Takers (Prelude)

Takers (Prelude)

It’s not like we stuck out or anything. In a crowd, we were just ordinary people, leading ordinary lives, doing ordinary tasks. Every now and then, someone would see one or two people on the streets that were completely unconnected with each other wearing the same necklace, which was why most of us chose to wear it hidden, beneath our shirts. It only made it more suspicious to see people that lived half a city’s distance away from each other wearing similar jewelry, especially when that jewelry was custom and sold in no jewelry stores around town.

I wasn’t one of the people who wore that necklace beneath my shirt; I wore it proud on my chest. And only once or twice in a week, I would see someone else with an identical piece of jewelry. We would look at one another and nod as we passed, as if we were close acquaintances. It felt as if I’d known that person my whole life on sight, when in reality, it was the opposite. We were complete strangers to each other’s memories.

More people used to wear these unusual necklaces out loud, but the number diminished over the years, for fear of being noticed and taken. In little towns like Fortitude, hardly anyone was taken. That I knew of, anyhow. Usually when someone was, a missing persons report would be filed and reported on the news, and the only trace of evidence would be one or two drops of blood and the tiny, bat-shaped diamond off of the chain from the necklace identical to the one I wore. That was always how it went.

Files like such came onto the news from two states over, never directly from Fortitude. These people that abducted others of my ‘family’ were never named, described or found. The victims, sorry to say, were never located, either. It did unnerve me; the fear and paranoia struck me greatly. So much so that, when I discovered people were taken in big cities only so far, I moved to Fortitude, and there I stayed. Five years and counting, and nothing having to do with the ‘Takers’ ever invaded our city boundaries. I could let my heart rest, and could live in peace in the apartment I rented on Fortitude Hills.

Wearing my necklace out seemed okay, as well as letting my guard down. No one seemed interested in this tiny town I chose, and it didn’t seem as if anyone would ever peg it on a map for investigation, opposed to some places like NYC. As a result, I saw necklaces like mine weekly. Who would have known that we were all hiding in the same place, and no Takers ever thought to look there? It felt like the perfect hideout. So was it? Had we found our big break finally?

Many of us liked to think so, one of those thinkers being me.