To Keep You Safe

You couldn’t keep anything from your past life. The moment you stepped into the safety of their walls, you were no longer an individual with desires or original thoughts that could be expressed out loud. Out there, it was dangerous. They told me this when they found me. They stripped me down, the way they did with all the people that they called travelers, and they took all my belongings, hanging up valuables in a museum of the past world.

“You’re lucky we found you when we did,” they said.

"They" were three men and a woman who worked for a man who founded this place they called Sanctuary. Three men who had absolutely no problem stripping me down and ridding me of anything that I loved, and a woman who had no problem letting these men violate any woman they found wandering the decimated world outside the walls.

They said we were the lucky ones. “This country’s overrun by those monsters,” they said. I had never seen the monsters they spoke of, not that I remembered anyways. But I didn’t remember much then.

The place that took me in was the capital of Sanctuary, I was told. There were 8 others across the land we were on, all with large walls that were armed at all times, and this was the main and biggest one. From what were they protecting us from? They wouldn’t tell me, and nobody could.

I didn’t have much of value when they found me. A dull and dirty knife. A grey sweatshirt with an infinity symbol on it and some words in a language I could no longer understand. Ripped jeans with a little blood on the knee but I had no wounds on me at the time. A journal that had scribbles in the same language of the sweatshirt. And lastly, a heart shaped locket with photos inside of people I didn’t recognize but somehow knew.

“What’s this?” the man, whose name I learned was Killian, asked. He was a tall man with pale skin and strawberry hair, a mix between blonde and red probably. I could tell he was from the North and never stepped foot in the sun. I remember him stepping close to me and grabbing the locket at my neck, as if it was a bar of gold. He spun it between his fingers and then snapped it from my neck.

I remember tears stinging my eyes, and reached to take it back, but words couldn’t escape my mouth.

“It’ll be in the gallery, you’ll be able to see it,” said the woman. “It belongs to Sanctuary now, though, honey. You know, how we talked about that? It’s okay, huh? You can still see it.” Her fake comfort, at the time, made me feel safe. Marley was a small southern girl with a strong accent, deep brown eyes, and dark brown curly hair. She seemed genuine and kind, like she cared about me. “Everybody has to sacrifice to be safe.”

That night, they escorted me to my own home in a valley surrounded by hills and other homes of individuals who had been like me, “lost.” I wasn’t lost. They didn’t know that, though, and neither did I.

I didn’t sleep. I laid in the oversized, plush bed that they offered to me and tried to remember the people in the locket. I had to see the locket again, it was my only desire, though I wasn’t supposed to have those. There was a man and woman on one side. I think she was blonde? Dirty blonde? She might have had darker hair and maybe the man was blonde. I only looked at it for a second before it was taken from me. On the other side, there was a man that looked probably the same age as the couple, but the photo was newer and different quality than the other. He had glasses and stubble, and the kindest smile with dimples. I knew these people were special to me, but the problem was that I didn’t know who "me" was.

I laid in bed each night for a week tracing everything I could remember up until the point that Sanctuary found me.

The first night that I have any memories of, the woods were dark and quiet. I heard nothing. No wind. No rustles in the trees or bushes. No light from neighboring people. Not a single animal crossed my path. I hiked through those woods through at least five sunsets before seeing another soul. So what were these monsters they spoke of?

Each night was slightly different, but I felt safe every night alone in the woods. One night was cool, one night warmer, one night it rained, the next was dry. I could notice each difference as if I’d lived through all of them a million times, but I couldn’t remember a thing before those nights. The one thing that I could never get used to, even without memories, was the sheer aloneness that I felt.

Five nights out, five nights in. I spoke to nobody, and nobody spoke to me. There was an immense amount of silence within Sanctuary that I still cannot fathom today. The silence was near deafening.

The sixth day I chose to leave my house. It was a small place with small furniture and my large bed. I had slept less than 10 hours in the five nights I had been there. Marley brought me food each day, as if I couldn’t take care of myself with the food that was already in the house, but I let her. I couldn’t quite tell her no, let alone speak at all.

The sixth day, I dressed myself in the plain white dress they’d given me. It was knee length, hugged me at my waist then flared out, and had a neck line that hugged my collarbone. I felt modest and, honestly, uncomfortable. I don’t believe I was a modest girl before. I slipped on these black ankle boots that reminded me of something I couldn’t quite place, and headed out the door.

Marley had given me a map after showing me home when the men she was with treated me like I was an idiot. She had circled on the map where the gallery was. “It’s free to get in for all citizens. The only rules are you have to stay quiet,” she paused and smiled, patting me on the cheek, “but you have no problem with that, huh, honey?”

I remember giving her a smile. I think it was genuine at the time.

I looked at the map. It was over a half hour away from my little valley house, but it was a nice day and, honestly, what else did I have to do with my time? So I started out. There were people silently gardening in their front yards. They didn’t look up from their plants, and I didn’t say anything because, really, what was there to say? I passed by several people walking hand in hand, and they didn’t acknowledge me. I passed by a field of horses, silently grazing in the hillside without a care in the world. I’m sure there were no predators here.

After a half hour of more silence than I had probably ever experienced in my life, I arrived at the town center. A line of people stood outside the gallery, which was labeled Galleria in big, bold, block letters on the front of the building. It was tacky, to be honest. It was practically yelling, “look at me!”, in a world where we couldn’t even utter a word.

I ushered myself into the line of silent people. It felt like an assembly line, full of people who had nothing to live for, trying to find out what meaning their life had left. I didn’t know that, of course. I had never spoken to these people. I didn’t know what they wanted, or needed. Just that we were simply told that we weren’t allowed to desire those things.

I cleared my voice halfway through the line and tapped the man’s shoulder in front of me. I was anxious and felt my heart flutter in my chest.

The man was a balding older man, taller than me but only slightly. His face as he turned looked worried, but annoyed. He shook his head at me, and turned back away from me.

“I, um. What is your name?” I hadn’t spoken yet, not in this place, not since I woke up in the woods. My voice felt foreign to me.

He turned and shook his head. “Shh.”

Other people starred at me with warning looks in their eyes. I shut my mouth and waited.

By the time it was my turn, the sun was high in the sky, beating down on us. I had beads of sweat on my neck underneath my hair and I could feel it matting at the base. Still, I waited. As patiently as I could. And I waited, and then I was welcomed into the building.

The walls were littered in different objects. From journals to weapons to different types of jewelry. They were separated by era that the object was found in. From what I could figure out, Sanctuary was less than five years old. There were only objects dated for five years, not that those five years made any difference to me. I couldn’t remember them. I moved to the area that was the most recent and searched for my locket. There were no other lockets on the walls separated by era. I searched, and searched, and couldn’t find it.

I kept walking, until I reached a large group of people standing against one large wall. The wall shone gold from the overhead sun roof and the sun glaring down on the metals hung there. There were thousands of differently shaped pendants hung from chains on nails on this particular wall. At the top read “Lockets.” I stumbled a little as I realized what this wall was. Why all these people were here. They were here to find their locket. I suddenly knew that I wasn’t the only one who didn’t know who she was. They were all here to answer the same question. I felt faint.