Insomnia Horror Collection

The Other Sister

So my mother was really strict... okay no, she was damn strict, sometimes outright abusive. See it was just my sister, my mother and me usually with the occasional random boyfriend my mom would bring home so you can imagine everything being really tight. Food, money, space and mostly patience were in limited supply around wherever we called home at the time.

This day in particular was horrible as I recall. My mother's then boyfriend had taken the door knobs off of the door to my room and my mom had locked me inside as punishment for turning the television off without placing it on "the right channel" first. So when mom came in and sat down she turned on the TV and bam, wrong station. She lost her mind and there I was sitting on the bedroom floor looking at the walls as my mom, my sister and Randy left for dinner.

As messed up as that sounds (and it is messed up) that is not what made it horrible. She had taken my phone, killed the WIFI and my windows had been nailed shut so yeah... I was quite literally a prisoner. Sure I could have broken out the window and left but eventually she knew I'd have to come back and it just didn't seem worth the drama anymore to fight her, besides I was almost seventeen and I knew my days there were numbered. I occupied my time by flipping neighbors off that were passing, blaring my radio and playing a Nintendo handheld I had hid from my mom.

After a couple of hours I got bored of even that so I leaned against the wall and slid down to my bottom holding one of those super bouncy rubber balls you get from a vending machine. I started throwing it against the wall opposite of me and catching it as it came back. It wasn't much but the rhythmic pattern I guess did something for me because I kept doing it.

The sun started to set and worst of all, I had to use the restroom. I knew they would be back any minute so I just went in an old Pepsi bottle I had next to the bed, sadly I planned for these occasions.

There I was throwing the ball, catching the ball and throwing again. It was a vicious circle that I had no idea would take a turn into something worse...

On what must have been my seven thousandth throw my reflexes slowed and I missed the catch. It hit the knuckle on my right hand and bounced into the nightstand and finally rolled under my bed.

I kind of slouched against the wall too lazy to go after it but after a minute or so I broke down and proceeded to belly crawl to the edge of my bed. When I lifted up the bed skirt to look under my bed for the ball I became nauseous with fear at what I saw. There crouched down on knees and elbows and sandwiched in an impossible, contorted angle was my sister! Everything inside of me compelled me to get up and jump right through my glass window to get away from this thing but I could not...

I stared at her and she stared at me, her face seemed to shake and tremble as she looked back at me with glassy, teary eyes. Her hair seemed wet and greasy and she seemed very... wrong. This was not my sister, not only did my sister leave with my mom and her boyfriend but this was something else, something dark and not natural. She just trembled frozen in her contorted squished position with the ball just inches from her mouth that was now drooling onto the hardwood floor.

This was my sister's body, but not her soul... it was an empty shell and something that did not belong in our world. I was frozen for how long, I do not know. Our gaze was only broken when she began to try and speak. It came out as only a groan and wheezy, no coherent words, then I heard a crack and pop as her arm began to extend outward.

I heard the front door to our home open and mom laughing with my sister, I jumped up and bolted to my door and began screaming and banging.

Mom ran to it and opened it, she was pissed but I didn't care. I stood in front of my sister, my real one and hugged her. She looked at me and apologized for mom being so cruel to me as she could see I was visibly shaken. A year later I joined the Army and never looked back. I'm not sure why I saw what I did that day or what it meant, I just know I will never forget the day I saw my other sister.

The End