Balloons

I own everything.

My mother sobbed as the two balloons, one blue and one pink, flew into the sky. As they disappeared, memories of me and my sister flooded over me.

Daisy, two years old, running through the house while being chased by our father. In the background, my mother was sitting on the couch, smiling as she watched us. I was next to her, reading a book and eating. When Daisy would pass by me, I would look up and smile a bit, quietly telling her to go faster.

The image changed to a park, where six-year-old Daisy and I were swinging. Rosaria, our two-year-old sister, was in one of the toddler swings and being pushed by our father. Our mother watched us from the bench she was on, smiling happily.

Daisy yelled, "Look mom, I'm gonna jump off!" Then leapt from the swing as mother laughed and clapped as Daisy landed perfectly. I let my swing go as high as it could before doing the same, landing in a roll and springing up a couple feet away from Daisy.

Then, I found myself at a hospital. I was sitting with my father in the waiting room, waiting for Daisy and our mother to get back.

The door opened, and mother came up to us. She didn't have Daisy with her.

"The doctor's don't know what it is. They're keeping her here for a few days," She said sadly.

"I'm not just going to let Daisy stay here without us!" Dad said.

"We'll visit her tomorrow. We can't do anything to help her today."

Dad hesitated for a second, "Fine. But we are coming back tomorrow.

"Ok."

We left the waiting room, but as I walked through the door I found myself in a hospital room, Daisy was in the hospital bed, with all of us around her. The heart monitor was slowing down, and I silently prayed for it to stabilize, even though I knew it wouldn't. There were a few more tense moments where the room was entirely silent except for a few broken sobs from mother and I. Father was crying too, but he had more relatives die than any of us, allowing him to master the art of silent sobbing.

The monitor started flatlining, and my father started to really cry. I looked away from Daisy's dead body and left the room, wishing that I could've been the one to die instead of her. Instead, we would both die, along with father, who died in a car accident only a few weeks after Daisy died. Mother would have no one but her parents, but somehow I didn't regret dying. I couldn't change that fact that the heart monitor next to my hospital bed was currently flatlining, or that my mother was sobbing into her father's chest, or anything that already happened or is happening.

I was dead. Nothing could change that.