The Red Poppet

I used to be the symbol of purity and innocence, but that wondrous quality was ripped away from my small hands, whence the blood of my sister was spilled on the splintering wood of my bed post. They say it was not my fault, that she was sick with a fever, and it was her own illness that brought her death to my young eyes, but it was not sickness. For I was the one who had taken her life in my hands, and crushed it. My childhood...no, my pure existence was forever stained on that grotesque and horrific night, to which I remember with a cold heart and rigid shudders. And while I sat upon my old bed—in the growing darkness of the small, rotting cabin I had so regrettably grown up in—I wrung my aged hands and awaited the moment that darkness would envelope my soul and forever hold me hostage. I felt as though I knew how and when I would be taken from this sick life because their faint, raspy voices had told me—throughout the whole of my growing up, and each waking moment my painful present—every detail of my coming end. My mother, and my sister, their evil, wry smiles, and their terrifying voices constantly told me how I would pass on. It was them, who made me wait in this cabin, on the bed that I had taken their lives upon. 12 hours I had waited, and in that time they had been awfully silent; those two voices in my head...It may have been 70 years prior, but I still remember, in vivid detail, the events of that night.
Though sickness riddled her small body, my younger sister refused to rest, instead she sat upon a small, round rug—that covered the hard floor of our cabin—whilst she played with her dolls. She was strong, unlike most children with such illness, and despite the harsh truth of her slow, yet imminent death, she would remain on that rug for the better part of day...all the while she would have a weak smile upon her lips. I, only being ten years of age at the time, would sit beside her and partake in her games. Though most were creatively morbid, we enjoyed them as much as we could. It was during one of our games that I noticed something...peculiar about one of her dolls. A red line, drawn in my mother's lipstick, resided upon the fabric neck of her favourite poppet; the one she always said was hers and had never once let me play with.
"Sister...why did you ruin your doll?" I quietly asked, as not to wake my mother.
She carefully looked up at me and very gently shook her small blonde head. "No...I fixed it...," she delicately replied, but her voice barely surpassed that of a whisper, "in the way I want to be fixed..."
It was after her strange and striking reply, that my beloved younger sister collapsed.
I knew what she desired, but how I was to do it, eluded me. Apprehensively, I took her in my small arms, and carried her to my bed, so she could rest...but I knew, because of the awful deed I was intending to commit, that her rest would last alot longer than a few measly hours.
I slipped into the kitchen, just as my mother had woken from her nap, but before she could come to realise my presence, I was gone. I had taken a slightly rusted kitchen knife from its perch on the counter and returned to my bed with the tool.
"Brother...," she returned her shy gaze to me, while I shook with fear and dread for the crime she so wanted me to go through with. "Thank you...," those were her final two words. After which, she tilted her head back and awaited the pain I was to inflict upon her.
I raised the sharp tool and before I could think twice about it, forced it to slash through the delicate, ghostly white flesh of my sister's neck. Red...that was all I could comprehend. It was on my hands, the sheets, and spilling from my sister, and then there was a scream...My mother had seen what horrible thing I had done to her only daughter.
A state of panic pervaded me, and in a blind fit, I dug the knife into my mother's stomach. She fell back in what, I could only assume, was agonising pain, but something inside of me said to keep going...moreover, a voice that was so subtle and quiet that I may have only imagined it.
I pulled the knife free and repeatedly thrusted the small blade into my mother, until she became nothing but a limp, red doll. My sister matched her favourite poppet....and my mother had simply become one...
I fell to my knees as the panic left me, and what replaced it was pure regret.
That hushed voice that had told me to keep stabbing, was then joined by another, and both started telling me things...things I would never forget...
Now...those things would become a brutal reality. I looked up from my brittle hands, and all I saw was a blinding light. Faintly, I could make out the ghostly image of woman, and a little girl...Thinking my voices had lied to me about my way of passage, I carefully outstretched my hand, to meet with woman's, but something about her struck a sense of fear deep inside me, so I hesitantly, and partially pulled my hand away.
The woman noticed this, and—upon my slight scruple—forced the light to vanish, leaving me in pitch black darkness. That spark of fear formed a fire and that fire began raging as I scrambled backward onto my old bed. They hadn't lied. They never did...my voices had only spoken the truth. I knew...I knew their souls would come back from the depths of hell to drag me down with them.
Through the thick ink I could make out two piercing red eyes and a small glint. I went to scream, but a familiar hand clamped over my mouth and harshly pulled my head back, leaving my neck exposed.
A small figure climbed atop me, then held something small, thin, and sharp against my collar.
"You...," the figure's voice hardly reached the volume of a murmur, and while it spoke, something warm dripped onto my cotton shirt. "You fixed me...so I will fix you, too," she spoke so softly, but her eyes shone with insanity. The blade she so carefully held, finally made one clean cut through my dry throat; and while I lied there, red spilling from neck, a doll was placed on my chest.
"Now...all three of us are fixed," she followed her quiet words with a string of blood curdling giggles. It was that phrase, and her recognisable, insanity laced sniggering, that finally made me understand who she was, but Death greeted me before her name could pass my lips. Her small, frail arms wrapped around my cold, dead body and her head rested upon my unmoving chest. And while she lied there, two simple, last words were spoken in a voice that barely surpassed that of a whisper, "thank you..."