The Locket of the Heart— Celena’s Message

USA, 2082

* * * * *

“That’ll be 75 thou.”

Lynx pressed a finger to the touchpad. “Take 80. I won a mill from guys double my age today.”

The cashier’s eyes widened in admiration. “No way. I’ve never had the guts to play cards.”

“Gotta get groceries somehow,” Lynx shot her a wink.

“By the way, nice hair.” The girl gestured to the river of silver through jet black.

“Born this way,” Lynx quipped. It was a lie. A ringtone sounded. “Excuse me.”

It’s Poppy. Get here quick. Found something. Use my card to take The Net.

Lightning fingers across the keyboard responded.

Be there in a flash.

* * * * *

“How was the Net?” Poppy asked as Lynx stepped through a pair of glass doors. The penthouse glittered with new crystals that cast rainbows across high walls, making the space populated with many potted plants feel even more magical.

“You mean the city’s most advanced transport? Eaaasy. You high class people don’t look up from your own little worlds. Riff-raff like me can slip in anywhere if we stay quiet.”

Poppy tsked. “You aren’t riff-raff. You’re a brilliant upcoming botanist. Why else would you be here?”

Lynx smirked. “Ah, why I’m here. Whatcha got?”

Poppy’s eyes lit up. “You know how I collect jewelry from antique shops. I thought it was just a necklace. But when I opened it, the whole room went dark and… a loading page came up?”

“Hologram?”

“Something. It’s advanced tech… have you ever seen a hologram come from something so delicate? Here, check it out.” Poppy reached behind her hair to unclasp one of many gold chains from her neck.

Lynx took the tiny heart and turned it over. “It’s enscripted. ‘For someone ready to see the future, who can re-write the past.’ Huh. Let’s open it.”

The two crouched on the floor, foreheads almost touching. The room went dark and a text in neon purple appeared:

Where two or more are gathered, there I AM.

“Second person detected. Loading transmission,” a cool feminine voice boomed from the tiny piece.

“What the—”

Lynx and Poppy leapt back as the heart-shaped locket began to vibrate. A series of beeps and whirrs sounded and the form of a woman rapidly pixelated. Life-sized and realistic, she donned robes that gently billowed in an invisible wind. A fitted diadem complimented her long silver hair. Her face shone with beauty and her eyes with wisdom. Save for the simple band slowly blinking on her wrist, she looked practically mythological. The two youths crept forward, open-mouthed as the hologram began to speak.

“Greetings from another dimension. It is the year 2080. If you are receiving this transmission, we sincerely hope it is within the timespan of ten years.”

“2080? I’ve never seen someone like that before—”

“This message is for the people of Earth along the descending timelines. If you let it all the way into your heart, your world’s trajectory can change. We chose this locket shape for a reason. The mind has made a mess of things and its 2000+ year reign is over.’’

“What is this?” Lynx whispered. Poppy shook her head in refusal to speak, remaining transfixed.

“My name is Celena,” the hologram continued with a smile. “We, the people of the highest timeline, opened a wormhole to send you this transmission. Such mastery is in direct proximity to recalling your star origins. When you remember, beyond fantasy or intellectual comprehension, at a cellular level, that who you truly are is from the stars, this all gets so much easier.

I speak to you not from some unattainable realm of utopia or enlightenment. I come from people who faced the same challenges as you, those who peered down a timeline perpetuated by the momentum of the status quo and saw only dystopia, total apocalypse.

But instead of accepting this fate as inevitable, we stared planetary terror in the face and decided to wrangle the courage to chart a course of our own human destiny. Together we forged new ways of relating, of contributing, of facing conditioning programmed into us by a culture of lack that not only activated primal fear, but kept us locked there in endless feedback loops of suffering, separation, competition, and anxiety.”

Celena took a deep breath. Poppy and Lynx looked at each other, both wide-eyed and stunned.

“Around the year 2030, a timeline split occurred, which literally tore the Earth into two, or more. We don’t know, because this transmission comes to you from the highest timeline, one filled with people who heeded the warnings, those who believed fiercely in their potential genius. This is a reality we currently inhabit and one that we are inviting you to.

This message is being sent as a path out of the insanity humanity has created with its ignorant use of universal principles. You are tremendously ignorant of your creative power. What you speak and think, becomes. You live in a vibrational universe with multiple realities possible in any given moment. If you do not change your ways, you undeniably face complete and total annihilation, and you are making it that way.”

Celena closed her eyes and sang a low note as text appeared in that same purple.

You are complacent; you must be radical.

You insist on playing the victim; you self-perpetuate your very victimhood.

You fight the old; you must dedicate the rest of your life to building the new.

The words vanished. She opened her eyes and spoke with a depth of conviction. “As long as there is a single tree within a ten mile radius when this message reaches you, there is hope. And hope is the first ingredient you need to turn the ship around.

Part 2 of this transmission will be available in 24 hours.”

The locket shuddered and snapped shut.

