Are You Happy?

It was a beautiful day.

The grass was green, every blade of grass the same color--the same shape. No dead grass, no withered flowers, no yellowing leaves.

Emery looked up to the sky; it was blue, with no clouds. Just as it had been yesterday, and the day before that, and the day before that. Cloudless and blue; it was her favorite sky.

There was never any rain, she didn’t like rain. The grass grew anyway, and there was no drought. Nothing died. Emery didn’t like things dying.

Her mother walked across the grass to her; Emery had been alone a moment ago, but her mother was there now. “Hello,” she said, “You’ve woken up.”

“Yes,” Emery said, smiling. She loved her mother.

“It’s a beautiful morning,” her mother said, smiling wide.

Emery nodded. “It always is.”

“Would you like breakfast?”

“Sure.”

Her mother’s smile widened; she walked forward and reached out a hand. The hand went straight through Emery’s shoulder, glitching. The smile faltered; the teeth seemed to lose their brightness.

Emery quickly reached up to the heart-shaped locket at her neck, closing her hand around it. Warming it, clenching it tightly.

Her mother’s hand closed warmly around her shoulder, real once again. She beamed at Emery. “Come inside,” she said; Emery turned around and saw their home, a tidy cottage.

Inside, her brother was waiting. He had cooked them breakfast; biscuits and cheese. Emery’s favorite.

Her brother had the same wide smile as her mother, but his hair was short and brown. He had no cuts, no bruises, no pain; he was safe. She loved her brother.

“Are you happy?” her mother asked, as they ate. “We want you to be happy.”

“I’m happy,” Emery said. Her mother and her brother smiled, ate mechanically, their motions synchronized and inhuman. But she didn’t notice that. There were some things that hurt to notice.

She loved her family.

Her father came in from the other room, barely awake. He always slept in; Emery remembered that from a long time ago. Father slept in every day.

He sat at the table and ate the same way as her mother and her brother--food in the hand, hand to the mouth, chew, smile, repeat.

“I’m going outside,” Emery said.

“Keep the locket warm,” her mother said. “Be careful.”

“I know,” Emery said, rolling her eyes. “I’m nineteen, I can handle myself.” But really she liked the advice, liked that someone cared for her.

She went outside, to the green grass and the blue sky. Birdsong drifted through the field, high and clear.

Then, she heard something else. Something wrong. A rasping sound, jarring in her paradise, speaking of disease and hardship and misery. Emery turned and saw, in the middle of the field, a boy in rags with tangled hair; he looked a little older than her. He was on his knees with one hand on the ground, racked with coughs, hacking hard into his elbow.

Finally, he drew a breath and stopped, panting; blood was left behind on his sleeve.

“Not again,” he muttered.

Emery walked closer; the boy didn’t seem to notice her. He was standing up, dusting himself off. He was dirty and covered in cuts and bruises.

“H-hello?” she said.

He looked up at her, then frowned. “What?”

His eyes were blue, bright blue. She knew them, she’d seen them before. Her heart seemed to stop, then speed up rapidly; the grass and the sky wavered and for a moment she saw a dingy concrete house and a floor covered in bugs and a lonely city of the dead outside.

She couldn’t speak.

“Em?” he said concernedly. “How can I see you? You’re supposed to be inside the locket..”

She wasn’t in a locket, how would she be? She was in a meadow, surrounded by the grass. Her family was up in the cottage, eating breakfast.

But she wasn’t in a meadow, she was in an ugly, hard bunker. And her family was dead, beaten to death by the mobs. Her mother was dead, bones in a grave. Her brother had been beheaded. Her father had been shot, a long, long time ago, when she was a little girl and the mobs still had guns.

Emery stepped forward, and her foot landed on concrete covered with dirt. “Asher,” she said.

“You can see me, too?” he said, bewildered. His forehead creased. “Wait--is it not working? The locket?”

“Asher,” she whispered, “where am I?”

“Just hold it in your hand,” he said, stepping towards her and gesturing to the locket in the dim light of the ugly bunker. “Warm it up. It will take you back and hold you inside.”

Instead of clenching the locket, she reached out and took his hand. Something inside her was hurting, a terrible grief. “I don’t--I can’t remember--help me, Asher--”

She thought she could see tears well up in his eyes, but he placed her hand gently on the heart-shaped locket. “Hold it tight, keep it closed. You love your family.”

As her hand touched the locket, the bunker disappeared and she was back in the meadow. The birds began to chirp, like a memory being played again and again.

A transparent image of Asher was standing once again in the field before her, glitching in and out of existence. Some of his bruises had healed, and he had some she didn’t remember--maybe, several days had gone by for him.

Something hit him in the chest and he stumbled backward, then swung his fist and hit thin air. He was shouting at someone, and gesturing towards something behind him.

A fist swung out of the air and slammed him in the face. For a moment, his opponent was visible--a man with a deep gash in his face.

Emery stepped towards them, but the locket stung her neck and they disappeared.

Her father came out from behind her. “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing.”

“You aren’t happy.”

“Go away.”

“We want you to be happy.”

Emery shook her head, blinking hard. “I think…Asher’s dying.”

Her father frowned. “Asher is safe,” he said. “Happy. We have an Asher. We can bring him for you.”

