All Because of a Silver Locket

All Because of a Silver Locket

Trapped in my own little world, as I laid asleep in my bed dreaming of a beautiful world full of love, happiness, and freedom. I imagined my wings unfolding and taking flight in the beautiful sky. The birds were so graceful, you wouldn’t think they were real animals. Then suddenly the skies filled with dark, angry clouds, and all of the birds disappeared. I awakened to the all too familiar snipping sound of the surgeon pinioning my wings. Fear filled my entire body to the tips of my wings. Before I could stop it, I was falling endlessly into the dark abyss. The clouds thundered loudly and lightning so close I was sure I would be stuck.

Just as the lightning hit, I awoke and shot up as fast as a hare. I accidentally slammed my head on the roof of my home.

“Curse all the pixies!”, I yelled.

Never did I ever think my head could hurt so badly. I gingerly grazed my finger against the lump on my forehead and knew immediately knew this was going to leave a mark. I looked out of my window and saw the usual officers near the sugar maple tree in our yard, talking amongst one another and showing off their guns. Just a bunch of stupid toddlers with guns, I thought to myself. They were the ones who reported my family for having a hybrid child, me, that had hidden wings. None of my other siblings seemed to be hybrids as they were able to hide it, but I gave it all away. I always had rabbit ears, a cottontail, and soft black wings. A week later, I was sent to an unfamiliar place where they were clipped so I could no longer fly.

Hybrids are illegal in all states. If one is found, then they either had to be put down or the parents would have to pay a fine of three hundred dollars for each hybrid child. As I thought about all of this, I absentmindedly fiddled with my silver locket. It was beautifully made. The locket was heart-shaped and had a tree pattern on it. I got it from my grandmother when I was 8 years old, only a week before she reached the legal age limit of fifty-three. My parents said that’s the age they put you down. She could still be alive today if it weren’t for that stupid age limit law. I still hate the government for taking her away from me.

I opened the locket and pressed the hologram button. The hologram was a large reason why we weren’t allowed to have free speech. Free speech meant a better understanding of how inhumanely we were treated. Realization leads to a rebellion and rebellion meant danger to the government’s plan for us.

As I ran through my thoughts, I finished getting ready for school. I put the hologram away and placed the locket around my neck. I felt nervous because the officers outside might demand that I show them the locket and what is inside. I would be taken away from my family if they knew what was hidden in plain sight. Who knows where I would end up? Jail maybe, or the pound, or worse. Killed on sight.

I took a deep breath, opened the door, and walked outside. Leaving the safety of my home behind. One of the officers noticed me walking down the cracked sidewalk.

“Hey, little girl! What are you doing?”, the first officer called out.

I was infuriated at the thought of being called a little girl. I was fifteen years old and they knew that! Had they not been stationed at my home for the past seventeen years?

“I just want to go to school and learn. Is that too much to ask?”, I calmly replied.

“Nice locket you have, little girl. What’s in it?”, the officer asked.

“Yeah, for all we know it could be a bomb or drugs even.” The second officer scoffed.

“Nothing much,” I replied calmly as I held the locket in one hand, feeling over the tree pattern across the outside.

“It is broken. There is a little button inside, but nothing happens when you push it.” I tried to remain calm, but I was shaking on the inside as I realized I was talking too much and that the ‘broken button’ really isn’t broken.

“If so, then let us see it.” Demanded the first officer.

“No,” I replied blankly.

“Pardon?”, the second officer asked in a state of confusion.

“I SAID NO!” I yelled angrily at them.

“Why not? If it is just a broken button, then why not?” The first officer asked.

“Because. My grandma gave it to me, and you are just going to steal it like you stole my sister’s choker.” I squeaked.

“Give it, or else!” the first officer demanded.

I noticed that the officers all had their batons out and were inching closer to me. ‘They’re going to kill me like they killed Stephanie,’ I thought to myself. I could hear my heart pounding and I was now visibly shaking.

Without thinking I blurted out, “NO! Not for all of the pixie dust in the world! Not until the ocean turns into cocoa beans! Not until my kind are treated humanely!”

I regretted saying it. Immediately after blurting it out, I felt the batons of all 5 officers start whaling on me. Soon enough, bones broke, and I could see blood everywhere. Before I passed out, I remember saying to the officers, “You may seem above everyone else, but everything in a garden has its place, and you are just a speck of dirt.”

Everything went blurry and then dark. I could see my grandmother’s gentle face smiling and next to her were Sophie and Alice, two of my sisters who were killed by these same officers. My life flashed before my eyes. The memory that lasted the longest was the day I got my wings clipped. It was illegal to have wings of any sort. They meant free transportation. Free transportation led to the government losing money, so a new law was made. The law said every ‘citizen’ with wings had to have them pinioned by age three.

I was nine. I was waiting in a dingy, poorly lit room with chairs for my turn to get my wings clipped. I was fidgeting with the locket after refusing to give it to the officer there. My mom, dad, and other seven siblings had to go before me since I was the youngest. Each of them went into the surgeon’s room in the hospital nervously. When they came back out their wings were bandaged, and their face was a grimace of pure pain and hopelessness. The surgeon wasn’t using any numbing medicine or giving them anything for pain before clipping their wings.

Once it was my turn, the surgeon told me, “This is your last chance to give us the locket. Just hand it over and quit the fussing.”

I shook my head to said no as he glared at me with his eyes masked for surgery. I sat down in the chair they ushered me to. They strapped my winds into place. I was confused and unsure why since the antiseptic smell was making me a bit dizzy. All I knew for sure was that the pain killer was supposed to be injected into my wing base to numb them up enough to be pinioned. They didn’t give me anything. To make it worse, they had to cut it slowly as that they could ensure they cut it accurately. I held the locket for dear life and could see my knuckles turn white as snow. The pain was so awful, I had to grit my teeth and chew the insides of my cheeks so that I didn’t scream. I refused to give them that satisfaction.

Once the bandage was on my wing, I fainted and felt my blood and my soul seep out of my injured body as I fainted and fell to the floor and this memory ends. All this for standing up for what’s right. I just hope I don’t die without changing one person’s mind about how my kind was treated.