The Heart Shaped Locket

Vocal Writing Submission

By James Alexander Palfi

The Heart Shape Locket and the 2nd Coming

The world in general is getting better. From the advent of the first two humans whether you believe in some form of creationism stories Adam or Eve or via evolution.

In the past the smallest scrape or infection could kill you. But now with the advances in science the poorest can afford medicines that can help with their mental health or postpone or in rare cases cure cancer. Whereas in the past you could be the richest in the world and one little scrape of poison ivy could kill you.

Now in 2021 humans have access to medicine and technology that for the most part makes lives much easier. That is until the heart shaped locket.

Queen Elizabeth II wore the locket around her neck. It looked just like a small piece of gold for the average person would be expensive but for The Queen would be nothing special. However, inside the locket were an assortment of multi coloured gems like that of a rainbow. Blue sapphires, emerald greens, red rubies and a diamond so blinding in its intensity it was like looking into a white sun. In the middle of inside this locket there was a button.

The Queen had lived a good life. She had been a good monarch. However, this locket not only helped her power but at the same time shortened it.

This locket had been made by an advanced civilization that had come before and had now been extinguished. ‘Any sufficiently advanced scientific technology is indistinguishable from magic.’ The locket had a variety of features, from being able to circumvent luck, ( there was a real possibility that the first of the monarchs line that had eventually trickled down to The Queen, that she would not become The Queen,) to a science so advanced it was hard to know whether it was science or magic curing advanced cancers that were resistant to treatment, or driving her enemies or at the very least those who had her worst interests at heart to insane whereas otherwise they would be the sanest of humans.

The Queen was now 95 and not in great health. What would ultimately happen if she stepped down as The Queen in the context of the locket is its ultimate power would be released. The Queen would not have gotten to where she was without the locket. She knew it was time. She retreated to her private bed chamber pressed the heart shaped locket. Closed her eyes and died after a life well lived.

As soon as The Queen passed and pressed the locket. An advanced form of an EMP was released. It was an advanced form because it did not work how a normal EMP did. It worked by both stopping some form of electricity while supercharging others. In a way this was similar to a quantum physics some of it was random.

It was symbolic in that the Queen had used the locket one day before the end of 2021, December 30th 2021. In 2 more days, it would be another year 2022. If humanity was to survive before then.

December 31st 2021

‘We are coming to you live from one of our reports from Buckingham Palace.’ A voice over said. This same news was being watched all over the world by hundreds of millions of people. The Queen had died at 12:01am aged 95. Which seemed both symbolic and suspicious. When the locket was activated all the jewellery went away, with the exception of the gold and inside it a very small piece of paper. Prince Charles knew about the locket. His Mother had said only open it upon her death which he had. It was a very small part of her will which said in the event I am wearing the locket at my death you are to tell the world that I have passed.

Prince Charles discovered his mother’s passing at 1am, notified the news studios and they had sent a reporter around at 2am. They wanted to control the narrative so this reporter from The BBC and no others were allowed to enter.

It was just this reporter and one camera woman. Her name was Gabrielle Gonzalez and she had been with the BBC for a decade. ‘The Queen has passed today at 12.01am. She was one of if not the best monarchs in history she will be surely…’ At this the footage began to go fuzzy like looking at a static TV. This was not just a BBC issue this was happening all over the world.

It got to a point where over minutes it was noticeable, then minutes later a lot of TVs were exploding into a thousand pieces. Soon every TV on earth was unfunctional. But if the footage was being watched on a computer, the same thing was happening to many computers but not all. Certainly not the near 100 percent that was happening to TV’s.

If anything, it would have been about 1 in 10. It was as if an advanced civilization was looking at humans and thinking computers have some use for work. Whereas TV outside of those that make the program are viewed by humans who are inherently lazy.

The main super powers of the world at this time where still America, Russia and China. For the time being WWIII had not happened but what if this was the catalyst that started it?

America responded to it by telling people not to use or view TV programs. A lot of the streaming sites were shut down. But it was a catch 22. Although it was possible for them to shut down their electronics. Then they would be vulnerable to a counter attack. A lot of their cyber warfare and nuclear as well a lot of their military power was controlled by electronics.

