The Heart Shaped Locket

1

Public speaking, a dreaded task Torre never fully embraced. He had no choice but to own it that day… per usual. Observing himself in the mirror, his lean frame had grown noticeably thinner over the past six months… at least it seemed that much time had passed in his head. It had been 9 months since he learned about the cancerous cells spreading throughout his body. Shadows? Bags? The gaunt face staring at him in the mirror was a constant reminder of the inevitable, leaving him in a constant state of curiosity.

“Stephen are you alright?”

It was Tye standing in the frame of the bathroom door located a couple meters behind Stephen. Torre recognized the voice questioning its sincerity. He returned Tye's inquisitive demeanor, not bothering to turn around, choosing to use the mirror as his medium of reply.

“I can feel it creeping closer and closer.”

Tye's obsessive admiration for Torre had always been apparent.

“Me as well,” Tye responded. He was referring to Torre's resignation ceremony. “I’m honored you're choosing me as your replacement.”

The outbreak of cancer was growing at an alarming rate. It was growing tougher for Torre to conceal his diagnosis. The public was beginning to take note and Tye was no exception.

“I hope you’re not resigning for the wrong reasons.”

“Outsiders have no right to question my decisions, being a CEO requires the ultimate discernment when making life changes,” Torre was more sluggish than usual.

“You haven’t been looking your best lately Stephen. You seem more lethargic with each passing day. “

Develop Tech was one of the last privately owned biological development companies. It was most known for its developments in brain research, but with reports of a new strain of cancer jumping from person to person at such a rapid pace, every Develop Tech employee had been urged to focus their efforts on dismantling this epidemic. The public was relying on Develop Tech more than ever before.

“Normally I'd impress my will, but fighting cancer has stressed my mental health more than I can bare. Finding a cure for this monster seems impossible. I’m stepping down and allowing life to take its course.”

“I've always stood behind you, and today's no different.”

After patting Torre on the back, Tye exited to the backstage area. Torre followed, but not before he felt comfortable knowing he was making the best decision.

2

Will it peek? An analyst on the television was asking the question everyone wanted the answer to. Each passing day brought about more concern as global rumors began to arise surrounding the population's decline. It was rumored that a wealthy group of sinister individuals was somehow aiding the spread of this new strain of cancer to control the number of people within certain regions of the country. As a result, Develop Tech was reaching its breaking point and Torre's absence was tolling. The anxious woman watching the program was Tristan Torre, Stephen's wife. She was growing more uncertain considering Torre had been in the hospital for weeks. The date was June third, exactly one month following his resignation from Develop Tech. The time on the clock read 8:37 PM when the nurse entered the lobby, wasting no time in bearing the news to Mrs. Torre.

“I'm sorry,” the nurse said while looking at Mrs. Torre as compassionately as she could express.

Although the words weren’t physical, Tristan felt defeated in every sense of the meaning causing her to collapse. She wasn’t prepared to hear news of that magnitude more than once in her life. Her mother passed from heart cancer two years prior. She found herself silently repeating the inscription engraved inside of the heart shaped locket attached to her necklace. She'd been clutching the heirloom the entire time. Feeling the subtle vibration from her purse, she was forced to grab her phone instead. It was a text from her brother Mark responding to Torre's passing. The text read, “Passing through Spokane. Meet you at house later. Leave door open.” Tristan began typing but was suddenly interrupted by a phone call. The screen was showing Tye Parker's name.

3

Making their way down the driveway of the Torre residence, Tristan decided to text her brother Mark. “Just got home / Tye drove/ Back door will be unlocked like always,” Tristan wrote. Before stepping out of the vehicle, she glanced at the clock located on the dashboard. It showed 11:13 PM.

“I'll walk you in,” Tye said as he turned off the vehicle.

Suddenly she was overcome by a sense of unease. She brushed it off as her trying to grasp her future without Stephen, but for some reason Tristan was uncertain as to whether Torre was the primary source of her anxiety in that moment. Suppressing her intuition, she exited the vehicle without showing any resistance to his “offer “. As they exchanged goodbyes at the front door, Tye was standing closer than usual.

