“Lacey, where are you going?”

Lacey tugged her sneakers on, blind with rage, and slung a backpack across her shoulders— her breath caught in her throat as she tried to hold back choked sobs, lungs rigid and painful as she dug her fingernails into her palm so hard that dots of blood appeared, smearing across her chipped nail polish and reminding the girl that it was far, far too late to change anything. Glowering, she whipped around to face her sister, unsteady eyes struggling to focus on the pathetic thing that had once been her little Elle.

“Lace, you’ve taken those pills again...” The creature said feebly in a raspy voice soft enough to be a whisper. She stood there, a pale and bony form with a dirty blanket draped over her head and body, white curls poking out of the fabric and tumbling down to her elbows. She had been beautiful once, but that was before— now, time and scalpels had worn away at her body and soul, leaving something ethereal and damaged beyond recognition. Lacey hated Elle. She hated Elle with the entirety of her diseased soul and frostbitten heart.

“I’ll tell you where I’m going!” The girl yelled, stalking over unsteadily and grabbing Elle’s wrist in as tight a grip as her shaking hands could muster— it was white and translucent, with thin, webbed scars marring the velvety, tissue-paper skin and cyan veins bulging unpleasantly. Lacey wanted to take hold of one and pull, pull until the monster that had once been her sibling writhed on the floor and bled to death—

“I’m going anywhere you’re not, Elle— you’re not human, not anymore! You’ve ruined my life, you monster!”

Lacey shoved Elle against the wall and the younger girl slid down it to her knees, lowering her head. She didn’t cry, nor make any attempt to fight back— she just sat there, defeated, looking like an abandoned dog left to die in the streets. The silvery hair almost seemed to glow in the dull moonlight, unnatural and pale against the dingy apartment walls. Lacey kicked at the thing again, wishing it would fight back— wishing Elle would growl or bite or pull a gun out from under her makeshift cloak and shoot her right through the forehead.

“Fight me! Fight me, you little bitch! Kill me like you killed our parents, you fucked up... thing!”

Elle slowly shifted her long limbs back into a sitting position, her movements slow and clumsy— all elbows and knees and protruding bones. It reminded Lacey of an oversized spider, and she was pleased to see a small trickle of blood flowing from the pale lips.

“I didn’t mean to, you know that.” Elle protested quietly, her voice thick and muffled as her cheek swelled from the blow, a bruise already blossoming across her anemic complexion.

“Yeah, well, I didn’t mean to isn’t going to bring them back!”

Lacey hurled a shoe at Elle. The girl didn’t bother to dodge it but simply allowed it to hit her in the chest and fall to the floor with a dull thump. Besides a sharp intake of breath as the object connected with her ribcage, Elle offered no other response. The shoe lay by her hand, discarded.

“Throw it back, you freak! Don’t pretend you’re afraid to hurt your sister!” Lacey held up her arm to show a ragged white scar running all the way from her thumb to her elbow, the reminder of a kitchen knife dragged unsteadily through flesh. Elle shook her head a little. Tears were mixed in with the blood now, trickling down her chin and staining the woolen blanket a darker shade of grey.

“I didn’t mean to, Lacey. I never meant to, I love you, I swear!”

“You don’t love anyone.” The girl spat, slamming the door behind her and testing the lock twice to make sure the creature inside could never get out— pushing her slightly too long bangs out of her eyes, Lacey shoved her hands into the pocket of her hoodie and made her way down the dreary hall of the apartment building, a metallic taste filling her mouth as she chewed on the inside of her cheek.

    Hours later, Lacey was slumped over a grimy counter in a bar, struggling to focus her gaze on the fifth glass of cheap liquor. Lately, she had found herself in this position quite frequently. Sometimes, she chatted with men who were drinking away their sorrows about their failed marriages— followed them back to their apartment for a desperate attempt to feel pleasure again. But most of the time, the girl simply sat there all night, trying to drown herself in memories and hoping in the back of her mind that the alcohol would kill her. She took another swig of the amber liquid, making a face as the drink burned her throat and sinuses— shit, what was that, her eighth one?

