When Abigail died, Wendy's life came crashing down.
It was sudden, and extremely unexpected. One night Abigail went to sleep, and the next morning no one could get her to wake up.
The cause of her death was a complete and utter mystery. It baffled medical workers, and caused extreme distress to Wendy's grandparents. For a while it was suspected that Abigail was murdered, but eventually it was decided that she just stopped breathing in her sleep for some reason. No one could figure out why this happened, though.
Wendy didn't really care what killed her. She was mildly curious, yes, but it didn't really matter to her. What mattered was the fact that Abigail was dead. That, Wendy cared a great deal about.
She was never the most optimistic child, even before Abigail's death. It could have been a result of losing both of her parents at the same time in a car accident, but Wendy had a suspicion that it was just part of her personality.
Losing her family didn't help her morbid thoughts, though.
Losing Abigail, however, destroyed any chance of ever being happy.
Wendy stopped playing. She stopped smiling; even though she rarely did that to begin with. She didn't eat or sleep properly, she refused to attend school, she lost contact with the few friends that she had, and she grew distant from her grandparents. Her grades plummeted, her pessimistic attitude grew worse, and Wendy's life became dark and depressing.
She spent all of her free time sitting in front of her twin sister's grave, reminiscing or speaking to the lump of dirt where her sister was buried.
Sometimes Wendy brought flowers - like the one Abigail always wore in her hair - but most of the time she just sat there, staring at the smooth slab of stone sticking out of the ground and wondering what to do with her life now that her sister wasn't in it.
When Abigail died, a part of Wendy died with her.
Months went by.
Wendy's grandfather started to get sick.
Very sick.
She rarely saw him, since he spent most of his time at the hospital. Wendy's grandmother refused to leave his side, so Wendy spent most of her time by herself. She had a babysitter, but the woman gave up on trying to make friends with the morbid child and spent most of her time inside the house, cooking and cleaning.
Wendy, of course, rarely left her sister's tombstone.
"I started wearing a flower in my hair like you, Abigail," Wendy told the mound of soil. She brushed a pale hand over the red flower in her hair, feeling the fragile petals beneath her fingertips. "I must replace it every few days, because like all living things the flower keeps shriveling up and dying. I will keep replacing it anyway; to honor your memory."
The grave, of course, didn't reply.
"One day, death will claim me too, and we will see each other again," Wendy continued, voice calm despite the topic. "I don't know if there are flowers where you are, but if there is we can both wear flowers in our hair and match."
"Why wait until death?"
Wendy wasn't expecting a voice, but she didn't show any signs of being startled. Instead, she turned expressionless eyes towards the speaker.
It was a middle-aged man in a fancy suit. He had a cigar sticking out of the corner of his mouth, which twisted into a grin when she looked up at him. There was something undeniably strange about the man, but Wendy couldn't quite put her finger on it.
He was just... strange.
"Who are you?" Wendy asked.
"That's not really important. Let's just say I'm a friend," he replied flippantly. He didn't seem very friendly to Wendy, but she kept her thoughts to herself. "So, pal, I'm guessing Abigail here is a friend of yours."
"Sister, actually."
"Sister, huh?" The man looked thoughtful, and spent a few seconds chewing on his cigar and staring down at the tombstone. "I bet you would do anything to see her again."
"I would," Wendy said tonelessly. "Unfortunately, such a thing is impossible."
"Is it?"
Now he had her attention.
She regarded him with a curious expression. She didn't dare get her hopes up. For all she knew, this man could be completely delusional. Or here to murder her. It was hard to tell.
"Death separates us all," she replied slowly. "There is nothing we can do about it. If there was a way to see Abigail again, I would know about it."
"Are you sure about that?" The man grinned, bending down to look her in the eye. "What if there was a way to see your sister again?"
"Are you going to kill me?" Wendy asked blankly.
The man chuckled, straightening up again.
"No, Wendy, I'm not going to kill you," he replied. She briefly wondered how he knew her name, but didn't get the chance to ask. "I'm here to make a deal."
"What kind of deal?"
"The kind where you see your sister again," he said. His amusement was evident, but Wendy was too caught up in the prospect of seeing Abigail again to care.
"How?" Wendy asked.
"All you need to do is walk through a door," he told her. "Your sister will be on the other side."
"That's it?" Wendy frowned, brows furrowing in confusion.
"That's it."
"What do you get out of this?"
He smirked, a dark emotion passing across his expression.
"Nothing that concerns you, dear Wendy," he replied. "Let's just say I'm feeling charitable and leave it at that."
Wendy felt torn.
One one hand, the man seemed extremely and dangerously unstable. Walking through doors didn't bring people back to life. Nothing could bring people back to life. Once you were dead, that was it, and Abigail had been dead for five months. She was well and truely gone.
On the other hand... Wendy so desperately wanted to see her sister again. So desperately, in fact, that she wanted to believe the man's crazy idea.
"How does walking through a door bring my sister back?" Wendy asked slowly, giving him a sceptical look.
"You'll have to find that one out for yourself, pal," he said, grinning devilishly. "So do we have a deal?"
Wendy looked back at Abigail's grave.
"...Yes," she said quietly, ignoring all commonsense telling her that accepting the deal was a terrible mistake. "We have a deal."
The door wasn't quite what Wendy was expecting.
First of all... it led nowhere. It was just a door in the middle of a forest. There wasn't even a building attached to it.
