The Locket and the Revolution

As the rain pounded on the metal roofs of the shacks in the ghetto, Princess Hadria sat alone in her room, which was larger than any house in the worst part of the most decrepit little town. She had been there for months on end, unable to even look out the window without risking her life. The window, which was now covered by thick wood planks, overlooked what used to be a beautiful garden that she and her older sister, Alex, would play in together. Hadria stood up and glanced at a picture of her that rested in a frame on her nightstand. As she saw the locket around her sister’s neck, she fingered it and felt the necklace rub against her skin. The locket was made of 24 karat gold, and was engraved with the initials A.S., the initials of the first child of every Szombathy generation. Inside, two blurred monochrome pictures of the founders of Ambrosia could be seen. Hadria looked in awe as she saw how much her great-great-great grandmother resembled Alex, down to the tiniest of details. That one moment brought her back to a time when everything was different, when hardly even a year ago, Ambrosia was a thriving nation.

While Ambrosia was a powerful country in possesion of a lot of land, the vast majority of its economic activity rested on the powerful nuclear facility that was able to power not only Ambrosia in its entirety, but several neighbouring nations as well. About ninety percent of the employment opportunities were somehow related to the functioning of this power plant, or the sale of the excess electricity, while the other ten percent of jobs were small businesses needing the energy to sustain themselves. The facility was there since the beginning of time, never once needing a part replacement of any kind in its two hundred years of existence. But as it was pushing what would later be known as the end of its life, a deafening noise shook every building in Ambrosia. Everyone knew at least a dozen people who were killed on the spot, and another dozen who died after months of excruciating pain from the unfathomable amounts of radiation they withstood. As for everyone else, one could assume that the explosion took away their sanity and ethics. It was not uncommon for someone to be scraping up the last few stringbeans from the Szombathy’s compost, only to receive a blow to the head from someone who decided they were hungrier and more deserving of those beans than their victim.

Hadria wiped a tear from the glass of the picture frame, remembering the time she and her older sister were in that garden for what would be the last time. The sounds of the shots got louder and louder until they no longer needed to be heard, as the pellets relentlessly hit against their skin. As Alex tried to escape, a fatal shot hit her in the head. The rest of the moment blurred itself into oblivion as the Princess realized that her beloved sister couldn’t be saved. Only the locket, which was a family heirloom worth more than anything else in Ambrosia, was able to be rescued from the attackers. Hadria lifted it from Alex and entered the palace not a second too soon, as the mercenaries approached her sister’s body and fumbled around, searching for the gold jewellery in vain.

The sound of the gunshots almost seemed too real now. They were too quiet to be an immediate threat, yet too loud to have been created by the demons that filled a void where her sister’s friendship used to be. Before she knew it, Hadria was being escorted by guards whose shoulder blades completely shielded her head from danger. It’s not your fault, Hadria thought to herself, only to be left wondering why her mother couldn’t care less about the Ambrosians who were collapsing every second, their pain becoming too much to bear for their weakened bodies. The castle was mostly turned to rubble now, while the Queen sought asylum in a neighbouring ally country, neglecting to take her daughter with her. She never cared about me, Hadria concluded as she was being rushed out of the crumbling palace that used to be her childhood home. The only one she ever loved was Alex, and now she’s dead. And it’s all my fault. Indeed, it was Hadria who insisted they go play outside that day. “It’ll be fun, Alex! The gardener planted a whole new section of roses!” And of course, Alex agreed.

Before she knew it, Hadria found herself in a bunker far underneath the ground. The concrete walls were as cold as her mother’s tone of voice on the best of days, the days where she would merely acknowledge the Princess instead of making a snarky comment on her appearance. Hadria loved her mother without ever really liking her, knew her without ever having met her. The guilt Hadria felt for being alive was amplified now that Alex was gone and her mother had no reason to stay near her. The only company the Princess had was a guard who brought her into the bunker; the others were either guarding the door or already dead.

“Why do you want to still be here, in all of this mess?” asked Hadria. “Haven’t you got someone to go home to, who will make you happy? Why are you in here with me?”

“Well,” began the guard, “I do have someone to go home to. My wife… she would make the best casseroles, and when I would get too tired to move, she’d let me rest my head in her lap while she sat on the couch, and played in my hair… She’s amazing, really.” And then, as an afterthought, he added, “you’d love her, your Excellency, you really would.”

“Then go see her.”

“I can’t.”

“Why can’t you? She could be dying, for all you know, and you’re willing to just stay here in this cramped little room with a stupid twelve-year-old!”

