Tarnished Gold

The end was finally here.

We all knew it was coming… I knew that it was coming.

I could not deny the part that I had played in the end of the world.

I had directly contributed to the downfall of our society, and I had directly contributed to the end of the world. Now there was nothing left to do besides sit next to my daughter and wait for the end to come. I could tell that Lily was scared, but she would never dare show how terrified she truly was. She had become brave, hardened, when learning to navigate through this dystopian nightmare. She was much braver than a ten-year-old should ever have to be, and I could not have been prouder of her. Her large eyes were fixed intently on me, burning holes through my skin. Her eyes were brimming with tears, I wanted to reassure her that everything would be okay, but I couldn’t lie to her. Everything would not be okay, in only a few short hours, possibly minutes, we would be dead. The tears in her eyes immersed me in memories of her birth. For hours I suffered through immeasurable pain, with only the constant thought that this child could not possibly be worth all this pain, but I was wrong, oh so wrong. With one final push, she was out. There were no tears at first. The doctor put her up against my breast, and the moment I met her eyes I knew that it had all been worth it. Her cries came after. I think she needed a moment to adjust to this world that would eventually turn on her.

Lily’s childhood so far had not been easy. The cracks in the foundation of society were already starting to show when she was born. People were dying left and right; climate change had gotten out of hand. I worked for the biggest company in the world. We never asked if we should, only if we could. So many of the projects that I worked on, that I spearheaded, would become direct contributions to the suffering of others. I slept easy and without a second thought, but that changed when I had Lily. I had a target on my back because of what I had done to others, and the communities that I had destroyed. When I earned my first paycheck my grandmother sat me down. She had grown smaller in her old age, so by sitting me down we could see each other eye-to-eye. “Meredith, you know how proud I am of you?” She said; her eyes full of emotion, “You’ve grown up to be such a strong young woman”. Just picturing her large, soft eyes made my own water. “I wanted to wait until you were old enough to appreciate this” she held out her hand. Inside was a small golden locket, the one that she always wore. “This locket has been passed down for generations, as far back as we are able to trace, now it is your turn to wear it.” My heart fluttered at the memory. I had been infatuated with the locket for as long as I could remember. My brain was on fire with the memory of my grandmother standing on her tip toes to slide the locket over my head.

I reached down to finger the locket now, and I remembered Lily doing the same as a baby. She had the same constant fascination with it that I did. My perspective on the world, and the part that I played in it, had changed when Lily was a small child. That was the first time she was almost taken from me. The memory was blurry now, probably due to both the trauma of the situation and how long ago it happened, but I remembered a woman with curly hair. She spoke in disjointed words about a child, but her tears were so thick that I was unable to understand what she was saying. She lifted her jacket from her side, and I saw something silver and shiny in her hand. A gun… My life had flashed before my eyes. I thought she was there for me. It took me only a moment to realize that the gun wasn’t pointed at me… it was pointed at Lily. Everything happened so fast. Almost instantaneously she was tackled to the ground by the security that constantly accompanied us. I had learned later what her incoherent mumblings were. She had lost her son, and it had been directly due to a project that I had led. She wanted to see me suffer the same way that she had, and, in all honesty, I couldn’t blame her. Being confronted with suffering in visceral way had changed the way that I looked at the pain I inflicted on others, but it was far to late for me to change my ways. The beginning of the end was already upon us.

It seemed only fitting that these were the memories I dwelled on in my last moments. I finally understood what that mother felt, I was about to lose my child and there was nothing I could do about it. This was truly the end I deserved. This was not the end that Lily deserved though. She was meant to be the future; she and her generation were supposed to be the ones who were able to pick up the broken pieces of this world. That opportunity had been ripped from her. I had ripped that opportunity from her. I squeezed Lily tightly in my arms. We were sitting together on a cliff side, ready to watch the world implode. If the end was inevitable, why not have a front row seat? I reached behind my neck to slide off the golden locket. With tears in my eyes, I raised the necklace above Lily’s head sliding it over her face and down on to her neck. “I’m so proud of you” I started to choke on the same words my grandmother had said to me all those years ago. “You’ve grown up to be such a strong young woman”. I could think of no one who deserved to hear those words more than Lily did. “I am sorry for the pain you have had to endure, and I am sorry that I took away your opportunity to change the world”. Lily turned to me with the same soft eyes of my grandmother. The ground started to shake. Behind Lily the sky turned orange. Our time had run out. I turned Lily to shield her body with my own. I wanted her to suffer as little as possible. A large explosion rang out in the distance, tears streamed down my face

and then…

…nothing.

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.

.

.

When I woke up my mother’s dead body laid still on the ground next to me. She had protected me. Her body had shielded mind from the explosion. I reached up to my neck where her locket now rested above my heart. Her final wish had been granted; I had lived on. It was now my job to learn from her mistakes and carry on and correct the broken world. The locket was her legacy, and I hoped I could make her proud.