Memories - Short Stories Collection

Sight - A gift or a curse?

Author's Note: This is what I wrote for my sophomore year of high school, for my English final. I hope you all enjoy it!
TW: Mentions of car crash, death, and murder (and a subtle mention of stillbirths and miscarriages)

To begin I must introduce myself, my name is Raven. Raven Thatcher.
I am 19 years old and have recently been taking care of my younger brother, Solace Thatcher. Our mother and his father had recently died from an incredulous car collision.

The reason my brother needs so much attention and care is because he is blind in his left eye, which makes it difficult for him to thrive without support. He just turned ten years old so that made him have difficulty, as he had just entered sixth grade.
The strange thing about all of this is that no one had expected the death of our parents. I know what you're thinking. 'No one expects a car crash!'
I understand that. But remember this, my parents were extremely safe drivers. If they even had the slightest hint of alcohol, even the slightest hint of breathing it, they would refuse to go anywhere. They would stay put, and there would be no convincing them to go anywhere. This whole thing is very puzzling and titillating to me.

Nonetheless, there is no rewinding the past so we must move on with our daily lives, no matter its strangeness. It is just very peculiar that they had 'happened' to be in a car crash just when I was not with my younger brother but with a friend at the time at a soccer game.
See, I am a huge fan of going to my best friend's games so that is what I was doing. I had gotten the call in the midst of it. I was cheering as my best friend, Olivia, had just kicked the ball into the goal, but the goalie had failed to prevent it from going in, and the soccer ball hit the net. I looked down as my phone vibrated in my pocket, and I quickly pulled it out. I looked at it and it had various missed call alerts. There were two from my younger brother, one from my mom, one from my stepdad, and another incoming call from the Ixonia Police Department. I picked it up, worried, and began calling all my family members right away.
After hearing the tragic news, I could barely breathe. My heart seemed as if it had stopped beating. I could hear the people around me cheering on Olivia but I couldn't seem to process anything they said. My friend, Olivia, had to comfort me after her game. I felt awful. It was her big moment but then she had to take care of me instead of celebrating.

Right now it is the middle of May 2026, but when everything happened with our parents, it was October 2024. As the winter drew closer, we had all been growing anxious. Anxious with the feeling of how bad it all was. Anxious with the drawing feeling of what was yet to come. Anxious with the blurring lines between fantasy and reality. It seems as if it was all just a bad dream some days, but then I'll go to the kitchen and not see Mom cooking breakfast. Or my stepdad in the living room watching football. I'll go to their room, and see their bed made and their clothes put away neatly in their closet. They're not going to come back and cook in the kitchen, watch TV, or get dressed ever again. And the realization that they will never come back makes my chest get tight every time.

Once one of my friends said it was almost unreal how they had died. Like it was something paranormal. I, for one, do not believe in that type of stuff. I have always believed that things like ghosts, anything spiritual, or even magic do not exist. I have always felt that that type of stuff was simply just plain childish. But now...I do not know if I have been right this whole time. Maybe paranormal things do exist, and I have just been being VERY delusional. It just does not seem right to me that they just shockingly happened to have an accident right before my senior year of high school. It just seems to me to be the most unfortunate time to have a major incident, especially one that will harm not just themselves, but also myself and my younger brother. 

I looked up from the journal that I was pondering over things in and saw yellow hair peeking out from the corner of my door frame. I rolled my eyes, looked over, and turned over in my bed so that my legs would hang over the edge of my bed.
"Solace! I know you're there. Come on out." I called out, grinning a little as my little brother wiggled out from the side of my door with a mischievous look set straight on his face. I hopped up off my bed and looked him in the eyes.