Fading Into Nonexistence

Reflected Souls

The shingling of the house has rotted and is dangling off the sides of the roof. Almost every window is broken, showing signs of the angry household we grew up in.

"Same old house," I mutter softly as I walk up the crumbling stairs.

"Careful," James mentions and skips the middle of the three stairs. He approaches the front door with caution and hesitantly places the key inside the knob. The door cries out as James opens it for the first time in six months. Opening the door releases the smell of alcohol and cigarette smoke and I breathe in without thought. I don't cough.

"Ladies first," I mumble and walk past James, who would never enter the house first. Not this house.

The smell increases as I enter the first room, the living room. Inside the room is a mere couch and a small, outdated tv. An ashtray is placed to the right of the couch. "Same old house," I mutter and hear James shuffle behind me as I leave the room.

"Wait," James spits out from the end of the hallway and I turn back to face him.

"What?" I question and look back at the door I was approaching.

"That's-" he mutters under his breath. "That's their room," he finishes in barely a whisper. I squeeze my eyes shut and take a deep breath.

"Not anymore," I claim and move back to the door. My eyes involuntarily shut when I reach for the doorknob. The door swishes open with ease. My eyes slowly open to see an empty room.

"What?" James speaks, still at the end of the hall.

"It's-" I shake my head. "It's empty," I reply and enter the empty room. "This was their room. It had a bed and-" my eyes shift to a broken mirror hanging on the left wall. It's in the exact center with cracks all through it. "There's a mirror," I inform and walk to confront the mirror. It shimmers in the sunlight that comes from the half broken window. I skim my finger down the cracks, outlining them as I go. I hear James enter the room carefully.

"Why is this in here?" I question my brother in a surprisingly quiet voice.

"Why is any of this stuff in here?" James replies and gestures his hand towards the door. "Come on," he says as he exits quickly. I take a last glance at the broken mirror and follow behind him. The house echoes and creaks from old age as we stride down the stairs and into the kitchen. James leans against the counter and it moans under his weight.

"I didn't miss this piece of shit," he pronounces suddenly.

"James!" I hiss at him even though I feel the same way.

"Come on Cora. Don't start pretending our parents were saints just because they're dead," he demands with a shake of his head and slowly drops down to the floor, where he crouches on it's surface.

"I'm not. I'm just-" I lose track of my sentence and look to the floor. "It is ours now. So don't call it a piece of shit, we can change it," I claim and pull out a wooden chair from the table.

"We're not keeping it," James says and makes a skeptical face. "My plan was to destroy it-"

"What?" I burst out and my eyes swipe quickly to James.

"I want to demolish it," he answers calmly.

"We could get at least a hundred thousand for this house James! You know we both need that," I finish with confusion in my dark-blue eyes.

"And you know why we both want to destroy it, not to mention why we should destroy it." A silence spreads throughout the kitchen with the end of his statement.

"We need the money," I whisper to the air. The silence continues to spread, but this time into my ears and throughout my body. It fills me, and my eyes become tensely connected to the floor. Old memories begin to blur atop the floor and I squeeze my eyes shut. Stupid Bitch, you won't amount to anything. Not without us at least. I bite my lip and move my head slightly to the right.