The Locket Society
The locket clinks to the floor as it falls out of her cold, dead hands. She lay there, motionless, blank stare in her eyes. She brings my body count up to 367,892. I put my gloves on to retrieve the locket and put it back in its case. I don’t want to have to keep killing innocent people like this, but I was chosen, so I must fulfill my duties.
It was the fall of 4056 when they visited me in my dorm room. The Locket Society is not one to mess with, and it is definitely not something to try and run away from. Every year, four new people are chosen to do the biddings of this cult. The people that are chosen must go and kill those the cult despises. How do we kill them, you may ask? Well, as the name “The Locket Society,” evinces, we murder them using poisened lockets. But these lockets aren’t just any locket. They are handcrafted, heart-shaped lockets. They were very popular in the 3000’s, but soon after they were produced, strange things started happening to the people that wore them. People would lose their hair or their teeth. They would lose money or their houses. Soon, these lockets were said to be bad luck and the manufacturer's decided to discontinue them. In the early 4000’s The Locket Society formed.
No one really knows why they formed, they just know that it is best to stay out of their way. I lost my family to this cult, they were my first victims. But after a while, the killings became as natural as breathing. The only thing I have a hard time with is being able to get my victims to touch the locket. Everyone knows what these lockets look like and what they mean, so they aren’t just going to touch it willingly. With some of the people, I had to put it on them while they were sleeping. With this last one, she was putting on makeup, so I snuck up behind her and put it around her neck. She struggled for a bit trying to get it off, when she did, it was too late.
“Cordula!” The president yells. I didn’t realize I had already made it back to the meeting house. “Your next mission is a girl named Alex Grundling, do you think you can handle it?” She hands me a file with the girl's name on it, without looking at it, I nod my head and leave the room. When I got to the steps of the house, I sat down and read the file. Alex is six years old, six. She will be the youngest victim yet. The file also says that she lives five houses from where my family used to live.
I arrive at Alex’s house around seven thirty in the evening. It doesn’t look like anyone is home right now, so I can easily sneak in and plan my attack. I go around back to see if there are any open entry ways. I climbed over their fence and ended up right on my butt, I’ll probably have a bruise there later. I checked the back door first, wiggling the door handle to see if it’s unlocked. Lucky for me, it was. The file didn’t say if the family owned any animals or not so I had to be careful in case there were any. I went to the second floor and found a bedroom door labeled with her name in big calligraphy letters. Walking in was the hard part for me, it brought back so many memories of when I was younger.
Alex had toys upon toys filling her room. There were barbies on the ground and stuffed bears on her bed. Her walls were cotton candy pink. Sometimes I forget what it was like to be six, but walking into her room made all the memories come back. The memories of skinned knees and skipping rope with my brother play in my head. I remember swinging from the arms of trees and learning how to ride a bike. My brother taught me how to ride, I was so scared he’d let go of me and I would fall. When it was his turn for the locket, he never let me go, I stayed in his arms for hours.
“Mommy, can we have pizza tonight?” I didn’t realize how long I had been standing there, I also didn’t realize I had been crying. I wiped away the tears on my face and ran to Alex’s closet. A few minutes later, Alex walks into her room and starts playing with the dolls on her floor. I watch her as she plays, she has so much imagination, I start to feel guilty about having to kill her. I don’t think I can go through with this. I know what I have to do.
It was around midnight when Alex fell asleep. I didn’t want to wake her, so I opened the door to her closet slowly. Tiptoeing to her window, trying not to kick anything, I pushed it up just enough to where I could slip out. I almost lost my footing when I got on the roof. I then shimmied down the side of their house and I took off running. I ran all the way to the steps of the meeting house.
I needed to catch my breath, so I sat down on the second row of steps. It took me a few deep breaths and then I was fine. I pulled out the case with the heart-shaped locket in it. The way the diamonds in the heart glistened in the moonlight reminded me of my brother’s eyes. My hands were shaking, but I knew what I was doing was the right thing. I put the locket in my bare hands and laid back on the steps waiting for death. I looked up at the moon, I could feel my brother’s presence, “I’m coming home, David.” The last thing I heard was the clink of the locket as it fell out of my cold, dead hands.
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