“I’m a coward, your Excellency. This is the safest place to be right now. Besides, what if… what if…” The guard couldn’t bring himself to finish the sentence. The thought of his wife having died without him being able to hold her in his arms to comfort her and ease her pain… it was unbearable.

“Isn’t everyone a coward sometimes?” Hadria wondered aloud. “I could never stand up to my mother. Alex would always be the one to confront her when she would make me feel like less than nothing. It was never me…” A tear rolled down her right cheek. She couldn’t be bothered to wipe it, because that would mean letting go of the locket and she couldn’t bring herself to do that.

The two bunker dwellers sat in a pained silence. After a week, they hadn’t moved at all, except to drink water and eat some dried beans. It was after the second to last water bottle was opened that Hadria broke the deafening silence of too many things unsaid.

“I’m going to go see Alex,” the Princess said decidedly. The guard, too tired to care at this point, simply mumbled and fell back asleep as soon as the bunker door slammed shut.

Hadria ran past the guards who were slumped over each other. With guns firing away all around her, she repeated the only thing that could distract her from the noise that caused the end of an era for her: I’m coming, Alex. She tried to remember all the steps towards where her sister’s body is, but before she could leave the tunnels towards the outside, a strong pair of hands grabbed her and yanked her back. Her head banged audibly against the concrete wall next to her captor and her world went black.

Hours later, the Princess had awakened, only to find that her hands were tied together with a thick rope behind her back and that her legs were tied to the legs of the wooden chair that bore all of her weight. Although she still felt the weight of the locket in the pocket of her pants, she felt an emptiness creeping over her as the weight of a thousand boulders pressed against her neck. With her vision blurred as it was, she could barely make out the shape of a rebel leaning over her while holding a knife in his hand.

“Where is the locket?” he demanded, his voice low and unwelcoming. As Hadria’s vision became clearer, she could make out her captor’s facial features. His yellow veiny eyes with irises that looked like black holes were the only thing she could be sure of. The man’s stench filled the room and his face was so dirty that Hadria couldn’t tell if he was White or Black.

“I said, where is the locket, girl?” He repeated himself louder this time, shaking the Princess back to reality. She still felt its weight in her pocket, but refused to give its location. Her last connection to her sister wasn’t about to go to this putrid gangster.

“It’s gone,” she lied, “I’ve lost it.”

“I know the face of a liar when I see one. Now give me the damn locket!”

“What’s in it for me?” Hadria asked through gasps as she tried to take in some air.

“You know what you want, girl.” The man was practically reading her mind. He didn’t need to, though, because the grief from losing Alex was etched into Hadria’s face ever since that day. “I know where your sister is.”

“Take me and I’ll give it to you.”

“How about you give me the locket first?”

Begrudgingly, Hadria told her captor the locket’s location. He took it, then knocked the Princess out and proceeded to make sure she could be near her sister.

“Alex,” whispered Hadria, “it’s me.”

Alex rubbed her eyes and started to sit up. Her long brown locks looked as beautiful as ever as her eyes fluttered open. She sat up and put out her arms for her sister to hug her.

But wait, thought Hadria mid-hug, as the tears streamed down her face. I really thought Alex was dead. What happened?

Sensing her sister’s confusion, Alex pointed at the ground. “Look. There we are.” And sure enough, the rebel had kept his word. The two Princesses laid side by side on the grass next to the palace. On the bench nearby, the rebel held up the gold locket like a trophy as onlookers cheered him on. Soon enough, they began chanting his name. It was something both girls had seen before, albeit under less dramatic circumstances, when their grandfather had died and their mother had taken his place. As Hadria watched the scene play out, she remembered wishing as a young girl that she would have the chance to be a better ruler than her mother. The scene she witnessed, though, made that desire evaporate into thin air as quickly as it appeared three long years ago. People, as Hadria concluded, couldn’t be controlled. As the scene played out, the rebel who took her locket proclaimed himself to be the leader of the People.

“We will create a society where all are equal, and where everyone will have the same standards of living. No one will have to suffer this way again. No one in this country will be too poor to eat, or educate themselves, or live ever again!” And his onlookers cheered louder than before, a cheer of optimism and satisfaction that could be heard in the neighbouring regions by anyone with working ears.

Hadria smirked and shook her head. The one thing that she knew that no one else seemed to comprehend was a person’s tendency to resist control. Imagining the rebel’s oncoming failure to control Ambrosia’s people, she chuckled and went to join her sister in a game of chess.