“Mind if I stay for a drink?”

Tristan didn’t know his intentions and her anxiety was screaming from the inside, disrupting her nervous system nearly making it visible.

“Not tonight, thank you for the ride home,” she responded.

Tye wasn’t budging and she knew he didn’t want to, she turned around anyways. As she began to unlock the front door of the house, she felt an immense force delivering a blow to her back. She fell forward into the house and fought to regain her balance as quickly as possible. Running into the kitchen she heard the front door slammed shut behind her and she didn’t bother to look back. Finding nowhere to run, they wound up face to face in the kitchen and Tristan realized she was cornered. Tye’s adoration of Tristan was equal if not more obsessive than his admiration for Torre. She wondered how she had let him get this far considering she had never felt comfortable in Tye's presence. Looking into Tye's greedy eyes in that moment gave her more clarity than she'd wished for. He wanted to take her by force, he wanted his way with her, and his awareness of her deathly resistance forced him to end her life. He didn’t kill her due to hatred, he killed her because he knew that he'd never be able to exist coping with the fact that his one desire didn’t share a mutual lust.

4

As he walked alongside the house, Mark was having trouble maneuvering through the pitch. Scattered throughout Torre's estate, the fir trees projected melancholy shadows, striping the full moon above. He was more aware of the lights gazing at him from inside of the house. It was half past midnight when he entered the house through the back door. He followed the light into the kitchen and stopped. Being a former marine, Mark was no stranger to death, but he’d never expected to see another murder after permanently deserting the battlefield. His mind began racing, every trauma he’d ever experienced surfaced within a few seconds, causing an immediate sense of guilt. Seeing the heart shaped locket attached to the necklace around Tristan's neck broke an emotional boundary he couldn’t enforce any longer. He knew who the culprit was and it seemed like only five seconds had passed in the event of him grabbing the necklace, speeding to Tye's home, and bursting into the door of the master bedroom at 1:00 AM sharp. As Mark watched Tye and Tye's wife try to escape, he didn’t see two human beings begging for mercy. What Mark saw was an enemy betraying his ally, turning against everything he loved. He ended them both in seconds feeling as if he were experiencing combat all over again. In the next moment, Mark was brought to the realization that he was holding the weapon to his own head. His realization was forced by a loud thump coming from another room in the house. He panicked and ended his own life.

5

Twenty eight years had passed since the death of Stephen Torre and Develop Tech altogether. Tyler Parker was in the process concluding his acceptance speech at the annual Gold Ceremony. He'd won an award for curing the strain of cancer that had ravaged the human population for nearly three decades.

“For years I wasn’t able to fathom losing such precious lives to a heartless entity of that kind. This is dedicated to the countless times an individual has broken in silence with no place to turn, when everyone is nowhere to be found. I accepted my “fate", as some would call it, in the darkest days for a countless number of years. But acceptance was the key part in understanding the bigger picture, and when I realized that, I began enforcing instead of accepting. I challenge each of you to let those negatives force you into improvement. Take the self doubt and realize your worth, understand your power. The same way I’ve allowed cancer, death, and murder to mold me into the cure, I challenge you to let the worst scenarios bring out the best in you.”

The crowd stood in roaring applause. The pure feeling of bliss and euphoria was emanating from every single person in attendance. An overwhelming sense of accomplishment brought Tyler to tears. He peered into the audience, spotting his family tucked along the left wall, closer to the front of the auditorium. Seeing his son reminded Tyler of when he watched his father take over as CEO of Develop Tech. He was only eleven at the time, and the circumstances were much more dreary during Torre's resignation. He never knew he'd be the one to end all of the terror that occurred, it seemed impossible. The heart shaped locket hanging from his daughter's neck caught his attention and suddenly he felt the words resonating deep within his soul. He uttered to himself, loud enough so only he could hear.

“Love is the cure.”