It always began with the most gentle of tappings. A soft percussion, an almost imperceptible rapping. She felt it, more than she heard it. A beat against her chest, a step out of time with her heart.

She tried to ignore it. She had tried to throw it away. But somehow, some … way, the locket always came back. She wondered, towards the end, if she belonged to it more than it belonged to her, if she, not it, were the errant possession that returned to its rightful owner time and time again.

The only certainty was that, every day, she would rise and place the thing around her neck. There were times when the weight of the thing seemed immense, as if it might snap her neck or drag her bodily to the ground. But still, she managed. She bore the weight. She carried the burden. The thing, around her neck, always gently pulsing and throbbing and aching for her attention.

Only once in a while, when the tapping had turned to banging, when the beat against her chest felt like the pounding of fists, when her mind and body were exhausted,would she open it. Always alone, always in private, always with the greatest of care. For what was inside was for her and her alone, she knew that. The locket would have it no other way.

It always began with the most gentle of tappings. And it always ended the same way. It ended with trembling fingers opening the clasp of a simple, silver locket in some dark and furtive corner, and then words, hissed from within.

“I’m hungry.”