Always Here

Chapter 1

I always thought death would be more, I don't know... Dream-like. Where it's in the sense that everything around you appears realistic, but has a weird detached feeling. This isn't that.

It's vivid. Like I'm there still, with them, living. It's feels like I'm moving normally. Legs go forward and bend like normal non-dead legs would. My arms still reach forward and I can wave them around. Heck, I can feel myself high five my hands together.

But I can't actually touch things. When I reach to grasp an object my hand goes through it. Like looking at the paintings at an art museum. Typically a sign warning, "Don't touch the paintings." Which makes it all the more tempting. Touching the hypothetical painting was disappointing, no wonder the hypothetical sign was hung.

I haven't been dead long. In fact, my funeral is this weekend.

I walk around my house absent mindedly. It's only been a day. Twenty four hours. Weird how a mere hour could mean so much. I lived nineteen years of my life neglecting the reality of time given to live.

I watched as my mother cried endlessly into late hours last night. Watched as she emptied her tear ducts, her face red and puffy. She'd think she couldn't cry anymore. Then she'd sob all over again, like she had just received the news.

I felt awful, feel awful. I can't take her hand in mine. Tell her everything will be okay. Really, it isn't. Dad held her for most of the night. They sat in silence, aside from her crying.

I watched as my father grew tired of comforting her. His own somber thoughts haunting his mind. My father entered the garage and got in the car. Not going anywhere, not even leaving the house.

He lost his son. The boy he'd tried so hard to shape into a miniature mold of himself. And oh, I am. Was. A younger replica of the man. Memories of him taking me with him hunting, fishing, and bowling wash over. His passions became mine. Are mine?

My little sister doesn't know how to feel. As a thirteen year old, she herself feels enough emotions. Insecurity, anxiety, stress, doubt. A lot of things go through your head as a child in middle school. It only gets worse through high school, and I completely understand.

At four in the morning, while everyone else was asleep, she was staring at her bedroom ceiling. She got up walking aimlessly. The kitchen, the basement, looked into my parent's room. Almost as if she was doing everything to avoid my bedroom.

She came to my door eventually. She stood in the entrance for a straight five minutes. Not moving, lightly breathing, eyes closed. When she opened them again they were watery. "You dumbass..." she whispered, a slight tug at her lips. That smirk disappeared quickly.

She placed her hand on my doorknob, breathed deeply, then turned and pushed it open. Her steps were slow, and she looked around, almost with a lost expression.

My room was foreign to her. As if she had never seen it before, though she knew where I kept everything through and through. And with that knowledge, she dug through my drawers. Gingerly, wanting not to leave any fingerprints. Her existence non, no proof of her ever being there.

She took a T-shirt from my dresser and closed it. She put it to her nose and breathed in. "Smells like him." She said quietly. And as silently as she entered, she left.

She slept in my shirt the rest of the night.