The Gift

I suppose it would be best to start by explaining how we even got to this point so there is an understanding of how the world is the way it is now. I woke up and prepared to head to work just like any other day of my predictable life. My life as Gwen gossip columnist by day and boring homebody by night. Little did I know my life would become anything but predictable. Who would have thought that everything in the world as we knew it would get turned upside down by a simple piece of jewelry? So, like I said, it was a normal day, I got ready for work and arrived at the office fifteen minutes early like I did every day. I made myself a cup of coffee with the normal vanilla creamer no sugar. I sat down to start working on editing my first article of that day so it would be submitted to the editor before lunch time. When the world was normal, I wrote for a newspaper in my city. I loved writing from the moment I learned how and even though I was writing articles about scandals of our local socialites, which I did not particularly like to be a gossip, I was still writing and that is all that mattered.

On this day I wrapped up my article and decided I needed a little retail therapy during my lunch break. Writing about our mayor and his mistress running off on a tropical getaway made my head hurt from how meaningless it was to me. I often stepped into a little antique store three blocks from my office to see what new oddities they had acquired. Today I was greeted warmly by a tall slender man I had never seen in the store before. His face was long, and he had wrinkles that gathered around the corners of his brightly colored blue eyes. You could tell they had formed from smiling because when he smiled at me the same wrinkles remained unmoved. What I found even more odd was he greeted me by name, I think he could tell that it startled me, and he proceeded to mention that his brother James, the owner of the shop spoke of me often and he knew it had to be me because of my tightly curled jet-black hair and hazel eyes. He motioned for me to come to the jewelry counter as he had a special piece his brother wanted him to show me. I walked over and felt strangely comfortable and familiar in his presence.

As I stood in front of the counter, he pulled out a small red box and inside was a beautiful rose gold locket in the shape of a heart and attached to a dainty rose gold chain. I knew the moment I laid my eyes on this beautiful locket with small roses engraved on every inch of it I had to have it. I asked him how much it was, and he grinned and said, “consider it a gift, but it is only a gift under one condition.” I looked at him perplexed and said, “okay? What it the condition?” He said, “no matter what, you must never open it, no matter how tempting it may be this locket must remain forever unopened and one day you can pass it down to someone new to take care of and share the same stipulation with them.” Although the request seemed silly, I agreed because I had to have it. I felt as if there was a magnetic force that drew me to this locket, and it would be impossible to walk away from it. He handed me the box with the locket inside and I took it out and placed it around my neck running two of my fingers over the intricate rose engravings and smiled feeling content and at peace.

Later that day I had since arrived home from my long day at work and was lounging in my favorite chair listening to what ever came on the local radio station. The day had flown by, and I could barely even recall what I did after leaving the antique store. I sat and wondered why the gentleman was so adamant about me never opening the locket and thought it was quite silly to even request such a thing. I removed my necklace and studied every inch of the locket I held in my hands. I pondered why it was so important never to open it and wondered what would happen if I did. My curiosity was so peaked that I could not resist, I put my fingernail of my thumb between the two sides of the locket and applied a small amount of pressure and heard the small click as it popped open with ease. The moment the locket split open I felt as if the temperature in my living room had dropped 20 degrees and a chill ran down my spine. A feeling of dread and sadness came upon me, and I could not help but feel completely drained of my once warm and fuzzy happy feelings it felt as though I held all the sadness and hate in the world in my soul. I immediately clasped the locket shut and began crying, I regretted opening it, but it was too late to turn back now. I decided to go to bed hoping the experience was all in my head, I closed my eyes and dozed off when suddenly I was awoken by the sound of sirens. I looked over at my bedside table and my digital clock was off and looking around my room there was not one light shining in the entire room. I groggily stood up and walked over to my window which was on the second story of my house and saw dozens of cars at a standstill up and down the streets with their lights on but not a human being in sight. I ran to pick up my cell phone and it was fortunately charged but had no signal. I began to feel panicked and was trying to decide what to do having no idea what was even going on. I decided that I needed to get out of my pajamas and grab the necessities and when morning came, I would venture out to see if I could decipher what had happened.

I hastily packed whatever I thought I might need while I ventured out to see why there were so many unattended vehicles in the streets. But how does one prepare for something when they do not even really know what is going on. Regardless I set out to decipher the world around me. Little did I know I would wander for hours that day and not find one person. I entered offices and stores to find everything left as it had likely been the day before, as though people were there one moment going about their normal lives and poof vanished into thin air. But how? And then I thought to myself, could it be the aftermath of opening my beautifully detail locket? No, this is impossible! Insane to even consider that opening a locket would make people just vanish, right? It started to get dark, and I decided it would be best to go home to the comfort of my home and decide what to do next. As I sat in my favorite chair gazing into the flame of the candle sitting on my coffee table watching it flicker and dance in the darkness my mind was racing. I had no way of contacting any of my family or even getting to them with how congested the roads were with the empty cars.

Somehow, I managed to sleep that night and when I woke up the next morning, I walked over to my bedroom window to find that all the vehicles that lined the streets were covered in large green vines. Had I slept longer than I thought? I was slightly confused and walked onto my front lawn to find every single home on my street was also covered in these large vines, every single house that is except mine. Overnight the whole world had become even more desolate looking, and I knew in my heart that there had to be someone else out there, so my next step was to find someone else. I do not know how long I can handle being alone and it had only been a couple days. I ventured out again but this time I packed more than the day before and I walked to the edge of town, which was not very far since our city was small. And when I reached the edge, I walked to a car that seemingly sat waiting for me. The keys were inside, and the tank was full and the road beyond the city was clear and wide open.

I started the car and started to drive, where was I going? No clue, but I was determined to find another human being somewhere out there. I drove for a few hours and realized the tank was starting to get a bit low, I had driven through a couple of the small towns that neighbored my city and those too were empty, with cars scattered about covered in thick vines and the same with the houses and buildings. I decided to try and stop in the next town I came across and fill up the gas tank. It only took about thirty minutes before I came to the that stopping point. I parked the car at a gas pump and walked into the gas station and wandered around not finding a sign of any living thing in sight. I grabbed some snacks and a case of water and walked around the counter to turn on the pump to fill up my vehicle. I also grabbed a few gas cans and filled them just in case.

I figured it would be best if I found a house to take shelter for the night because it would be getting dark soon. I started to head into the heart of the town and explore. I also gathered supplies while exploring the small downtown shops that lined the main street of this town. I finally came across a small house that seemed to be the perfect place to settle for the night. I pulled my car into the garage and went around and secured the windows and doors. I had managed to find some lanterns in one of the shops and set them up around the house to give myself light through the darkness of the night. I was sitting at the dining table of this house mapping out my journey for the next day and something in the distance caught my eye. It was a light! Was I imagining this? Maybe it was a car that was left on and there was no one and I am just being too hopeful. Instead of venturing out in the dark I decided it would be best to go look in the morning. I slept very lightly that night because I could not get the small light in the distance out of my head.

When morning came, I loaded up my car and started driving in the direction I saw the light the night before. Now not only had large vines grown over everything, but beautiful bright red flowers had also begun to bloom from these vines. Every inch of the town was covered in vines but there was a clear path on the main road as if beckoning me in the direction of where the light had been. That is when I saw it, a beautiful house with a blue roof and gray siding completely clear of any vines just as mine had been.