Path Finder

My fingers tremble as I press a grime-covered thumbnail against the clasp to open her locket. Shuddering, the breath I hold escapes with a soft hiss from between my lips. The dim light flits across the dull, pounded-silver surface embossed with a dragonfly as the heart-shape pops open.

Tears blur my vision and I wipe a ragged jacket sleeve across my eyes as I attempt to focus.

Am I waiting too long?

Usually, Path Finders get counseling to learn their roles. Due to the pandemic, G'Ma insisted my training started early, at age nine. Still, we'd barely scraped the basics of how each Path Finder inherits a locket capable of giving this world another chance before she contracted and lost her life to the virus. Mam continued my education for another few months before she too was struck down. The heart-shaped locket would “reset” time and matter to conditions similar to 3 hundred years or so in the past. There is just one small detail ; this eliminates all current life on earth. Unfortunately, both G'Ma and Mam died before my tenth birthday. They left me with an idea as to my role, but nothing so specific as I felt their own training held. To me, it was more like guidelines.

I know it won't work if all plant and animal life are extinguished, or even close to extinct. My focus drops to the battered cobblestones of the courtyard. Pale, malnourished weeds follow the creases in the paving stone's pattern where the sand was tamped down between bricks. Hell, at the far end, a ragged yellow blossom droops, but bravely holds it's head up to the thin rays of the sun.

A bit past the blossom, crates form ad-hock tables for the daily rations. Human scarecrows shuffle in a crooked line ahead of me, their pale hands clutch ration bowls to chest and their eyes are dim, most seeming over-large with sunken eye-sockets behind skin stretched tight over facial bones lacking any padding.

Flies buzz above the crates, roaches, mice and an occasional cat scramble around below.

Plant and animal life. Check.

Enough? That question haunts my ability to decide.

The line ahead of me shifts forward and I take a step, dutifully keeping six-foot social distance second nature to me since the pandemic of my childhood. G'Ma's soft voice floats across fifteen years of memory in warning. “You may very well be the last Path Finder. If you don't determine to reset before it's too late, this future will end along with all of mankind.”

I'm sure it wasn't her intent but that warning, given as G'Ma handed over her silver locket, was responsible for many, many sleepless nights.

I bite my lower lip and press the small slit in the side of the locket to open the fake face-plate painted with Mam's likeness. Nestled in the exposed recess is the button.

It looks so innocuous. About the size of a button on one of the useless TV remotes scattered around abandoned homes in the city. A wry chuckle escapes my lips. It's transparent. You'd think something able to reset the world would be red. A bright red, like fresh blood splashing across slashed throats of the latest dissenters. Or maybe the red in that flag. The one outlawed a few years after Mam died. Red, White and Blue. Hardiness and valor was what they taught us the red in the flag symbolized. Allowing my gaze to travel up from the locket, my frail, thin hands and wispy arms did not bring to mind the term hardy.

No, clear is more appropriate. I feel empty, bereft of even a tiny shred of hope. I wish I knew. Knew if it's time to give up on all the positive advancements and accept the bad outweighs the good.

The miasma swirling through the sky almost completely obscures the weak rays of the sun as a low grumbling draws my gaze to the horizon. Damn, those look like actual rain clouds. I can't remember the last time it rained. The tumbled-down buildings hunching around the courtyard amplify slowly increasing noises of an imminent storm. People in line murmur whispers of concern, eyes darting skyward and down the length of the line. The line shuffles forward and I follow suit. A brisk breeze brushes my face and a few large raindrops splatter the ground around me. Horizontal lightening streaks the sky and the electrical charge in the air draws goosebumps up my arms.

My thumb-pad strokes the button. For so long now I've weighed options. Daily, evidence this version of the world's path is dying builds. Almost rotting under it's own weight, this path pulls mankind into a black hole of despair and suffering. It's just so hard to commit to total destruction of everyone and everything in hopes there is enough material to facilitate a rebuild, AND that the next path will be better.

A child near the front of the line breaks free from her Mam and bolts forward. “I'm hungry.” the little girl whines, reaching for one of the dirty-brown ration packets. The guard's face barely registers he considers her human as his sword arcs to slash the toddler's throat. A shocked scream rents the quiet as the girl's Mam pulls her dying daughter into her arms. Bystanders simply move pass the woman as she sobs, the lifeless body growing pale in her grasp. I step out of line, rushing forward to kneel beside the woman.

“Back in line.” The guard inserts his bloodstained sword between me and the sobbing woman. Hair on my arm stand on end and the heart-shaped locket starts buzzing, lightning is about to strike very close.

I draw in a deep breath tainted with the metallic taste of the child's blood and rise to my feet. I can't stand anymore. If it is too late, so be it. Praying it's valor and not foolishness, I press the button.....