With the Rest of Them

I've seen two worlds in one life, but no amount of wreckage or change should compel a soul to give up. As long as I'm moving forward I cannot lose.

I stand here, in this place. The ruins of my family home are nothing more than a resonant phantom against a blazing cerulean sky, blue as it always has been. Wind rustles my now short, raggedy hair, and I look to the sky ahead of me with new light in my eyes. His eyes.

When I was fifteen, my twin brother disappeared. I woke up in the night, and he was nowhere to be found, fallen off the edge of the earth, with the rest of them. I used to relive it when I dreamt. I would feel that terror all over again, devouring my heart as if his disappearance was new knowledge to me. I would jump up and look for my other half, but he had gone away and left me.

 “How dare you.” I would speak into the night. I used to pray that his wandering soul would hear me and that he’d realize just what he had done, just what a monster he was for leaving me like this. I hoped it hurt him to see me like that, my soul heavy and cold. He is dead. I used to feel him. He was just a feeling, I know that feelings are what you make them to be, so I chose to make him silent, the same way I learned to silence pain.

It’s that easy.

My name is Babylon Wilder. I am twenty years old. My brother was Josiah Wilder. He had to go, I still don’t know why, but now I no longer let it hurt me. There was a time when I wanted to be angry and I let the emotion swallow me whole and entangle me hopelessly, encasing me in a cocoon of stone, turning me into nothing. “How dare you. How dare you, how dare you.” 

But it doesn’t hurt, anymore, to think of him. I think back before the Phenomenon, we were school children. Endings were just happy, and if they weren’t, we had something to fall back on. He was my confidant and he even understood my girlish qualms, despite our gender differences. He would help me get over some jerk. I would call him a princess. He would hit me. I would tell him he hit like a girl. He would push me over and kick me while I was down. We would laugh. Good times. 

I remember Ivy, the one who loved him, and it’s the way she loved him that made me realize just what a rare heart he had. When he fell for her, I remember realizing just how special he must be. My brother. A boy, he didn’t work out or anything but he was tall, broad, and well-built. He had long hair and very unique eyes, which I never even thought about until she came along. They were dark but with curious brightness and expression. Then I saw the way he smiled at her, and I realized just why she fell. He had two dimples, which must‘ve been heck of adorable to any girl and his eyes became more beautiful than anything I bet she’d had ever seen, zeroed in on her always. She had no choice but to give him a chance. But then, the reason she loved him was for his bright heart, so light and carefree and creating a world that was something she wanted to have a piece of. 

I, his twin sister, was suddenly and unexpectedly afraid, I felt the need to protect him and his rare heart. I pulled her out of the crowd one day, very urgently and almost angrily I made her swear never to hurt him, she looked at me with eyes, most sternly reassuring. She wouldn’t.

No one here knows what the Phenomenon was. I remember the day it happened, it was a grey day, still and normal. It was the dawn of autumn and bright leaves flurried in the breeze. We were just living, simply and happily without philosophies or expectations. Naturally, I was tormenting Josiah and Ivy over their ever present and slightly nauseating affections. Holding hands, hugging, kissing, all that. Young love, how charming. She was actually a friend of mine, an unforgettable person, exotic, gorgeous and vibrant, yet modest. She had a dynamite sense of humor. He was Josiah. Shy, charming and willing to do anything for her, but all she ever asked of him was a smile. We were all just sitting there, him, her, me, and a few of my friends. 

And then, in one moment people were gone. Just gone. There aren’t words to describe it, so terrifyingly, disconcertingly, simply…gone. A large handful of strangers that were walking past just seconds ago had vanished, all but one of the acquaintances that had just been next to me joking were gone, and amongst them was his Ivy. We looked to each other, neither of us sure what to think, with both of us scared, and his mind too full of questions to miss her. I could see those questions zipping behind his concerned eyes, a look on him I didn’t want see. I just looked at him wishing I could answer those questions and see him smile again. But I knew from that moment, that I might never. We ran home to find our parents missing. We felt no need to mourn them because we were content to live with each other, but we were, in fact, alone. We had to figure out how to live which we would’ve been capable of doing had the earth not been ready to move right out from under us. We both felt it coming, we were in trouble. Everyone who was left on earth with us was in trouble. What was the world now? Was this some sort of apocalypse? Did we survive? Go us. But now what? 

In a twist of events over the next week, the earth really did begin to dilapidate, like something out of a movie. We were survival partners, and life was now a serious thing. 

Then, one night I find him gone from his bed. I searched for him in our home and out, calling his name with desperation that I’ve never known, only to have my nightmare met. I fought hard with my gnawing instinct to panic, but hope was not worthwhile. I stayed awake filling the still air with songs. The words were as close to my heart as memories this time last year, but now even music was hollow.  Still, I continued singing just to fill the vacant air, and out of hopelessness and pure fear I began praying to a God that I wish I knew. Days turned to weeks…. Months. I started to cry for him like a child, my fear souring to resentment. Winter came with its bare trees and thieving winds. I could feel him, but he was like the wind. I hardly knew whether he was in my head or if he was actually there. In my bitterness, I silenced him. What else could his ghost want from me? 

Eventually, I just grew tired of the fear and the tears. I sat in a field and I asked for that ghost to hear me. He sat down next to me and I talked to him I cried for the last time and felt his arms around me, and I saw him smile, as real as the ground below me. I asked him to guide me and to teach me how I should do this thing. Through his death, I grew. As I grew with him surrounding me in every breath, I discovered a side to both of us that I never knew. 

Seven winters later, the old world is gone. Everything is changed as a result of the Phenomenon and its resounding ire. I, Babylon Wilder will not survive without living. What is life if living is just affliction? I’ve seen two different worlds in one life, but no amount of wreckage or change should compel a soul to give up. As long as I am walking forward, I cannot lose. I’m going to build a good life for me, with light, and music, and a happy ending. I will shine as a human in this makeshift society. I will be what I was meant to be. I will find my reason to still be here. I no longer silence the pain, I chose a while back to let it peel from me completely and I rose, able to smile. I light a candle for my dead brother, then, with the greatest kind of love that I could ever possess for a human or a ghost, I walk away. 

Author's Note

I did not think dialogue was that important, so if you would like to add some or some character development I'd be totes thrilled