* * * * *

After departing from the Net, Lynx walked home in a light rain. All things typically of interest —neon advertisements, prospective romances, loose playing cards— failed to captivate. One of Celena’s sentences echoed with crystal clarity: “As long as there is a single tree within a ten mile radius, there is hope.”

“Could it be so simple?” Lynx pondered. All learning pursuits, even the side hustles, had stemmed from the same place— a resilient, almost stubborn insistence that there was hope, there was a way.

Other teens didn’t feel the same. They were content to eat the same food as their grandparents, live and interact through avatars on glass screens, retreat into virtual worlds with aesthetics from decades long ago. But Lynx knew that filters couldn’t keep out reality forever.

* * * * *

“For the second transmission, I’d like to take on more of the style of a fireside chat. It’s important for you to know what happened before the timeline split.” Lynx and Poppy sat on the floor, captivated by the hologram. All of life had blurred to when they could continue with Celena.

“So at first, the new millennium struggled to figure itself out. After a century of self-examination and two world wars, a new revolution dawned as the internet became available en masse. And because of a blanket of anonymity, the deepest of humanity’s shadows exploded into virtuality. But it was mostly harmless. Remember the completely amateur UX?” She laughed. “Tech supplemented life, utilized for business, socializing, and leisure.”

Celena paused, obviously disturbed.

“But around the 2010s, new platforms with appealing features appeared and technology became a source of personal identity. Filters simulated injections of plastic and silicone. Everything artificial was embraced, because it became the norm. By the time anyone caught on, it was addictive, too powerful to stop. Infinite scroll. Ever-evolving algorithms. AI.

People started sleeping with their tech, then wearing it for health or productivity: earpieces, watches, rings. A matrix of surveillance rolled out with the people’s total consent. There was talk of uploading consciousness… I don’t know what happened, because I tuned it all out in 2025, but I can imagine it coming to pass.”

She chuckled.

“We wrote stories about dystopia, fanatically. Entire genres, aesthetics, even contests were made. Best costume, best short story. We became fascinated with wearing masks, with nuclear fallout, with civilization after collapse.”

“This is why I always liked vintage,” Poppy whispered to her friend.

“Perhaps that fixation was there because we sensed its inevitability. And it came.

The 2020s marked the last decade before the timeline split. The lag time of manifestation collapsed— meaning people created their reality whether consciously or not. Before 2030, you could look at things from multiple lenses, weigh differing perspectives. You could consume fiction and have it just be fiction. But as the split grew nearer, so did polarity: those insistent on apocalypse and those on a New Earth. People who wished to abstain from choice were unable to. We had to evolve, or repeat the patterns that dragged us down in the first place. There was no more fence sitting. And neither high rises nor ivory towers could keep us safe.

“I cannot tell you what happened after, because there was no longer a single consensus reality. Myself and others like me became obsessed with creating the New Earth like our life depended on it. It did. The future of the planet depended on it.”

She smiled.

“And we made it. We returned to the omnipresent wisdom of nature, our roots. We remembered both the ancient and the everlasting to pioneer a future. We based our architecture in fractal geometry. We learned from our mistakes. History no longer repeats itself— we are pioneering a new world.

“The first few decades were exclusively about every level of repair and healing. Systems were created to help people transition mindsets, deprogram, detoxify. And now that we crossed the threshold, securing harmonious living for limitless generations, our compassion turns toward you: the brave ones incarnating within descending timelines.

You can use your personal and collective imagination to create dystopia or redemption. So if you wish to escape/transcend the descending timeline, you must consciously reflect on how you are perpetuating dystopia. Take a ruthless knife to the innermost parts of your heart and psyche, and scan what woundedness exists within you that is choking out your hope for a prosperous future.”

“This is the most intense thing I’ve ever witnessed,” whispered Lynx.

“It doesn’t feel like fiction,” Poppy murmured back.

“As long as trees offer the breath of life,” Celena declared triumphantly, “there is hope. What people need to do is rediscover their humanity— remember they are made of Earth and Water.”

She paused, breathing deeply.

“I invite you to join me now. Take some deep breaths.”

Lynx and Poppy closed their eyes and followed their guide.

“Take your time. Most lower timelines are severely under-oxygenated and ungrounded.

“Now drop your consciousness from your head to your feet. Breathe here. When did you last take off your shoes to connect with the living Earth?

“Breathe into your heart now, past all the walls that block you from feeling the pain of a dying world. Let that breath get deep into your heart, your living, beating, vulnerable human heart.”

Celena’s voice filled with tenderness.

“Allow yourself to feel it all. Let these codes crack you open. Let the blow be complete, so there is no chance of returning to who you were. You are awakening now, with a new depth of responsibility.

“When you have felt this momentum of planetary dystopia and the daunting but very real chance to chart a new course, then place one hand upon your beating heart and ask a single question.

What am I going to do with this one precious life?”

A silence ripened. Lynx and Poppy felt their eyes glimmer with tears, each savoring every breath.

“There are additional instructions for those who are ready. To allow time for contemplation, there are 48 hours allotted before the final lesson.”

Celena smiled.

“I’ll see you soon for the last transmission.”