My Sister Cara
Sometimes I can still hear her, at the edge of my mind. She is tired, and I know she doesn't have long until it happens. Since I was small, I've had a very active imagination. I pictured every floor covered in lava, oh what fun I had jumping from chairs to couches to even tables, which my mother would give me a slap for. I once pretended for a whole year that I had a purple mustache, and to this day I do not know why. When I was twelve years old, I was an extremely lonely child, home schooled and an only child. The only other kid I knew was my cousin, Brennan, who visited with my aunt once a year around Christmas and was four years younger than me. So when my sister arrived, I was overjoyed. She told me her name was Cara and she was going to be my best friend, and so we were. She looked like me. She had thin, shoulder length, brown hair, a button nose, and pale, dull-ish looking skin spotted with small brown freckles spotting her body. Her eyes were different. Unreadable, one blue and one brown. We would avoid the lava floors together, draw pictures, talk about our annoying parents, and make up ridiculous stories. When I was 15, my parents decided I should start public school. Cara couldn't leave the house, as she was quite sickly since she first arrived. Every day, she would watch me walk to and from the bus stop from the attic window, where her room was. I didn't really fit in at first, but I eventually made friends, even joined a lacrosse team. Cara was jealous. She didn't want me to be away from her. Every day she would lament about how bored she was when I was gone, I shook it off and we continued our shenanigans. One night, however, I invited my friend, Brad, over. Cara stayed in her attic for most of the day, but some times I would see her looking at us from the door to my room. I would get up and shut it, I mean, who would want their younger sister dropping in on their boy talk. I woke up the next morning, an empty box of pizza to my right and spilled soda on my shirt. Brad was gone, so I assumed he went to the restroom. I was hungry, so I began the trudge to the kitchen, yawning and rubbing my eyes. Then I got to the stairs. Brad was at the bottom, his neck twisted in a position that wasn't natural, a small pool of blood around his head. His eyes were milky. I screamed, causing my parents to run out to see what was happening. As I was standing over Brad, crying, I glanced up the stairs to see Cara staring straight at me, from the attic stairs. After his death was ruled an accident, and everything was cleaned up, I was furious. I waited for my parents to leave and let all hell loose on Cara.
"What the hell did you do to him?" I screamed.
"I-I was jealous! I didn't mean to kill him, just wanted him to get hurt a little!" She replied defensively.
"You killed him! Why can't you just leave me alone?! All I wanted was a friend, Cara!" I yelled at her.
"I thought I was your friend." She replied sorrowfully.
I stormed to my room, resolving to ignore her. After three days of this, I noticed something. When I saw her from the corner of my eye, she was thinner, and so was her hair. A few more days, and she was a bald, gaunt figure. I was sitting on my bed when she shambled over to me.
"You're killing me." She whispered in my ear.
I said nothing. The next few days she spent practically screaming and begging into my ear. I showed her no response, but then she went quiet. I finally dared to look at her. She was emaciated, her translucent skin stretched over her bones. Eyes completely white, nose gone. She looked kind of like Voldemort with that face. She was dead. I immediately went to my parents room, and found my mom sitting on the bed, reading a book.
"Mom. Cara is dead." I said in a raspy voice.
"Who is Cara? One of your school friends?" She replied, brows furrowed.
"No, my sister." I was frankly a little scared I had lost my mind.
"Hun... You don't have a sister."
Silence
I used to love silence. Between the hours of 1 and 5 in the morning, I was most comfortable. No one bothered me then. When I grew up, I moved myself into a forest close to a mountain whose name I don't care about anymore. Today was the day I needed to make the dreaded trip into the closest town, 78 miles away. I loaded up my truck, turned the key in the ignition, and heard the engine roar to life. It was one of the man-made sounds I didn't completely hate. 7 months since I was last in town, buying a new window pane from the old hardware store woman with the droopy eye. The silence was discomforting for once, I couldn't hear any people when I got out of the truck, nor could I see any. Only the wind kept me company. I didn't hear the normally cacophonous music from the bar next to the hardware store. I walked into the store, and I found them. The droopy eyed lady and her 8 year old son were trapped under a fallen shelf. Except they weren't them. They looked newly dead, but they were still moving. Blood everywhere. I could hear a slight radio static in the back room. I took what I needed and drove back to my cabin. The silence is overbearing.