Sib Reconciliation

Carved into the rotting walls of the abandoned cabin were names; in a column against the wall facing east, each girl etched their memory into the house long forgotten. She sat facing the decaying wooden panels, rubbing her fingertips along the splintered edges of Sara, Emily, Jen, and the rest. The rock in her left hand trembled with her pulse. She remembered- she was not alone here. The others were here, up there, in her head. Nirvana's "Lithium" was right, she was happier now that she'd found her friends. Sara was the leader here, reminding her of her mother's choice to exit stage left so long ago. Emily was Sara's right-hand man, reciting personal mistakes in a circulating loop. It was Jen who stuck out; the quiet ones generally do, in their own way. Jen held the secret, the bona fide reason for this gathering. Jen was the little sister who had come some years before, chasing freedom from the taunting sneers of demons in a child's form. Jen looked with wide eyes from the corner, shaking subtly in the dark of the abandoned home. She could see her sister now, just as she'd found her, blood pooling around her blue skin; she was too late then, but now- now she had a chance. She convulsed momentarily, and took the next step, inscribing an F-R-A. Then she paused, reminding herself to savor these last breaths. She began again, N-C-I-N.. She dropped the stone and massaged her palm before completing the process: E. The room blurred into an abyssal lockdown as her mind spiraled into nothing. Her neck would be sore for eternity; her appendages cooled first as she dangled there. Outsiders and passersby saw names but no faces, knowing no more of the abandoned cottage than that it was a cute summer home now out of mind. The suffering held within those walls would shock the world into wellbeing, if only one girl survived to tell the tale of her hidden suffering. If only one girl lived on as more than a memory.