Haunted Hearts

Chapter 7

I don't want to do this anymore.

Losing my little sister was like having the ground yanked out from beneath me, leaving me stranded in a world that suddenly felt foreign and cold.

I was there when she was born. I was there the first time she ever opened her eyes. And now I was there the last time she closed them. It was so unfair. It should've been me.
It. Should've. Been. Me.

At first, I couldn't wrap my head around the idea that she was gone. It felt like a cruel joke, a nightmare from which I couldn't wake up.

As the truth sank in, grief consumed me. It was like a heavy fog settling over my heart, weighing me down with a crushing sadness that seemed impossible to shake. I found myself drowning in a sea of tears, over and over again. Each one a silent plea for her to come back, for things to return to how they were before... Or for me to just end this horrible pain. How is it that in the blink of an eye, everything can change so drastically?

I couldn't think.
I couldn't breathe.
Several mornings, I found myself staring at my father's portrait. Now, I've memorized every single brush on it.
I hated looking at my father.
I hated his image.
But it was all that Mia had left in the world. All that I had left from her. And sometimes, if I closed my eyes, I could still hear her brushes on the canvas.

The only consolation I found was in that painting and in the white rosary she left behind, its beads a tangible link to her memory.

Anger simmered beneath the surface, a seething resentment at the unfairness of it all.
Why her? Why us?
I felt a sense of guilt too, for the times I took her for granted, for the moments I let slip by without telling her how much she meant to me.

It had been five days since Mia's passing, and the weight of her absence hung heavy on my soul. Each day felt like a struggle. The emptiness was the hardest part to bear. It felt like a piece of me had been ripped away, leaving behind a raw, gaping wound that refused to heal. Everywhere I looked, I was reminded of her - in the empty chair at the dinner table, in the untouched clothes in her room, in the laughter that was now replaced by silence.

The worst part of it was, I couldn't even visit her grave.
She had no grave.
I couldn't take her body out of that damned house. That day, as soon as the police arrived everything went dark and I suddenly woke on my bed, sunlight cascading through the window, but she was nowhere to be found. Initially, I dismissed it as a nightmare, but upon entering her room, the harsh reality pierced through—I had lost her. And I was powerless to retrieve her, since we were held captive on an unknown location.
She was gone.
Really gone.
And I was robbed of the chance to bid her farewell, denied the solace of visiting her, prohibited to spill my tears in her spirit's presence. I was left with nothing. I was left with nothing but the carcass of my body. Not a single emotion left in me.

Despite the haunting presence that lingered in the house, I no longer feared the ghosts that roamed its halls. Because being scared would mean that I cared what happened to me, and that was far from the truth.
Somehow, I knew Mia's spirit would never haunt our house. She would never be close to me again. Somehow, I knew this. I could feel it in my bones. She felt so far away.

But the haunting never stopped. Even if I was grieving, the ghosts didn't seem to care.
As I navigated the strange occurrences that plagued my home, from the mysterious movements to the inexplicable shattering of plates, I couldn't help but find a twisted humor in it all. Since I have no one to protect anymore, I kept secretly hoping one of those plates would eventually go to my face, cut me beyond repair and kill me.
But they never did. 
My body was now adorned with different sets of scars and cuts, but nothing too painful. Nothing big, just enough to make me remember they were still around. They always missed any vital parts of my body, as if they were missing those on purpose.