when you were my father

day two - starting

"Good morning. How are you?" I ask as I step into Isla's room. The shines through her windows, lighting up the cute room. She looks like a little angel, laying in her large bed.

"Fine. Why?" She asks me, sitting up. "You never say hi normally."

"Nothing. Do you remember anything from last night?" I sit on her bed, leading her to sit up and pull her knees to her chest under her pink and black sheets that used to be mine.

She turns to face me with a strange look in her eyes. The eyes are telling me that she does, but her mouth contradicts that, telling me, "No. What do you mean?"

"Nothing. It's not important. Get ready for school." I tell her, before standing up and leaving the room.

I head into the kitchen to make myself a bowl of cereal. Micah's sitting at the counter, reading a book and eating a blue raspberry PopTart.

"Morning." He tells me, barely glancing up from the book.

"Hey." I respond, and head over to the counter, where the cereal sits waiting for me. After pouring myself a bowl and adding milk, I sit down on the chair next to my brother. "So, yesterday was something."

He barely glances up from his book, gives me a slight nod, and then devotes his focus all back to the book.

"What are you reading that's so interesting?" I ask, slightly annoyed. I don't have anything to read like he does, so conversation remains my only option of entertainment during breakfast.

But like earlier, he doesn't answer. "Micah. C'mon. Are you ignoring me?" He doesn't make a sound, and turns the page of his all-so-fascinating book. Even more annoyed, I grab the book straight from his hands and read the title for myself.

"Mai! I was reading that."

"And I was talking to you. "Scary Book", what's this?" I ask, scoffing at the plain titled book.

"It's a really good book, besides it's not so good title."

"Oh, yeah? What's it about?" I ask, slightly intrigued. I mean Micah loves to read, even books that are really really dumb, so it's not unlikely that he'll read a book that totally won't appeal to me. But there's always the chance that maybe he's reading something actually interesting, a very small chance but it's there.

"It's about these siblings that all of the sudden they find their world changing. Creepy things start happening, and none of them can figure out what's going on. Doesn't it sound great?"

"Yeah, sure." It actually sounds somewhat intriguing, not that I would let Micah know that. We get along fine, but I can't always agree with him. That would be un-younger-sisterly.

He goes back to reading the book at full focus. I find that I'm not actually hungry so I take my bowl over to the sink and put it in the dishwasher after rinsing out my wasted cereal. Then I head down the hall to my mom's room.

Knocking on the door, I don't hear anything. "Mommy?"

I hear a slight moan, so I open the door out of concern. She's laying in bed, sweating like a pig.

"Mommy? Are you okay?"

Her eyes snap open as soon as I touch her shiny arm. "He's ba-ack." She tells me in a sing-song way, face contorted into a smile that also looks like she's scared out of her mind.

Before I can ask her what that means, she sits up and looks at me. "Oh, hi. Good morning. If you don't mind I'm going to go get dressed." With that, she pushes me out of the room, closing the door behind me.