STAY AFRAID (A Horror Anthology)

#1 - Dolls

My sister, Anna, died 2 years ago, and her death brought me and my family into a place where no one could hear sentiments.

It was a dark and lonely void where your consciousness endlessly floats like a lost spirit, and the deepest part of it is unknown and is always unknown. I hovered around that endless and eternal void searching for answers, but all I found was me trapped inside this silent yet frightening ordeal.

The death of my innocent sister really has brought an unimaginable pain to our family. Now, as I search for what I believe are answers, let me tell you the detailed story of Anna's
death, and how she had affected and inflicted mysteries within our household--if you insist my telling.

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Anna died at age 22 from a disease the neurologist called spongiform encephalopathies – a deadly brain disease which causes abnormal folding of the brain cells. The doctor said she got it from eating a meat from an infected animal.

Her death was unfortunate since she was still young, full of life and dreams.

My family owns Doll House Inc. and this job obviously brought Anna into loving dolls, while I, on the other hand, despised the idea of making human-like toys that can somehow ruin someone else's childhood.

How ironic would it be to know that the son of the owner of this company has pediophobia?
I hate dolls and I fear them, but I had to live with them.

When the doctor pronounced my sister's death, on her bed, beside her favorite dolls, my mother ultimately lost the vigor to continue living. It gave her so much pain that it lasted a week before her tears dried. Night after night she would howl and scream that our helpers would need, with no more options left, to clutch and wrestle her. I pitied mother, and father was always not around to be with her.

"Mama's not feeling well," I called father up a week after Anna's burial; he's in a business trip in Germany with an investor who he said decided to work with our company.

"She's being childish. I have my own share of pain, too, Philip, but being irrational was not my option," he said flatly.

"She needs you," I pleaded; the phone I was holding squeaked as I grasped it because of anger. Why is he being too insensitive?

"What I want you to do, Philip, is to take charge of the company while I'm not around. Hire a nurse for your mother or try taking her to a psychologist--" he did not finish his horrible utterance of selfish expressions as I quickly cut our conversation with so much hatred in my heart. He was becoming useless, both as a husband and as a father.

After that fruitless conversation with father, I was relieved to know that mother was starting to feel well again. She's suddenly comeback to herself and started to do the things she normally does in our house—tending the groceries, petting our dogs, taking charge of the concerns in the company and becoming a mother to me again.

She's back to normal.

But it didn't last long. I knew from the time she acted that way. Mother's one greatest talent is concealing her true feelings. But at this point, she knew she could not successfully mask the deepening pain inside. It kills her, and she surrenders every time.

When father went back from Germany, mother would always wake up in the middle of the night shouting and screaming my sister's name. She kept on calling Anna as if she's still there. There were nights when mother would actually sleep on Anna's bed and cry the whole night, her voice echoing inside the house.

But mom, I'm still here.

I wanted to say that but I couldn't.

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