Andrei & Rhian

Lidia and Victoria were found dead in their beds the next day. Alleged victims of the waste, they were given a service like any other. Mister and Misses Ruza valued tradition over their daughter’s now irrelevant reputation, and nobody but they had seen the baby’s eyes. In two days' time, Lidia would return home as she would do for weeks, and each night, she wandered the house with soundless steps.

Some nights she watched her parents in bed, letting the resentment bubble and boil. Other nights she stood staring out her window with the butter-yellow drapes, but she liked watching the brown-eyed boy sleep most of all. She thought about killing him. She could make it quick. Dying didn’t hurt, not much anyhow. Nothing hurt more than living. 'Course, she couldn’t bring herself to do it, even if it meant they’d be together forever. He was just too darned special. Her brother was all the very best things she wasn’t.

Stolen story; please report.

Lidia Ruza was impatient, impulsive, so she reached out one night and touched her brother’s cheek. But that night, the boy was feigning sleep. He kept a lantern lit through the night, still in denial as to the logistics of death. He’d felt her, all those nights while she watched him, and he woke each morning to the lingering scent of wildflowers and burnt wood.

You best believe our boy leaped straight out of his bed, let out a big old hoot and holler. Lidia was alive, and he reckoned his mum and dad would be happy to see her, too. But his sister pressed a finger to his lips, and said, “This’ll be our secret,” and it was too late. The door swung wide open, and the Ruzas weren't happy to see their daughter at all. They were horrified.

The resentment Lidia felt for her parents was inevitable. The anger was understandable, but now she was unstoppable. Resentment became entitlement and anger became satisfaction when she saw how she frightened them. She would trap them as they’d trapped her. She’d make them feel the way they deserved for being so neglectful, and selfish, and vain. She’d siphon the life out of them as they had out of her, and in two days’ time, her brother attends another funeral.