Nostalgia by Nathalie Merette
“Waking up and realizing you’re nothing but a mere memory hurts.” I can’t even move or see my family ever again. I can just see tears reach the floor as my mother tells my brother and sister I’m never coming back. It hurts, them putting the blazing lycoris on my pitch black casket with my carved initials on it: C.W. Cianna Willams. I can see that my sister was affected the most. She was my other half, after all. My twin sister. We were in the womb for 9 months together, born and raised for 15 years until that fateful day, the day I died. Anyways, when I see my sister, I see that her raven black hair seems duller, her eyes seem swollen, that’s what happens when she cries. I always made fun of her for that. “Hey Mirai, why are you crying?” “Louis broke my science project. I needed it for class tomorrow.” “It’s OK, we could always repair it. Your eyes are quite swollen and they make you look terrible, you look like a raccoon.” “You’re so rude, Cianna.” I regret saying that deeply. Looking at my little brother Louis, he probably doesn’t know what’s going on. With his innocent big blue eyes and his chocolate brown hair, he looks so still. I always used to read to him, going through the pages, my fingertips going over the beautiful illustrations. He’s 4 right now. He was so energetic, so full of life, but here he is as quiet as an owl, hasn’t said a peep. I miss his big rosy cheeks smiling at me, his white pearly smile, his eye smile, his muddy clothes and Mother getting mad. I miss it all, but I can’t move on, I have to find out who did it, I have to find out who took it all from me, all I have is a letter, what a shame. Then my mother comes, she’s not in one of her typical pastel outfits, she’s in a dark long dress with frills on the bottom, she seems out of it, I miss her cooking, her making these heartfelt meals, it makes me sad. After the funeral and returning to the gates of Valysium, I got the same message and reasoning why I can’t enter the gates. “When you finally let go and find the truth, you may enter,” whatever that means. All I have is a family with a face ripped out, but who? I went back home and I sat in the center chair 186
