The Others

chapter 2.

                       5 years before
School was dragging. I wasn't feeling very well today. My head was pounding, and my chest felt extremely tight. I had hoped I wasn't coming down with something. That would be just what I needed.

At this point, I just wanted to get home to my sister so we could watch the reruns of Full House that we had grown so accustomed to. My best friend, Juliet, was tapping her foot impatiently as the seconds to the last minute of the school day ticked on.

After what felt like an eternity, the annoying ring of the bell shrieked throughout the entire school. Finally, Juliet and I gathered our things and walked out of the classroom together.

I ignore the throbbing that radiates through my skull as we walk. It seems to ache with each step I take. 'Just make it home Echo' I say to myself.

Juliet notices my discomfort and stops walking. "Hey, you okay?" She places a hand on my arm. "You don't look too hot," she proceeds to place the hand she has on on my arm and uses it to press the back of her palm to my forehead.

"I'm fine," I murmur. "Should I call your sister?" she ignores me, pressing on. I put on a fake smile and shake my head. "It's just a short bus drive home," I retort trying to ignore the sudden sensation of nausea that I felt.

My head continued to ache as we got on to the bus. Juliet let me take the window seat. Leaning my head against the window, I close my eyes. 'Eight minutes' I think silently. Just eight short minutes and i'll be home. I kept my eyes closed. The sounds of the students around me and the sudden bumps and potholes the bus went over were not helping my headache.

When we stopped in the front of my neighborhood I was happy to get off. As I reached the last step on the bus, my world seemed to split in two. I fell to my knees. Juliet, who was behind me quickly grabbed me and helped me to my feet. "Woah! Ech, are you okay?" she asks me again.

I just needed to make it home, my house was thirty steps away.

Lying I again, I pry her fingers from my wrist and nod my head. I start to walk straight down my street before she could say or do anything else. Looking over my shoulder I call out "I'll see you tomorrow,"

As I near my front door. I fumble with the key around my neck and hastily unlock the door. My sister wasn't home yet. My feet felt heavy as I trudged up the stairs to my bedroom. I took three pain killers from the bathroom and chugged them down with the water bottle by my bed.

As I lay in my bed, I closed my eyes.

"Echo? You okay? Wake up." I felt a hand on my forehead. I opened my eyes. It was dark now. The hall light was on illuminating the room and my sisters face.

"Hey Emby," I whisper. My voice hoarse. "What time is it?"

"Almost nine, you seemed to be asleep longer than your regular nap," my sister says to me, but I hear the teasing in her voice. She hates when I nap after school, she thinks I won't be able to go to sleep for the night. Well, I sure won't be able to now. She must have been home for a little while.

"Juliet called me earlier," she says. "Said you weren't feeling good today?" she states it more as a question. I know my sister. She's worried, but does a good job at hiding it. I notice the headache is gone. But i'm very hungry. "Actually," I begin "I feel a lot better, must have been a migraine," I say.

"Why didn't you call me to pick you up early from school?" she scolds. I shake my head. "You were working and didn't want you to leave work just because of headache," I reply as I swing my legs over my bed.

Embers was my older sister and the only relative I knew. Our parents passed away when she was eighteen. I was just two years old. Embers was much older than me so she was more of a mother figure than anything. She worked full time as a receptionist at the hospital. Emby would hate it if she missed work.

I hear her sigh. "I'm going to sleep, but Echo, please just call me next time?" she mutters. "Yeah, sure!" I reply knowing I really won't. I refuse to be a minor reason for my sister to miss work.

I hear the door to her bedroom close softly I enter the kitchen. On the stove, there was a box of pizza. Bless. I grabbed two slices and looked for a plate to place them on. I opened both of the cabinets that were above the stove.

The plates were on the second shelf in the cabinets. Being so short I could barely reach the top of the stack. I was on my tip toes and I felt the tip of my tongue poking out of the corner of my mouth in concentration.

A tingling sensation made itself known in the back of my head. The strange feeling caught me off guard and I stopped stretching up and let the tingling pass before reaching up again.

Suddenly, all the plates in the cabinets crashed to the ground, that included the various other dishes that were stacked in the spaces next to them. I screamed as I heard the loud crash. I covered my face as pieces of glass bounced off the tiles kitchen floor.

My sister rushed out into the kitchen and I just have been a sight. Standing in the middle of the kitchen broken glass. "What the hell happened?" she shouted.

I must have been shaking. "I-i don't know," I whisper. "They all just...fell."

"It was an accident," I add. It must've been, maybe the weight of me holding on to reach up made them all fall.  Or maybe...something? How strange.

"Clean it up Echo," she orders  and I gulp. She must have been too exhausted to scold me.

I begin sweeping and think to myself. My head feels fluttery, and empty? How did that happen. There has to be a logical explanation.

Did I really do that?