Chapter 1: Evening with Destiny

Life is calm right now, albeit a little depressing and boring for the twins.

 I smile at my twin, her dark features the exact opposite of my own pale hair and skin. She stares right through me into her closet, as if I'm not there. It's not entirely untrue, no. I'm not physically there, but my spirit is, and she knows it. She knows that I'm always with her when she's at home, and I'm not sure whether this fact comforts her or unnerves her.

I feel the excitement build in my chest. This was my second favorite time of the day, sunset. Fate will get into her pajamas, then she'll go outside onto the balcony to watch the sun set. I'll always stand next to her and listen to her talk about her life. To anyone else, she would be talking to air, but she knew very well that she had an audience, albeit a small and invisible one. She doesn't need to tell me about what's happened to her, she knows that she could tell me in her dreams, but I think she'd rather get it all out there, so we can have more fun when darkness falls.

Fate finishes getting changed into her night clothes; an old t-shirt and pajama pants that are starting to get just a tad small for her. She opens the creaky balcony door, stepping out onto the old spiderweb-covered platform and leaning against the rails, one hand propped up against her chin. She stares out at the sea of blues, pinks, reds, and purples spread across the horizon in a sea of blossoming stars, and then she begins to speak.

“They caught me again today. At lunch.” She starts, with her soft, intelligent voice. I know what she's talking about, 'they' are a group of kids from school, supposedly well-liked and well-known, who persistently torment her. They've stolen her lunch, her homework, spread rumors, and all sorts of terrible things that made me want to bring them to the afterlife, where I could properly face them and punish them for hurting my sister. “They yelled the most horrible of things out there on the school yard.” she sighs. “I wish you were still alive, Silv. You'd get rid of them, wouldn't you? You wouldn't let them bother me.” She goes on. “But some parts of the day were good. I made the honor roll again, and I got some more ideas for my poems.”

She tells me the poems she came up with that day, and I absorb all of it happily. After all, these are moments in the daylight when I feel like I'm still alive. Like I can still get up in the morning with everyone else in the world, like I can still go to school with every other teenager in the town.

Like I don't have to spend every moment of my afterlife conscious and wandering the home of my twin until she, too, passes on.

The sun finally finishes lavishing it's light on our town, and I followed Fate back inside, where she prepares to go to sleep. I stand-- or more of hover just an inch or two off the ground-- next to her bed, and she turns out the light and crawls under the bed sheets. I can see in the darkness, and I can see Fate start to drift off. Thankfully for me, she was always able to fall asleep easily.

Then the really special part starts. I watch Fate's soul peel away from her sleeping body, a process in which her body becomes a shell, and her actual self a spirit, floating like me. Her soul is now separated from her sleeping form, and hovers on top of the bed, grinning.

She floats down from the bed and onto the floor next to me, and her eyes scan over me, like they do every night. I know why she does it, it must seem miraculous getting to see me again, talking and moving. I look at her, too. She's a little shorter than I am; she always has been on the small side. Her hair is dark, and long, down past her waist, in a braid that she even wears in her sleep. I say that it looks like a cat-tail, for it bobs from side to side when she walks. Her skin shows the more Indian side of our family, in contrast to my German color. Her eyes are a dark brown, and shine with intelligence and interest. She's got the thin build that we both share.

My own eyes are a pale gray-blue, but I don't know what emotions are betrayed through them. My hair is thick, short, light, and frizzy, as opposed to her dark, long, thin, straight locks. I can see her clearly, as usual. After all, souls aren't actually transparent. I'm not see-through in dreams. Just invisible to waking world.

“So, you wanted my thoughts on your poems?”

Author's Note

Nothing in particular that I feel needs mentioning.

Reviews

[Isabella Vennemann]

Amazing, Keep writing I want to to read more of this story.

[Viney]

There's more now!