallout the moment the wind changed. At first people would abandon the ruined cities, but when all of them were ruined, people decided maybe the broken buildings and sewers were still better than the open battlefields.

Me? I never fought on the war directly. I was more of a survivor – slash – refugee – slash – scavenger back then, doing what I could to stay alive. I basically grew up in the middle of that circus, so I learned not to hope for any handouts. Lucky for me, I had an unfair advantage.

I don’t know if it was the radiation, or something in my genes, or what, but around the time the war started, I had a kind of sixth sense that would warn me when something bad was about to happen. At first, I thought I was imagining things, but eventually I learned those little whispers in the back of my mind were very real, and they were saving my life all the time.

As the years passed, I discovered my thing didn’t work so well when I was alone, and the voices – literal voices – somehow matched people around me. One day I realized the voices were coming from other people, or rather, from their minds. I always knew about danger the moment someone around me noticed it, because I was instinctively reading their minds.

One day, I was trying to catch something to eat (don’t ask), when I felt someone was watching me. I couldn’t make out their thoughts, but I knew they were three people, and they were trying to sneak up on me, so I did the obvious thing: I ran before they would know what was happening. Surprise element and what not.

I’m not going to bore you with the details of the whole chase. All that matters is I kept trying to lose them, but they were decided to get me. Also, they kept saying they weren’t going to hurt me, which is what people say when they DO want to hurt you. Who even falls for that anymore?

We kept running for a while, until I made a wrong turn and ended cornering myself against what looked like two collapsed buildings that collapsed and crashed into each other. I frantically looked around me, trying to find a way out, but all I saw was them - blocking my one escape route, slowly walking towards me, repeating that they just wanted to talk. For a moment I got the feeling they were being honest, but I was not willing to take any chances.

The moment they came close enough, I jumped the one in the middle, a medium-sized, skinny guy, hoping to bring him down and run before they could react; I should have realized that by jumping the one in the middle, we were obviously going to land between the other two, and all they had to do was pin me down.

I struggled as hard as I could to break free, although deep inside I kept feeling they really didn’t mean to harm me. I felt confused – if they really didn’t have bad intentions towards me, then what did they want from me?

Finally, I decided against my survival instinct to find out. Maybe I could get to the bottom of it, or at least get them to let their guard down so I could escape.

“So, you JUST want to talk! Do you always hold each other down when you talk?!”, I said. I wanted them to talk, but I didn’t want them to know I wanted them to talk.

Of course, the first thing they did was apologize and say I had left them no choice. Three strangers sneak up no me, I run away, and they have no choice but to gang up on me. Makes sense. I did attack one of them, but, what else was I supposed to do?

As the skinny guy was saying it, the other two slowly loosened their grip and moved away, allowing us both to get up. This time, I didn’t try to run. I would play along for now, and then I would run.

Once everybody was standing up, he explained that they needed my help to save someone. I couldn’t help smiling ironically. The whole world had gone to hell years earlier, but apparently SOMEONE needed help!

I saw all their faces changed when I smiled, but before they could try to convince me of how serious the situation was, I asked them why they needed me of all people to help them save anyone. Then I heard the answer and lost my smile: they wanted my help because they knew I was a psychic.

After the initial shock, I demanded they tell me what they were talking about. I tried not to admit they were right until I knew what was going on, but the look on my face obviously sold me out. They offered to explain everything on the way to their hideout, so I decided to follow them, always walking a few steps behind them so I could keep my eyes on them, and to have some room to maneuver – they were not going to pin me down again.

As if the whole thing wasn’t strange enough, one of the other two guys, slightly taller than the skinny one and balding, tried to reassure me by saying everything would make more sense once I had the locket.

What locket?!