Empty, so empty was Donnas house that breathing echoed against the welting wallpaper. Donna could still remembered a time when it was full, when her father and mother laughed over some tape of whatever they'd bought the night or the day before while she and her sister played in the garden. Or when the whole family gathered together and decided that yellow wallpaper would be plastered to the walls, they spent that entire day covered in glue and the dust that was floating around the house. But that was the happiest Donna had ever been, Bernadette even made a scarce appearance to straighten the flimsy, film thin, cheap paper to the wall. Memory after memory flickered behind Donnas eye as she ran her bloodied fingers over bumps and dents in the walls, each representing its own story.
A particularly large dent was from Donna tripping over one of her toys and falling toward the wall, Bernadette had thrown herself between the wall and her sister. When it happened, of course, she'd pulled herself up, dusted herself off, and began playing again like nothing had happened. A week later Bernadette began falling ill, Donna blamed it on herself. Maybe some particle in the air had held whatever mystery virus her sister had caught, maybe she'd hit something important and hadn't had it tended to in time. Donnas parents began blaming her sisters failing health on her, stress of what was going on turning everyone against each other. As Bernadettes condition worsened so to did the fights, as her health wavered so to did the shouting and the blaming of Bernadettes health issue on Donna.
Donna could still feel the dull ache in her chest when she went to see Bernadette the night before she died, she was so pale, so thin, and she still smiled weakly at her younger sister as she entered.
"Bernadette? Is that you?"
Bernadette scoffed at Donnas concern and picked her arm up to flex it.
"Look! I'm fine Donny."
Donna stared up wearily at her sisters trembling arms and tried her best to put a smile on her face for her.
"If you say so."
The room went silent after that, Donna playing with her sisters hand as she slowly lulled into her ever resting sleep. Donna could no longer cry for the loss but it hurt just as it had when her sister left. After that Donnas father went to madness and her mother into silence. It was eerily quiet when they ate together and the meal mostly consisted of the three avoiding each other's gazes. Donnas father would mumble to himself and glance everywhere but at Donna and her mother while she and her mother retreated to the safety of quiet. Most nights Donna and her mother sat in silence for movie night, when Donna dared look up her mothers dead gaze sent chills down her spine.
Eventually she learned to look where her mother looked and avoid those lifeless orbs. Her father, on the other hand, spent most every day in the craft room. The lights glaring through Donnas window, reminding her that her father was still going through what ever manic episode he was in. On Donnas tenth birthday her father walked up to her and handed her a doll before swaying off some place. Her mother offered her a handmade handkerchief and some sewing supplies. She accepted both gifts with excessive gratitude, glad that her parents had at least acknowledged her existence for one second. Little did she know that was the last she'd hear of them for the rest of her life. Later that eve two splashes drew her attention to the water fall, two body's bobbed down the river, Donnas parents. But she didn't cry, she stood silent and reserved as they drifted to the reservoir.
She didn't give them any memorial, the only things left of them were the doll and a dirtied handkerchief. The house went silent after that, silent until a man snuck in and paid Donna a visit. A man who hated the Beneviento name and sought out the last remaining to rape her on her own bed, in her own house. At least Donna wasn't alone that night, at least she could feel something other than stale, at least there was another body beside hers. He left not long after satisfying him self, leaving Donna to sit on her bed and weep. She cried till her chest burned and her eyes blurred, cried till sleep took her.
