A Heart to Share

Their eyes open up as everything begins to settle down. The rumbles are no longer present and the environment has grown dark once again. The being’s gentle face looks around the room, eyes slowly adjusting to the lighting change. She rubs her eyes to try and focus, but her movement has only caught the attention of her peers.

The area has muted colors. Long since the vibrancy that was here many years ago. The singing and playing have quelled, silence and creaking taking their place. Cracks alter the fair complexions that the people once had, and clothing looking more thin and dull than the lively nature it was intended for.

Murmuring is heard around the room. Eventually, someone gets up and wanders toward the girl holding a locket the size of her palm. “Ever since you found that darned thing, you’ve been making this area more monitored. The fact that no one here has reported you, Anne, speaks volumes,” the person sighs at Anne, “but we could never do something like that to one of our sisters. Just, be careful with that. You know that it’s important to them. If they find that here, who knows what will happen to us?”

“That’s why I’m going to take it back. If they know that we are willing to help them, then we may be given a sort of preferential treatment. You know that it’s happened before, so why not again?” Anne looks at the locket, its golden sheen lightly reflecting her face. It was worn. The brightness in her eyes seemed more dull and her smile was more faded, but she knew that this was too good of an opportunity to pass up.

A brief hug was had between the two, and Anne was off. She looked in front of her, a large wall was keeping them locked in. She went forth and ran her hand along the length of the wall, splinters occasionally stabbing into her. She pulled them out without a care and began to look around the ward with more care, trying to find something to use to scale the barrier. Anne eventually found a few short metal poles, those would have to work. There isn’t a lot of time left.

Poles stabbing into the wood, Anne slowly ascended. First a few feet, then higher and higher as she climbed her way up. Progress was shortly haltered by a familiar feeling, an earthquake. Those had been increasingly prominent, and quite dangerous. One that Anne had previously been friends with recently broke her arm because of such quakes. Being this high up meant a lot of risk was possible, but continuing on she went. Anne looked down at the dangling locket around her neck and kept forward, convincing herself with only determination and the fear of failure that this was actually worth it. Sure, she could have just stayed comfortable with her sisters, but that would just lead to them being more forgotten than they already were. More wastes of resources that could have been allocated elsewhere.

She reaches the top and slides one of the poles into a small hole at the top of a dome on the wall, slowly prying it open. Locking the poles together, Anne wriggles onto the wall, looking out. Everything had changed so much. The environment was no longer familiar. “Was this worth it?” Anne thought. Afterall, there was only the slightest of chances of something happening. If all this effort had gone to waste, then everyone back home would be forced to stay in their silent and compliant trance. Unable to feel the joys that they were made for.

Lost in thought, Anne kept looking out on top of the wall. She didn’t recognize anything anymore. The poles keeping the dome up began to wobble and soon broke, causing it to fall on top of Anne.

It felt like the stuffing had been knocked out of her. Anne looked down, seeing the ground far below and the locket. Its shine even brighter out here, but mirrored only the situation that Anne was caught in. She was trapped with no conceivable way out. Tears failed to come to her eyes as she looked at her reflection. There was a total loss of words, and eventually she closed her eyes, waiting for unconsciousness to hit her.

“There you are. I’ve been looking all over for this locket. Why are you on my old doll?”

A young woman grabbed the locket off of her doll’s necklace and donned it herself, opening it to see an old picture of her grandmother.

“I.. should take you with me. Grandma would’ve liked it. And afterall, I may need the luck you brought me while at college.” The woman opened the old toy chest and held Anne, leaving the room.

“How did you get up there though. I remember that being closed about an hour ago.”