Trinkets and Trophies

The guard eyed him curiously from atop the tower gate. A filthy little scavenger was approaching from out of nowhere, all alone. He never saw one approach the gate before. Only running from it, as fast as their spindly legs would carry them. Dirty little feet just a blur. Thanks to him, they never made it far. But this one was approaching, steady and slow. Walking on shoes that were little more than a flap of leather attached to a paper-thin strip of rubber. His clothes were so caked and dirty that they hung stiffly from his scrawny body. His black hair hung in greasy strands over his deep-set eyes. Curious eyes. Overwhelmed. And for good reason. The gate was no place for a child. Fourteen stories tall and stretched to either end of the horizon. At 20-yard intervals, was a tower with armed guards and a 360-degree view. The expansive landscape approaching the gate was a vast, barren wasteland. Cracked, scorched earth stretching for miles without shelter or shade to seek refuge. There could be no ambushing the gate, there was nowhere to hide.

It wasn’t always this way. Before the accident, life was thriving. Green landscapes gently faded into far reaching mountains and serene aqua waters. Beauty beyond measure, life was in balance. But then came the explosions. So big and so powerful, rising up far into the atmosphere, then crashing down in a tidal wave of death, it took only minutes to decimate the world as it was and thrust the remaining survivors into a desperate fight for life. Radiation bled into the ground and poisoned the air. Any life that did survive, was twisted into the darkest form of itself, fighting, always fighting, just to exist. They said that it was an accident; one wayward weapons test gone-wrong triggering strained international relationships into fearfully destroying each other. So they say. But anybody who had any real indication of what happened was irradiated that day. There was nothing left and nobody with a fraction of the truth.

In the beginning, in the days and months after the accident, the people rallied together, united and supporting each other to rebuild, to find hope. But resources were scarce, and it didn’t take long for corruption to sink in. Only small outcroppings of land were inhabitable enough to sustain them. Strange, green spaces that ended abruptly into cracked, decimated earth. Water soon became the currency of the times, and the remaining people were divided, fighting and clawing each other. And so, the gate went up. Right to the edge of the green space, not giving an inch. No longer just a quarrel, the division was physical, and impenetrable; the wealthy from the scavengers. Deceit had the scavengers working side by side with the soon-to-be-wealthy to build it, working together to “protect” the sacred space. But when the gate was erect, the scavengers were forced out and left to die. Without green space to sustain them, small groupings of scavengers sought deep underground wells that produced barely enough water for them to survive day to day. Nobody knew how long the well waters would last. But neither could you risk wandering too far to seek another.

There were rumors about what truly lay beyond the gate, because once you went in, you didn’t come back out. If you were wealthy, you might be allowed in and granted luxuries like clean air, shelter, running water, and daily food. The gate kept the wealthy locked away in a world of order and abundance, safe from the rest of the population seeking freedom and safety. That kind of wealth is mostly unattainable, not even worth dreaming of. The other way to get to the other side of the gate, the only other way, is if you are stolen. Taken and enslaved for whatever purpose the wealthy intended. Or simply killed for sport to ensure the groups wouldn’t become strong enough to cause an uprising. Sometimes there were raids when the guards came through and took people by the dozens. That’s how the boy came to be all alone, how he was left behind.

Night raids on scavenger groups were common, and always seemed to occur on calm nights, when you can finally melt into sleep. It starts with the pops and screams in the distance. And quicker than a flash, everything is chaos and panic to hide, or run. Those that were taken did not return. Nobody ever came back.

After the night she was taken, the boy spent every minute of the months that followed feeling scared and alone. He fought for every scrap of old food, every sip of dirty water. He needed her, his sister. He didn’t care what people said, she could still come back. She was taken alive, and he could return her. He had to. She was the only one that never gave up on him, didn’t leave him or die, and he would never give up on her either.

His favorite memory of her was singing him to sleep, tracing her slender finger across his forehead. It made his eyes heavy, but he would fight sleep just to hear the end of her song. She would always sing about something beautiful and magical. She always left him with hope.

Before she was taken, as soon as she heard the guns and the screams moving in their direction, she managed to hide the one thing of value that brought a glimmer of joy to their dire, miserable lives; her gold locket. When he was very young, on nights when his belly was so empty that he couldn’t sleep despite her songs, she would lay next to him and let him hold the locket, tracing his thumb along the curves and the point of the heart, mesmerized by the delicate click of the lock, closing it again and again. She wore it every minute of her day, swishing it back and forth on its chain while she was lost in thought. He never thought to ask who gave it to her or where she found it. It was simply a part of his beloved sister. The shiny golden treasure completely out of place in their dry, dusty world. A relic from the past that they weren’t supposed to have.

Now, all alone, he woke one morning, just before dawn, months after she was taken, and without a second thought, grabbed the locket and set off toward the gate. It wasn’t hard to find his way, just go in the direction that nobody else is going. Walk in the direction that the others are running from. He’d already become so accustomed to the heat and hunger; he didn’t realize how difficult his trek had become until it was nightfall. By dawn the next day, the gate loomed in the distance.

As he approached, the guard made his way down the spiral steel staircase. His heavy boots clanking and slamming with each step, echoing into the nothingness. A young boy showing up all alone out of nowhere seemed suspicious, but he was too arrogant to feel any worry. He shouldered his heavy weapon as he opened the lower gate door with a deafening slam of iron on iron. The boy flinched. The guard filled the doorway, his menacing presence threatening to explode at any second.

He gathered his courage, but didn’t dare look the guard in the eye. He knew better than to challenge the guns. Looking down, the boy stretched out his arm, fist clenched. He dropped the locket, letting it dangle dramatically from the golden chain wound around his fingers. The locket bounced and swung slightly, glinting in the sunlight. Its glossy finish shining from years of idle polishing by dirty fingers. He waited. The most valuable possession in the world, or so he thought, in exchange for her. This was it. His plan would work and he’d soon be with his sister again. The big plans of a small boy with a trinket…

The guard stepped forward. Greed flashed across his squinting face. The corner of his lip curled up in a mocking smirk. He took another intimidating step forward, and in a voice graveled with dust and spite, asked, “So kid, have you ever met a monster?”

That night, a very different girl wore a lovely, heart-shaped locket. Not because she loved his gesture or because he was generous to her, but because he loved nothing more than to collect his trophies.