The Heart Shaped Locket

I was only nine when the asteroids hit. The first asteroid hit Earth in northern India. It was the largest of the bunch and killed millions upon impact. The results were felt immediately around the world. Countries began to close their borders, prices that were already high became astronomical. Smaller countries began fighting with their neighbors for resources, while others began to board what limited supplies they had.

The first asteroid had a tail of several smaller asteroids, but they were still significant in size. The first was 5 miles in diameter, while the other measured between the size of a school bus to the size of a school. Over the next week they pummeled our already vulnerable planet. The large alien boulders hit at random times and at random places. Governments were already collapsing around the world, so there was governing body to warn us when the next one would hit and when the onslaught would be over.

On the sixth day, hundreds of small asteroids struck our city. The city tried to keep life as normal as they could, and kids were still expected to go to school, and adults were expected to go to work. But that sixth day changed everything. There was no more pretending that things could remain the same. There were explosions and screaming, people yelling and crying, and bodies lying in the street. Parents were running into the school and screaming their children’s names, running into classrooms and searching desperately for them.

One side of the school had taken a direct hit from a mammoth sized space rock. Several walls around the school had collapsed and much of the roof had fallen in. I got hit in the face with broken glass from a window and could feel blood running down my face. I was too terrified to scream, too frightened to even move. My classmates, my friends, were dying around me, and I sat frozen in fear.

A face entered my vision, blocking from me the horrific sight I had been transfixed on. It was my mother. She was speaking, but I couldn’t hear her. I didn’t know what she was saying and could barely hear her voice, but I knew everything was going to be alright. I touched her long blonde hair stared into her emerald eyes. I grew up hearing that I looked like her, but I could see my hair was grey with dust and dirt, and my face black with soot and red with blood. I felt a few tears slide down my cheek, streaking the dust and mixing with the blood.

I could make some of her words and felt her tug on my hand. I let her lead me from the rubble and into the hallway. She led me through the collapsing school, trying to shield me from the death and destruction that was all around us. Every now and then I could feel the ground beneath my feet shudder, either from more asteroids or from explosions that they caused.

Outside, the sky was grey with soot and people were running in all directions. My mother led me to her truck that was parked in the middle of the grassy esplanade between the school and the main road. She tried to have a normal conversation on the way home, pretending like there was nothing unusual happening around us. I was looking out the window, seeing the destruction, some caused by the asteroids, but much of it caused by people as they panicked.

We sped into the driveway, the tires screeching to a stop and my mother jumping out without a second to spare. I remained frozen in place, still not having said a word about what was happening, what I had seen, or the death of my friends. My mother ran to my side of the truck and opened my door. She took my hands in hers and smiled at me, brushing some hair out of my face and wiping debris away from my eyes.

“Baby, it’s going to be alright,” she said, kissing the back of my right hand. She took off her necklace and started placing it around my neck.

I pulled away. I hated that necklace. My mother loved it almost as much as she loved me. I was there when she received it, almost four years ago, just after I turned five. My grandmother was dying of cancer and was in the hospital. My grandmother was tall, skinny, and scared me. That is all that I remember about her. She was stern and harsh, and I was afraid to be alone with her.

We had been at the hospital all night and into the next morning. I was playing a game and trying not to watch her, but her breathing was scary, the way she looked was scary, and she smelled scary. She called my mother close to her so she could whisper something, and then gave her the necklace, making her promise something.

And that was it. That was the last time I had to see her. The machines started making noises and the doctors told us how sorry they were; but I wasn’t sorry, and I wasn’t sad. We returned home and my mom and dad started fighting. I had seen them fight before, but never like that. I hid in my room and put headphones on to drown out the yelling, but it never worked.

That was the last time I saw my dad. He never came and said goodbye, or where he was going, or what happened – he just left. I blamed my grandmother. I blamed that necklace. That stupid heart shaped locket on a gold chain. It was why my family fell apart. Why my dad left. Why we had to move to a new house. Why I had to change schools. Why the asteroids fell. Why I had to watch my new friends die.

“I don’t want it. Grandma gave it to you,” I said, shaking my head and pushing it away.

“Do you know why she gave it to me,” my mother asked, tears now sliding down her cheeks. “She gave it to me to give me strength. To help keep me strong when she knew I was weak. To give me courage when she knew I was scared.”

I let her place it around my neck.

“Your great-grandmother brought this over with her when she fled Europe during WWII. This is all she brought with her, to bring her strength in the new world, a strange and unfamiliar world,” she said, placing her hand over the heart shaped locket that rested over my heart. “She gave it to my mother when she left home for college. My mother was scared because she had never been away from home, was afraid she was going to fail, and was having second thoughts.”

My mom started to open the locket, turning the top and the bottom in opposite directions, revealing a secret compartment. “You were there when my mom gave it to me. She knew I was going to miss her, that I was scared of what life would bring without her here, and afraid for both you and me. She wanted me to have the courage to move on, the strength to stand up for myself, and to be brave enough to protect us both.”

She turned the locket and showed me the contents. It contained a picture of me and my mom, smiling and hugging, right after we moved into our new home. It was the first time I had seen her happy in a long time. We were both happy. We were both scared of the unknown, but we were happy because we were together.

“I know you are scared, and things are going to get scarier. But this locket will give you strength. It will give you the courage to do keep moving forward and not look back. It will make you strong when you think you are too weak to keep fighting. And it will give you courage to move on alone if you have to.”

She kissed my forehead and went into the house. I took in what was happening around me. All of our neighbors were loading their cars, were frantically loading children, and trying to get away. I could hear the asteroids still falling. The ground was still trembling. Off in the distance I could explosions and could smell the fires off in the distance.

I closed my eyes and took a deep breath. The world was on fire around me, but as sat there holding the locket, I knew I had the strength to move forward. The courage to start fresh in the new world, just like my mother did. Just like her mother and her mother before her. I was going to be strong, courageous, and brave.

I jumped from the truck and ran inside, helping my mother grab clothing and supplies. We grabbed everything we would need for a couple of months on the road and took off in the truck. We didn’t look back. We kept driving, moving around broken cars, people trying to flag us down, and people dying on the side of the road. I didn’t cry anymore. I didn’t worry about what was going to happen, or about what I couldn’t control. I was with my mom. I had the strength and courage of my grandmother and my great-grandmother with me. I had their heart shaped locket around my neck. I knew I was going to be safe.