Sean Martin Maloney

Before The War

In the heated moments between doomsday and love lost forever, there was a heart-shaped locket. It would have been easy enough to forget, to just let things go, but that locket meant everything to someone. This particular locket, the same locket that would be clutched in the hand of the Dictator of Eurasian America after the nuclear holocaust, costed Phoenix Smith more then he wanted to admit. It had taken 15 years to be able to save up the hundred thousand dollars that Dr. Smith spent on the locket, and he had intended to use it to visit his family in Brazil. 15 years away from family, without so much as a WhatsApp text, or phone call, and it would finally have all been worth it. He left to make it in NYC, to prove himself when all he had ever been was nominal. He had gotten a job as a Doctor, and between college loans, private everyday expenses, and his girlfriend Penny Jones, he was able to save up only twenty to thirty thousand a year. Penny had also been pining after a heart shaped locket in one of the most affluent jewelry stores in the borough of Manhattan, and it was expensive enough as is.