Already quite tipsy, Lacey fumbled with her wallet to retrieve payment for yet another shot of amnesia, pausing as her fingers brushed across the crinkled surface of a photograph. Biting her lip, the girl gently pulled the thing from its confines in between her library card and a crumpled five dollar bill.

It was her ten year old self, dressed in a red velvet gown and standing in front of her two smiling parents with a wide grin showcasing her missing front tooth. There was another person in the photograph, but it was difficult to tell now— the corner had been burned off with a lighter, leaving heavy black marks and the slightest indication of soft brown curls and the frills of a formal dress.

This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.

Lacey stared at it a moment, feeling a sharp pain in her chest as she recalled a time and a place when they had all been alive, happy— when the greatest bane of her existence had been being forced to stand still for a family photograph. They had lived in San Francisco, then— their father had just gotten a new job offer with a rather significant raise, and the girls had been thrilled to hear that they would be moving to California, the home of movie stars and white-sand beaches and palm trees. Elle had been only six years old. An adorable, clumsy child that had tripped over her own feet while chasing grasshoppers in the back yard and knew all the words to every Disney song.

    Lacey took a deep breath and unzipped her backpack, pulling out a tattered photograph album with a cheerful design emblazoned on the cover. She examined it frequently— the pictures from her parents’ wedding, her mother’s birthday, her father’s work parties— but this time, for the first time in years, the girl flipped past the section with her parents’ photographs and examined those of her sister. Her eyes stung and Lacey quickly brushed the tears away with the back of her hand, trying hard to push the thoughts from her mind but failing spectacularly at the task— there were very few excuses for crying in public, in her opinion. But Lacey was drunk, and that was an excuse for many things.

    Elle had been such a sweet young girl- with rose-colored cheeks, chocolate brown curls and wide eyes, she had looked almost exactly like a doll. She was there in every photograph, looking small, childish, and innocent. It was all there: Elle and Lacey playing tag, jumping rope, reading storybooks— there was the day they had adopted their dog, Heidi. The day Elle had graduated fifth grade, Lacey’s flute performance in the school play— The last photograph was a nine year old Elle, Smiling as she held up a huge, frosting-covered cupcake. There was a dab of icing on the tip of her nose. That was the day before she had disappeared, and the last time anybody had ever seen her undamaged and whole.

    Elle had vanished in the middle of the day, while drawing pictures of cats and rainbows on the driveway using sidewalk chalk. Their mother had turned away for a few moments to answer a phone call, and when she had looked back, the young girl was gone. The only trace ever found was a fragment of Elle’s frilly dress, covered in mud and trampled in the family garden by a pair of large work boots.

At the beginning, they had been full of hope— the burning desire to find their kidnapped daughter fueling the family’s every motive. The detectives assured them that there was always another lead— suspects they could apprehend, buildings they could search. They assured the family that the kidnappers would likely demand a ransom, at which point the police would trace the call and bring back Elle safe and sound.

However, that never happened. A week passed, then a month, then five. Elle’s face disappeared from the headlines and the case was abandoned— stored in a file somewhere at the San Francisco Police Department with the hundreds of other missing children who had never made it home. The family was in debt, and just as shaken by Elle’s kidnapping as they had been the day it had occurred. Their mother overdosed on antidepressants and spent most of the day sleeping, while their father drank himself into oblivion. Lacey took after him, sneaking wine and vodka and champagne in to her room whenever she found any her dad would be unlikely to miss. She drank until her head would go into reeling spasms, and then took too many sleeping pills every night to help knock her out— the family’s main goal now was to spend more of their life oblivious or unawake than not.

    They lived in absolute misery, struggling through the days, until Elle came back. One and a half years later, left on their doorstep with a red bow tied around her neck as though she was a birthday gift.

But it wasn’t Elle as they had remembered her— not the cheerful and loving young girl that had warmed their hearts and loved unconditionally. Her chocolate hair was as white as her tissue-paper skin, and her body was covered in burn and cuts crisscrossing every visible surface. One of her eyes was cloudy and white and she simply lay there, shivering, her mouth twisted open in a silent scream. When they tried to touch her, Elle would flinch away as though their hands were on fire— that was how she had spent her first month back at home. Sitting in a chair at the kitchen table, wrapped in a blanket and muttering things about castles and butterflies, living inside her own infected mind. Then, the murders began.