“What?”

Her father gestured to something behind her.

She turned.

Asher was standing there--or at least a facsimile of him, wearing a glazed smile and vacant blue eyes. “Hello, Em,” he waved mechanically. “I’m safe. Does this make you happy?”

Emery screamed. She screamed and turned and ran away from them, while they held out their cold hands to hold her back. Her feet crunched in the grass and tears stung her eyes--

Emery woke up.

She was in her bed, staring at the ceiling.

Emery was downstairs. Her mother was smiling at her. She loved her family. Her family was all around her.

Her family was dead.

So--who were they?

Emery looked at her family and screamed.

She was in her bed.

She went downstairs. Her mother smiled at her. “You’ve had a nightmare.”

“No,” said Emery.

“It’s breaking down,” her brother said, to her mother.

“Yes.” Her mother turned to Emery. “Breathe on it. Hold it closed.”

Emery stared blankly. Her mind seemed thick and sluggish.

Hold it closed.

She looked down at the locket in her hand. A red enamel heart, with gold designs fencing it in. Hinges on one side, a clasp on the other. A gold chain around her neck.

Emery forced her fingernail between the sides of the locket. Her mother and her brother stood up simultaneously, the smiles wiped from their faces. “No!”

She pried the clasp open.

There was a bright flash of light; it tore through the world, leaving gashes in the faces of her family, bringing the cottage to ruins, tearing the sky to shreds--

Emery was floating above an alleyway, the thug from earlier sitting against a wall, holding the locket. “Help me,” he whispered.

Emery hit the ground as the locket exploded. The force slammed the thug’s body against the wall.

She was standing on the road.

“The locket,” said the thug, dazed. “I stole it…needed to be happy…what happened?”

“They’re dead,” Emery said. She walked away, leaving him with the charred shell of the locket. The stars were bright in the black sky, the skyscrapers loomed in ruins above her, the road was cracked beneath her feet.

She found the bunker. Her feet knew the way, she found the opening. Inside, Asher was sprawled on the ground.

“Hi,” she said.

He opened his eyes, looking astonished. “Em? I’m sorry--he took it--I couldn’t--”

“I destroyed it,” she said.

“What?” He tried to lift himself up on his elbow, but fell back to the ground with a grunt of pain.

“It was…bad, Asher.”

“It took away the pain. It was to help you, because your brother begged me to help you--”

“I didn’t want it,” she told him. “It was like…a drug.”

“If we could afford those, I would take them!” Asher shouted. “Anything to stop the pain. You know that, you always reminded me. You pleaded for the locket. I let you keep it--I never took a turn--a year and a half of guarding you--”

“I’ve changed,” she said. “So many lies--I want reality.”

“No,” he said grimly, “you don’t. You’ve forgotten. So long in the locket.”

Emery felt a chill down her spine. “Nothing is worse than lies, Asher. The fake family--the strangers that the locket created from my mind--you can’t understand.”

“You’re the one who doesn’t understand,” he said in that same hard voice. Outside, someone screamed.

“What was that?”

“When you came here,” he said, “the streets were empty?”

“Yeah.”

“You barely made it,” he told her.

Emery glanced at the door, frightened. “What’s out there??”

“Look outside,” he said, jerking his head towards the door. “Open it a crack.”

She walked slowly to the door, then pulled it slightly open. A few buildings away, she could see the glow of fire and the crowd of people. She could hear the screams and the laughter.

“They put people in giant pots and cover them with wood and kindling,” Asher said. “Then, they throw in a torch. It’s how they eat.”

Nausea hit Emery like a punch to the stomach.

“Close it.”

She shut the door and barred it.

“They’ll come this way soon,” he said. “You can’t fight them off; hide. Stay quiet. Maybe they won’t find us.”

She nodded silently.

“Are you sure you’ve lost the locket for good? We can try to get it back--”

“No,” she said. “I opened it. I let the healing out. It’s useless now.”

“You idiot,” he said, tiredly.

“Wasn’t I vulnerable, in the locket?”

“Yes. That’s what I was for.”

Emery frowned. “You protected me for that long?”

“You were inside a locket. Not hard to keep an eye on. Your brother begged me to take care of you--the last thing he said before they--”

“Don’t say it,” Emery said.

He sighed.

“My brother was in the locket,” she said. “But he wasn’t real.”

“At least you could talk to him.”

“No. It wasn’t him.” She paused. “He was only a memory, Asher. The truth is better than the hollow echo the locket made.”

“The truth kills you,” Asher said. He was still lying on the floor, bleeding. Possibly sick with the plague.

“Maybe,” Emery said. “But at least you remember who you are.”

“I wish I didn’t,” Asher said with a dry, pained humor. “If you had to ditch the locket, couldn’t you have given it to me?”

Emery didn’t answer. She found a blanket and put it over him; it didn’t help much, but at least he wasn’t cold. The mob came outside, as Asher had said. She sat and shivered; Asher kept groaning painfully in his sleep, and somehow that hurt more than the screams of the faceless victims outside.

So much pain.

Maybe Asher was right--numbness was better than pain.

But maybe he was wrong.

She closed her eyes and fell asleep to the sound of people dying.