What Remains of You

The Awakening

"Rebecca"

She stared at what had just said those words and her whole body shut down. She crumpled to her knees like paper being folded and waited a moment before reaching out and grasping a warm, life-filled hand.

"Dennis."

It came out barely as a whisper, choking on the word like if she said it aloud he might disappear like in the vision she had of the first time she came to the warehouse. She let out a long breath when he stayed put.

"Wh-where am I?" Dennis glanced around at his surroundings.

Oops.

Rebecca was stuck and at a loss for words.

"Uhh, It's just a little buildi-"

"Rebecca," It came out shaky and terrified from his mouth, a quivering jolt of sound that stopped when Dennis looked more closely at what was around him. It was the bodies.

Her heart broke at the sight of him scared. She reached out her hand, momentarily forgetting the blood dripping from it as she again patted his matted hair down. He noticed it though.

"Wh-what's that o-on your hand?" He backed away from it, retreating from her touch. Rebecca felt like she was being stabbed.

"Shhh, it's Ok Dennis, you're awake now, you don't have to worry about it," She smiled softly.

"I was dead, wasn't I? I was dead and now I'm alive. Why am I alive Rebecca, I should be dead." He was rocking back and forth on his knees, his eyes frantically moving around and trying to stay far away from the four people near him. Tears sprouted and rolled down his face as he continued to panic. Rebecca's heart kept breaking and she hugged him and pulled him close to her not bothering about his now bloody shirt from her hands and the floor.

"It's Ok Dennis, it will be Ok." She shushed him, stopping his rocking as he cried into her shoulder, so unsure of what his sister had become.

He stifled as his sobs slowed down, and confusion and then questions sprouted in his mind. "Rebecca, how am I alive? How am I here right now?" He glanced over at Alex's mangled body and started to shake violently. "What happened to her?"

He was on the verge of yelling now and he pointed to the wrecked people beside him. "What did you do!?"

Rebecca started crying at his outburst and stayed on her knees as she glared at him pleadingly. "I thought you would be happy?!"

"Happy that you what? Killed people for me?! Why the hell would I be happy about that Rebecca?" His hand shook and with one last final look at his sister as exhaustion set in and the overwhelmingness of it all came crashing down, he fainted.

It wasn't terribly ceremonious and he fell at an awkward angle as Rebecca rushed forward and caught him slightly before he ultimately crashed to the ground.

"Oh Dennis," she said, still crying. The beings which had done this, and who Rebecca really wanted to thank, had disappeared leaving an empty space that the sun soon filled with light and warmth. She looked up through the small window and sighed through her teeth, happy in the knowledge that Dennis could now see it with her.

Her limbs were exhausted and dragged Dennis slowly, like she was wading through glue. The last time she slept was the day before and the tiredness creeped up behind her and streamed into her muscles as she brought her now awake brother to the car and strapped him in. She trudged to the other side and stepped in, doing the same.

As she pulled out of the warehouse's dirty parking lot, the tires rumbling over the messy ground, she sighed heartily and exhaled out her worries.

Dennis was starting to wake up.

He rustled beside her, shuffling slightly as she pulled out and started the drive home. He tugged on his seat belt absently like he wasn't sure why it was there, then popped his eyes open with a gasp. He looked around anxiously, and when his eyes found Rebecca's they softened, then he looked at her bloody hands on the wheels and blanched, his eyes widening in despair.

"It wasn't a nightmare," he whispered dejectedly like maybe it really was, and this was the moment before he would wake up in his room with the sun shining and Rebecca there to greet him. Instead Rebecca sat there driving with a small smile on her face looking as content as ever. Except it was all wrong.

"I'm glad you're awake," She spoke joyfully, and Dennis gazed at her sadly.

Everything was so, so wrong.

"Ya," he mumbled, "awake."

She beamed like someone waking up randomly from the dead by murdering people was the most normal thing in the world. Dennis felt the urge to cry again and did his best to shut off the terrifying lump in his throat as he looked at his sister.

It was fear he felt lodging up in his throat and clogging it. His own sister terrified him.

It was almost laughable how his main concern was his sister when he really shouldn't even be alive right now, driving home in a car that his mom was probably wondering where it went.

Mom.

Dennis knew she would have a heart attack when she saw him, even if he wasn't dead for that long. He didn't want to know what would happen to his mom when he came home, if he even reached it that far. He was bound to die anytime soon, just for defying the laws and rules that nature seemed to follow. He wished he could have stayed in the empty dark forever.

"How long was I... gone for?" Dennis asked, not really wanting to know the answer but still wanting to ease his frustrated mind.

"Well, you died on August 14 and I woke you up today, so about three days," she smiled sweetly and looked over at him. "Three days too many." At that she turned her eyes back to the road, a frightening glint shining in her eyes that made Dennis shiver.

His hand had been trembling slightly the whole ride and as they neared the house it shook more and he hid it beside the seat so Rebecca wouldn't notice.

She killed people for me. I'm the reason they are dead, and I shouldn't even be alive. And it's all because of her.

He wished he could go back to when he didn't know about dad's death, about the thing that drove that person to kill him, and the same thing that drove Rebecca to copy it.

He wished it would just end.

As the car pulled into the driveway, the sun a little ways in the sky creating an early morning haze that streamed through the window, Dennis dug into his memories of August 14th, the day it happened.

Rebecca never did ask how Dennis really died.