In China, a Communist Country it was a lot easier for them to ban TV, and they controlled so much of the surveillance as well. For computers it was deemed to only use them if you were deemed important enough by The Communist Party.

For Russia a country that was not as lazy in general as The West they didn’t watch that much TV anyway. A lot of their jobs were not all so computer based so for the most part they were fine. Word of mouth spread about the TVs to those that otherwise would not have heard it.

4am 31st December 2021. From a world perspective.

More computers started going off line. It was like a worldwide weapon an insane villain had built. For low power unimportant computers, the EMP took them off line. It was not just one EMP attack but multiple. Some were largely invisible and could not be felt. Whereas others would level entire blocks of houses.

It had the inverse effect if what was being controlled was more powerful and relied on more electricity. Soon weapon systems began going online when they were not otherwise given the order. Drones killing civilians and military personnel.

It soon escalated to nuclear weapons being launched. But they were launched randomly. There were no logical targets to these launches. Not the mainland of Russia, America and China. But they were not launched all at once or all of them for that matter. A few were launched in a few minutes and then nothing. A few hours later dozens at a time and then nothing.

Ironically the countries that had lost control of some of their nukes where the worst hit. If it is random there is a chance the nuke will detonate ot detonate closer to where it is released from.

America had a duty to its people, Russia a bit less so and China the minimum in the game of the superpowers. It was a risky move but America shut down most of its electronic defences hoping that if the nukes had no electricity, they would be less likely to fire which over the hours that passed seemed to do the job.

China wanted to do that but did not. As they needed to control its population so they hoped that this insanity would be over soon. Russia on the other hand did a combination of reducing its electronic nuclear defences, but at the same time had many of its oligarchy go to other countries.

If this was not bad enough by six am the locket had a secondary effect and that was to release a cloud that could be seen world wide. It was a cloud of purple and caused those effected by it to become mad. Developing schizophrenia and mania where they otherwise would not have had.

Gabriella and her cameraman were recording the death of the Queen and reporting on it. Prince Charles would have stayed but it was as if God himself called him to the other room. He whistled, but not in a normal kind of way. A series of whistles as if he too was becoming insane.

2 guards entered the room. It would have been easy enough for them to gun down Gabriella and the reporter. But no, they both looked like the guard’s outside of The Queen residences. With the red clothing and ridiculous ling black hats.

They both had spikes and charged forward. Gabriella was trusted by The Queen and The Queen’s residences had questionable security at the best of times. They charged forward and Gabriella took out a small revolver and shot close to them 3 times causing them to retreat and shut the door they came through.

Virtually not even pausing as she had a speed reloader and put it into the gun. She thanked her stars that her father had been such a fanatic about training her for the world ahead, he had been a military man.

Gabriella turned around. At this point the cameraman’s camera had been smashed, when he dropped the camera, it landed on the locket. Destroying it, in this the locket had achieved its final purpose. A mist spread through the edges of the door. Some of the mist got into Gabriella’s body but the cameramen froze from fear he dropped the camera the lense smashing into a thousand pieces. The audio cut out as well. What happened in that room would only be known to Gabriella and the camera man, that is if they lived or died!

The superpowers were on edge. Countless had died. TVs had stopped working; nuclear weapons were going off haphazardly more and more computers were stopping working and systems that relied on them were stopping working.

In this time millions had died. Even from the perspective of the black death more people had died from a day-by-day comparison.

What was not known was there was a second heart locket. A lot of these devices like the spear of destiny, these devices go through powerful people. One locket was given to the queen. The second locket was given to the wife of Xi Jinping.

Xi JinPing’s wife Peng Liyuan had been given the locket which looked remarkably similar to the one that The Queen had worn. In this apocalypse Xi’s wife was in her private chambers. In times of crisis, she had found a tactic that for her worked and that was to approach situations with a different viewpoint, doing things you otherwise would not do. She was looking for something that would match that criterion, and she looked down at the locket, never having noticed a small groove in it. She got her small hands opened the locket and inadvertently pressed the middle of it. Starting the 2nd Apocalypse!