Our Job

"Have you seen it!?" She cries.

"Seen what?" I ask.

"My locket."

Hanna lost her locket? I thought she'd never let it out of her sight.

"No, when did you lose it?"

"I don't know. I just noticed it wasn't there after our shift."

Our shift, at the factory. A lot of people our age worked at the factory nowadays.

"Could it have gotten caught on the conveyor line?" I question.

"Maybe," she looks worried.

It would make the most sense. Her locket was a small gold heart-shaped locket, although there wasn't much gold on it nowadays. Her mother gave it to her before she was sent here to start working. She's never had a real chain for the locket. She normally wore it with a frayed old piece of string around her neck, she found it lying in the street.

"WE HAVE TO GO FIND IT!" She shouts.

"The factory is already closed. Shouldn't you look around here first?" I criticize.

"I already did."

In the work dorms, they house 20 girls in one room. The beds are stacked 2 high, 5 on each wall. All of us had our few belongings in cardboard boxes stacked on either side of the stacked beds, no one has more than 3 outfits. Hanna and I share a stacked bed.

"You checked, everywhere?" I ask reluctantly.

"Of course I did." She replies.

I believed her. She was the one who got tasked the most with tidying up the room. No one could keep anything hidden from her in the room, she learned what everyone was hiding. You'd have to wonder if that's why she got the chore so often.

"Well if it's not here then we have to wait until tomorrow to get it."

"No." She announces, "I need to find it now, it may not be there tomorrow."

She was right honestly. Where we work people don't have much, and while that locket may be old it's still worth something.

"You should just accept you won't get it back." I sneered, "it's past our curfew and there is no one over 14 around that could go out and look for you."

I could see on her face she knew I was right. Then I saw she got an idea.

"You'll be 14 next month and they won't ask for our work cards if we look the part."

We both did look surprisingly older than we were and it was only a few months before I could stay out till 10 pm, even then I told myself it was 9 pm already. I didn't listen.

"Fine let's hurry we don't have much time." I caved.

I feared what she would tell people if I didn't help her. The walk takes 20 minutes. The air is heavy around the city, broken glass and nails line the streets. Thankfully the streets are safe to walk, no one breaks the law around here and if they have no one knows it.

I think while we walk what that locket means to Hanna. We were both sent to work at the same age, 7, we haven't seen either of our family's since we began working. Hanna's mom was actually against the idea of sending her to work, I can't say the same, her mom gave her that locket when she knew that they had no other option but to send her to work. Her mom had put a picture of herself and her daughter in the locket and told her it was a good luck charm that had been passed down for generations like anyone has any good luck around here

We get past the guards of the factory by saying we are night cleaners, thankfully we were planning to sleep in our work clothes. Every worker in the city wears the same outfit to work. Hanna speeds to her workstation. I walk slower than she does spending time looking at the machines, I have never seen them off before. They still scare me. I catch up with Hanna at her workstation. She was one of the lucky ones, her station had a stool to sit on while she watches the nails we make go down the line. There's a rumor that she threatened Heather to get that station.

"Where is it? where is it?" She panicked, "it's not here."

"Calm down," I reassure her "we will find it." I lie.

Anyone who saw it would have taken it, even the supervisors would want the extra cash. She knows as well as I do if it's not here she won't get it back.

"It might have gotten dragged down the line, I'm gonna go look."

She made her decision impulsively. The line was long and led into a room no one could see in, only those that work on the other side are allowed to see what was in that room. The rumors say that anyone who enters that room without permission will disappear, I know Hanna doesn't believe it's true.

"It's after work hours, no one will be in there." She stated.

She was right no one should be in there even the cleaning crew was banned from entry.

We get to the door to the room and see that it's not actually locked and slightly open, lucky us. we peer inside slowly, scared of being caught even though we know we're alone.

I spot it, "Hanna there's your locket."

I point to the ground, laying next to the side of a conveyor going through the middle of the room. There it was, her locket, Hanna let out a small squeal and rushed to pick it up.

I notice something on the shelves, a liquid green in color. I recognized it, it has a lot of street names but no real one. It's a strong drug. The same one that made my parents so poor that I was sent to work here, but it should be outlawed. What is it doing here?

We had been so distracted during all of this we hadn't noticed the door on the other side of the room start to open.
Several tall figures entered the room, I got lucky. Their eyes caught onto Hanna first. They grabbed her before she could react.

I run, faster than I have ever run before. I wonder if they had seen me. I cut through some alleys until I'm close to the dorm and get back on the main road. A digital clock in the middle of the city is the only way most of us can tell what the time it, currently it reads 9:56 pm. I notice a police officer, I can't tell him what happened me and Hanna were both out past curfew, then I notice something strange about the officer. He had nails on him right next to his handcuffs, but why would he need nails? I think to myself then I see why, he licks the head of one of the nails. I think back to the nameless drug in the factory, a drop of it is all you need.

I make it back to the dorm just in time and try to sleep, but I can't. What had happened to Hanna? The next morning I skip breakfast and go to the factory early. It's so early no one is even there to turn on the machines yet.

I see the room again. The door is still open from the night before, I guess no one came back to shut it. I peer inside and just inside the door I see Hanna's locket, I snatch it quickly and get to my station. While working I glimpsed someone I hadn't recognized was doing Hanna's job.

I went to the working dorm right after my work shift was up. We don't have much here, but all of Hanna's things were gone.

A new girl filled her bed quickly after that night. Weeks pass, no one comes in, no one looking for her, no one asks about that night, no one misses her. I keep her locket with me at all times, in case she ever came back...

"That was over 20 years ago though." A fancy-dressed lady, with an old gold heart locket around her neck, tells a poor young girl sitting in a chair scared. "We operate differently now. You entered the room, So now you possess a choice. You can join us, or you can learn what happened to Hanna."