“Sister?”
That was my mother. Her confused look was apparent on her face in the sunlight coming from the windows nearby. We were in my parent’s room, and I had just woken up a few minutes ago between my parents in their bed, with the strange memory of my sister disappearing.
“Did you have a bad dream? Don’t worry, those dreams aren’t real.”
My father. He was standing in the doorway to the bathroom, equally confused as my mother.
I pushed my hands into my head, thinking that would help me remember. It didn’t work: everything was still fuzzy. Maybe it was a dream.
“Then where’s Alice?” I said, starting to get out of the bed, “I wanna see her.”
My mom stopped me and put me on her lap. “Hey, little Diamond,” she told me, “you never had a sister. That was all just a dream. You don’t need to worry about it too much—”
“Well, if you really want a sister that bad, maybe we can get you one,” my father interrupted, eying my mother weirdly.
I didn’t believe what they were saying. I had a sister for almost a year now, and all those memories accumulated in that time could not be a mere dream. I broke free of my mother’s grasp, ran to my sister’s room, and looked inside.
“No,” I said quietly, “this can’t be real.”
In place of the crib were a desk and a chair. A computer monitor rested on the desk, along with a few stacks of paper organized neatly. The walls were of a cream color like the rest of the house, not the innocent pastel pink I painted with my parents before my sister’s birth. All that hard work that we put into painting those walls—they were gone.
My knees gave in, and I fell back into my mother’s arms. A tear rolled down my cheek, and a whimper escaped my lips.
It can’t all be a dream. I wanted to run back to my room and cry my feelings out, but immediately a tissue went over my eyes. I couldn’t move from my parents’ hug. I was trapped.
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A wide river roared to the side of the carriage. It sounded faint compared to the sound of the hard wheels rolling on the ground as we sped along the unpaved road, but that was enough for me to remember that day. Sometimes the memory of that morning comes back to me. It was probably the mixed feelings of confusion, sadness, and anger that made me unconsciously hold onto it for many years. But it was always the little, unrelated events that made me remember. This time was no different.
That day my family and I still drove down over the river to the city. Though it was more like a large town rather than a large city spanning many miles, it had everything from an amusement park to a zoo to a museum. It was a tradition to go there at least every week, so I could say from experience that it was one of those places where no matter how many times you visit it, there are always new places to go to and new adventures to experience. However, that time something else was different: my sister wasn’t coming with us.
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I had always gone there with my family alone before my sister joined, but a few months was enough to get used to my sister coming along with the ride. After all, your brain is still developing when you are younger. And my brain was pretty flexible to changes, including when my sister ceased to exist.
Maybe that was why I didn’t remember too much of the day. It might have felt just like the other times we visited the city. After that visit, the memory of my little sister was pushed to the back of my head.
After a month, I started first grade, making that summer the last summer we regularly went down to the city. And in the rare occasions when we did go, the memory of my sister always came up. During those times, I always think back to the few times we went and played with her. I hadn’t had that memory come back in a long time, though, as we stopped going altogether when I entered middle school.
Now it was the roar of the river to the left. It sounded a lot different—louder, messier, and more aggressive—compared to the quiet and passive river I knew. But I knew from the view that this was the same place. There were two twin mountains to the right, accompanied by a shorter one to the left, just how I was used to. We always drove a similar road to the city and passed by a similar scene every time.
Suddenly the trees cleared out, and we emerged into the edge of a clearing. Here, the river widened enough for the water to flow more peacefully, and the loud roaring faded out behind us. I stepped out from inside the carriage to get a better view, and that was when all the memories came at me in mass.
A few hundred meters from us, the river curved twice in an “S” shape before straightening and narrowing back to what it was like before. On the other side of the river, where there was a sharp bend, sat two small houses. Behind the houses was a small but significant hill. But other than that hill, everything was a vast, flat prairie. The side we were on was a dense forest, but the other side was covered in tall wild grass and a few bushes poking out every once in a while.
The geography was just as I remembered, and my mind unconsciously reconstructed the city I knew as all the memories came in. Magically, in front of my eyes appeared the two steel bridges over the river with a never-ending traffic jam, the tall Ferris wheel and roller coaster ride poking out from behind the tall apartment buildings on the edge of the river, and the large and ancient museum on the top of the hill.
I remembered the time my sister was crying while we sat in our car in the one hour wait over the bridge. I remembered the time she was pressing her hands to the windows of the Ferris wheel while I sat back, not daring to look out the window for my fear of heights. I remembered the time I sat behind her on a fake horse labeled “do not touch” in the museum, smiling at my parents as they snapped a quick picture just before an employee looked toward our direction (In the end, that picture turned out blurry as it was rushed).
But as quickly as it was revealed, the scene was concealed behind the trees again, and the sound of the river slowly faded into the distance. In the silence of solely the sound of the wheels on gravel, I came back to myself. I felt a tear on my cheek and quickly wiped it off, turning to Angel, who was sitting behind me in the carriage.
Angel was looking at me, her face expressionless. She had been talking to me, but now she was silent. When had she stopped? When I stepped out of the cart? When did I start daydreaming? When had these emotions come to me? Realizing the situation again, I quickly snapped out of my dream. Yes, now we were back on the carriage, but this time I wasn’t in a cage, and Angel wasn’t unconscious. This time we were all together, Arthur included, running from the very thing that brought us here.