Echoes of Lost Hearts

‘So, this is it?’ He thought, before taking another glance at his companion. Despite the fact He had not actually said anything, she nodded. ‘Echoes…’ He would not give her the satisfaction of finishing the thought. They were certainly an odd enough pair of travelers to begin with, a scrap and an echo. He was covered head to toe in what many would call garbage, yet to him it was safety, comfort, home, and she was a wispy quasi-corporeal reflection of a former person. They had come a long way to get here, at least relatively speaking. His life was travel and getting to this ancient concrete skeleton that people once called home from the burnt-out crater she coalesced in was just another drop in the bucket.

She slowly began to half-drift and half-walk towards the entrance. His eyes shot open as He grabbed at the trailing cloth and pulled her back. Her face pushed towards him, and her head cocked. He quickly put a finger over his lips and rolled to the low wall surrounding the building. She watched him and only gently moved to better see him as He crawled, crouched, and occasionally dove into a closer hiding spot. After a significantly longer journey than the few steps to the door would have provided, He reached the entrance, and tossed a small metal cylinder in through the shattered doors. It clanged and rattled inside, before settling into a roll and coming to a slow stop. He nodded to her a few times and entered the massive structure. She let out a sigh and gave the faint impression of a smile as she wafted to and through the door.

The inside was dark and still, it held the intents and memories of a thousand screams, a thousand deaths. It was a somber place whose inhabitants now rested forever in their grand tomb. The maze of man’s lost techniques, of concrete and metal and ancient things woven through this shattered frame. A skeleton of an old hubris which could scrape the sky and tear the clouds, reduced to a shattered, broken shell and reminder, now overgrown with weeds and ivy and even trees, whose roots and vines intermingle with the steel and powdered stone. Though it once served those who built it and owned it, this great shell served no one today, so it would now serve the pair of companions. Its ancient veins which split and twisted from its metal hearts to its shattered and crumbled extremities would be passageways and paths for the two. The air grew heavy with death the higher they climbed, the walls became more solid, and the miasma of rot and decay grew thick.

They continued upward at a relatively comfortable pace, eating away at the daylight which pierced the walls and former windows. He crept along as she drifted through, each curious in their own way, He poked and prodded at torn carpets, into dark holes, at the remnants and bones of the former inhabitants, she hovered near desks, stood and stared out of windows, and seemed to almost converse with the long dead who slept there. As they climbed higher a certain solace grew in the two of them. They had known each other for a while now and known each other at least as well as an echo could know one of the born and vise versa. But here they were, approaching a hopeful end, a bittersweet success and moment of happiness in an otherwise bleak world. The skies burned in a constant tumult of ash, smoke and acid rain. The ground was forever tortured and pained by the remnants of choices made by those now long dead, leaving those who followed to suffer their ill-begotten consequences. Yet despite that, there were moments like this, moments that could draw a smile, shine a light in the darkness.

The two reached the summit, the pinnacle of this mountain of mazelike corridors and bygone memories. The echo hurried forward, and He stood up, finally relaxing as He walked forward, and she arrived at one of the desks. She looked down at the old metal, now rusted and dilapidated, but the surface held the goal. A single golden, heart-shaped locket. She reached forward and touched it, she looked back at him with a smile, He returned the expression and nodded, “Thank you,” she said. Then in a gentle and flowing light He saw the glimpse of her former self: happy, young, beautiful, and smiling bright enough to make someone remember the long-hidden sun. He blinked, and she was gone. She finally got to rest, and He had helped her do so, He walked to the desk, gently picked up the locket, opened it, read the engraving, closed the locket and said quietly, “Agatha, I’m glad I could help you rest; I only ask you help me do the same,” He said, attaching the locket to his pack. He took a deep sigh and smiled, and went on his way, to find someone else to help. If He was forced to live in the dark, He would seek the light, and now the heart-shaped locket would be with him when He did.