VESSEL

The old world was over, this much I knew. Any other questions would certainly just be open ended at this point. Uncertainty seemed to have become my middle name overnight. There was blood on my hands, a lot of it. My pale face had turned completely black from the smoke that covered the city like a blanket. This didn’t feel like a war, this felt like the end.

I fumbled across the demolished street focussing on putting one foot in front of the other. I couldn’t see any other humans around me, but I could hear screams. I felt like I was walking through the deepest level of Hades, part of me believed I was. The sky was red. The air was painted black. Any building that hadn’t collapsed yet had flames pouring out of it’s windows like some kind of sadistic waterfall. Walking across the street felt like an eternity. When I finally managed to get myself to the other side I came across an old vintage blanket that had been torn to shreds. All I could think about at this point was rest. My body had been on overdrive for at least 72 hours. I desperately reached for the blanket and snatched it up. To my surprise, a gold locket came crashing out of the beaten fabric onto the pavement. The chime it made when it hit the street almost created some kind of hope inside my aching heart. I felt it in every corner of my being. Slowly picking up the locket, I analyzed it the way I used to look at Him. The locket was gold, at least 14 karat, molded in the shape of a perfect heart. There were so many scratches on the front you could hardly read the sole “A” that had been engraved in the center of it. I curiously took my broken nails and tried to open it with all the strength in my bruised bones. I even tried using my teeth to crack it open however this locket seemed to be glued shut. I couldn’t explain the energy I felt from it but what I did know was that it had made me feel more hopeful than I had in the last three days. I clasped the locket around my neck and curled up into my shredded blanket. Maybe I’ll wake up tomorrow and this will all have been but a dream.

I awoke to a black crow pecking at an old clock not but ten feet from me. I thought this was peculiar. Time was something that hadn’t crossed my mind in days. I didn’t even want to think about how long it had been since I had lost Him. My dreams had been quite erratic. I could remember dreaming about some kind of ancient land though my foggy brain struggled to remember all the details of it. I remember there being water, and lots of it.

I pulled my flesh up off the ground as if I was moments away from being a corpse in a casket. I was dying. I hadn’t eaten in days. Water was extremely scarce as the Earth was essentially getting closer to looking like a fiery Sun than the previously green paradise we all knew and loved. I wasn’t aware of what was keeping me going at this point. I had lost the love of my life and quite frankly everything and everyone else too. The screams I had heard the day prior had lessened quite a bit today. It was survival of the fittest but it seemed even the fittest were approaching the end. I thought about trying to find others to maybe help or to accompany, but all I had to my name was a locket, a shredded blanket and the clothes on my back. I couldn’t help anyone, I could barely help myself, and being a five foot female meant that I was a pretty easy target. I needed to keep moving.

I started to walk towards the one spot in the sky that had the least smoke. There was a red beam of light peaking out that looked rather ominous. I decided that’s where I was heading. The crow started to follow me and I didn’t mind. I was alone, but it didn’t feel like it now. Each step I took felt like my last. I was passing bodies the way I used to pass cars. I had been walking for what felt like an hour when the road started to split itself completely down the middle. It felt like the entire universe had started to break. Inside the crack emerged neon orange lava that licked and devoured every single thing it could touch. I ran as fast as I could, but it wasn’t fast enough. As the lava reached my flesh the crow swooped in over my head and blacked out my eyes. Death was ready for me, but I wasn’t.

My eyes buzzed open like it was the first time I had ever seen light. I was surrounded in blue. Blue water, blue skies and blue buildings. I looked down at my body, it had healed completely. No more gashes in my flesh, no burns, no dirt. I put my hand on my chest to feel my heartbeat when I realized my locket was still there. I was laying on some kind of silk bed inside an extravagant temple. This temple had no ceilings and limited walls. Water flowed freely through the temple as gentle rivers and streams. It was as beautiful as I’d imagined Heaven would be, but it didn’t feel like Heaven.

Suddenly I heard distant footsteps quickly approaching me. I anxiously sat up and snapped my head back to see who or what was coming. A woman wearing a light, silky, white wrap around only her breasts and hips. Her white flowing hair fell all the way to her stomach and she had gold jewelry strung across her body. She was the most beautiful thing I had ever seen.

When she spoke to me, it wasn’t vocalized. I could hear her in my head, but her lips didn’t move.

“We’ve been expecting you,” she said in the softest voice that existed only in my mind. I felt my heart drop. She was expecting me? As I tried to respond I realized my lips weren’t capable of making words. “You don’t need to speak here, we communicate solely through our minds. Language does not exist here,” she calmly explained. I focused on constructing a sentence at the forefront of my mind.

“Where is here?” I excitedly but anxiously asked.

“This is the lost city of Atlantis, though not so lost, as you can see,” she smiled and winked at me. I felt all the blood in my body boil in the best possible way. Atlantis?! I had read about this place as a kid. I remember being deeply fascinated on the subject but my parents had told me it was only a fairytale.

“Why am I here?” I asked. She pulled out a locket from under her clothing and smiled.

“You found the key,” she explained. I looked at her in a daze. “Your world is ending, it has been decaying at a rapid pace as the human civilization has done nothing but destroy it. Though this was a tragic reality there was still a lot of good that existed in the human race. When the earthquakes first started, some of our own decided to sacrifice themselves to try and save civilization,” she paused as she clutched her chest where her locket was resting. “They did not succeed. You see, these lockets are the only way back into this sacred land. If you lose it, you will also lose your place,” she sat down next to me as if she had nothing else to explain.

“So because I found a locket, I can stay here?” I asked confused but also enticed.

“Because you found the locket you belong here. The locket will only speak to those who are worthy, and that my darling is you,” she brushed the side of my cheek.

“Will I die here?” I asked as I tried to comprehend the reality I was now a part of.

“No,” she paused for a second. “But if you take off that locket you will,” she stared at the shining gold piece around my neck. She then grabbed my hand and helped pull me up from the silky bed my body had molded perfectly into. “Come, let me show you the way,” she gracefully guided me down the riverbed corridor as the sunlight twinkled around her entire aura. The end is merely the beginning, this much I now knew.