Secondly, the door itself was like nothing Wendy had ever seen before. It was huge, for starters, and looked more like a wooden machine than anything else. With all the cogs and levers sticking out of it, the 'door' could almost pass as a gateway to another dimension. Wendy knew no such thing existed, though.
"All I need to do is walk through it?" Wendy asked.
"That's it."
"And... this will allow me to see Abigail again?"
"You got it, pal."
Wendy stared at the machine that was apparently a door. She couldn't even see where to walk through. It was just a giant mass of wood and metal.
"Just pull that lever there," the man said, gesturing to a small wooden handle on the side. "The door will open."
Wendy had a bad feeling that was growing worse every second.
Still, she ignored it and walked forward. If there was even the slightest chance of seeing her sister again, she wasn't going to risk walking away from it. Abigail would have done the same for her.
She wrapped her slim fingers around the lever. A strange feeling shot up her arm, as if warning her to let go and run while she still could.
Wendy stubbornly clenched her hand and jerked the lever towards her.
"Good luck," she heard the man say.
She turned towards him, confused, but the man wasn't there anymore.
Wendy blinked in shock, and glanced around for him. The machine behind her hummed loudly, bringing her attention back to it. As she once again faced it, the machine split in the middle and opened up.
An inky blackness greeted her. Almost as if the doorway was revealing a room filled with nothing but shadows. Or, to be more accurate, a room filled with nothing. Not even shadows. It was as if the doorway led directly into outer space, and was showing her a void. A distinct lack of anything. Just... nothingness.
It really was a doorway to another dimension.
Before Wendy could even process her mistake, something shot out of the nothingness and grabbed her. She froze in shock, barely having enough time for the words 'shadow hands' to register in her mind before the things dragged her in.
And then everything went black.
The first thing she became aware of was someone speaking.
"Say, pal, you don't look so good," the familiar voice said, sounding much too cheerful. "You better find something to eat before night comes!"
She recognized the voice instantly. It was that creepy man in the suit; the one who showed her that nightmarish doorway. A rare feeling of anger gripped her, and she sat up with the intention to demand some answers from the strange man.
When she looked around, however, he wasn't there. She was all alone, in the middle of a grassy field.
Her anger vanished, and was instead replaced by realization.
"I have been tricked," she said quietly.
Kidnapped as well, by the looks of things.
Wendy clenched her hands.
She didn't expect her fingers to close around a soft object.
Opening her hand and looking down, she realized that she was holding a faded-red flower. Just like the one Abigail always wore in her hair. Except this one was closed up, and haven't bloomed yet.
There was... something strange about the flower. It felt faintly warm, and Wendy had an uncharacteristic urge to hold it close to her chest and protect it at all costs.
She gently cupped the flower between her hands and stared down at it. She wasn't sure why, but the flower seemed extremely important, and she was going to keep it close to her no matter what.
Days passed, and Wendy was still lost.
Surviving was difficult. Starting a fire was near impossible at first, but one of the most important things to learn. Wendy could sense something in the darkness, watching her every move and waiting for her to make a mistake. Light kept the thing away, so a fire at night was necessary for survival.
Food was also extremely important.
Fortunately, there were carrots and berry bushes growing everywhere.
Unfortunately, the carrots were almost all gone and the berries took a long time to grow back, which meant that Wendy had to come up with something else if she wanted to survive.
There was an abundant of rabbit holes, so Wendy decided to catch herself a rabbit. Meat would be more filling than berries and it would be a nice change, but catching a running, screaming rodent would be difficult.
Which was why Wendy crafted a spear out of sticks and a sharp piece of flint.
"Death will find you," Wendy said, staring intently at a rabbit a short distance away. "Allow me to speed things up."
She charged at the rodent, which let out a high-pitched shriek and bolted for a hole in the ground. Wendy slowed down, knowing it was futile to chase it. The rabbit was extremely flighty and much too agile for her to keep up with.
But, Wendy thought as she watched it run straight into the trap she set up just beside the rabbit hole, fortunately it is not very intelligent.
The basket fell onto the rabbit, effectively trapping it. Wendy almost smiled as she made her way over to the shaking trap. She lifted it up, grabbing the rabbit by the scruff before it could run away.
Ruthlessly, she grabbed and snapped its neck.
It was at that exact moment that something strange happened.
There was a flash behind her, and Wendy spun around in shock. She caught a very brief glimpse of the faded-red flower - had she accidentally dropped that while running at the rabbit? - before it was engulfed in light.
Wendy shielded her eyes, almost dropping the rabbit in shock. When the light cleared and Wendy could see again, something stood in place of the flower.
Or, rather, someone.
And they weren't standing. They were hovering.
This time Wendy did drop the rabbit.
Her eyes widened and her mouth popped open in disbelief. For a long time she couldn't quite wrap her head around what she was seeing, but when she finally managed to get herself to speak, only one word left her mouth.
"...Abigail?"
When Abigail died, Wendy's life came crashing down.
However, now that Abigail was once again in the land of the living - even though she clearly wasn't alive - Wendy almost felt... complete again.
It didn't matter that Abigail could no longer speak; she could make ghostly whispers, and that was good enough for Wendy. It didn't matter that Abigail wasn't able to touch Wendy; neither of them liked hugs, anyway. It didn't matter that Wendy was now trapped in a nightmarish world; it wasn't that bad really, not when she had Abigail by her side.
Wendy had her twin sister back, and that was all that mattered.
It was the best deal she ever made.