It was the end of semester and I had an
exam to do. The exam was a three question short
essay deal, where we'd already seen the questions. My tutors and
lecturer expected me to perform quite well, judging on my
past efforts.
I spent most of my time leading up to the exam studying in the
university library.
A day before the exam I came home to find the house empty. I could smell the blood, thick and acidic, from the moment I opened the front door. I didn't panic; on the contrary, I began an organised and efficient search of the house to find the source of the blood smell.
I instinctively knew that I would find my sister, arkaem, dead. I knew that she had been killed by a being in a dark cloak who had done this many times before. Locked windows and doors weren't a hindrance to him, he could imagine himself through walls to get to those he chose. Just before I entered a room, the blood in the area would disappear, as if to deny that anything untoward had ever happened there.
I found arkaem dead in a pantry, shoved into a shelf. She was wearing her "laser-proof pyjamas" and had white, white hair. I lifted her down and we started talking. We both knew she was dead, but it was okay. We knew we had some time before she had to go.
I spent the rest of the day in a trance, and I had to leave arkaem at home while I went to work and to university. I was upset that I had to leave her as I knew we were running out of time; soon I wouldn't be able to see her again. I walked around crying and shuffling through the day, destroyed.
I told people that I was crying so much because my sister had been murdered by a serial killer. My boss nodded sympathetically and told me that the salmon roulade was to go out before, not after, the bruschetta. I did my exam, crying throughout, afterwards explaining to the lecturer that my sister was dead and I didn't go as well as I could have on the test. She was quite kind, and let me go home to be with my sister.
When I got home my sister was fading, her hair growing whiter by the second, her skin falling away to reveal her skeleton. We hugged and sobbed as we clung to each other.
I woke up sobbing, and couldn't stop. I called my sister and found out she was
okay, reassuring me that
it was only a dream. For those few moments sandwiched between being
asleep and
awake, I was so
lonely and
heartbroken.
It was awful.