Whispers
By Artichokie

"One… two… three… four…"

The whispered words echoed across the lonely room, breaking the unsettling silence. The moonlight cut a sliver of light across the old wood floors, casting shadows against the peeling wallpaper. The outline of a leave-less tree swayed stiffly in the outline of a four-paned window, adding movement to the otherwise still room.

Laying on her side, knees pulled up tightly against her chest, Xiomara held the hem of her tattered blanket in her fists, refusing to let go. She let her sister's whispered words comfort her. The night was unnaturally silent, the quiet murmurs a welcome noise. It both puzzled and frightened Xiomara that she could not hear beyond the four walls protecting her from the outside world. It was the first night in a long time that it had been this quiet; it felt as though she and her sister were alone in the world. That wasn't true, though, and Xiomara knew it; her parents slept in a room just down the hall.

"Five… six… seven… eight… nine…"

Stretching out her long legs, Xiomara turned to lay on her back, one of her arms coming to rest beneath her head while the other still clutched the blanket. Wisps of her short blonde hair stuck to the side of her face that she'd been resting on, sweat coating her entire body. The room was warm despite it being winter and there was no fire. The blanket wasn't very thick, but it kept most of the chill away; it was a shield against the world, a small comfort to a frightened child who refused to let it go. She sighed.

The violence as of late had been overwhelming. The rise in destruction and terror had been a swift one. Xiomara couldn't comprehend what had started it, but it had felt as though she were living in a nightmare for the past week. They had seemed so infallible in their tiny cottage hidden in the hills far away from civilization. Something happened, though. The violence had found them. The anger engulfed them. Even the wild animals had screeched in warning, it seemed, their voices escalating late at night. It had disturbed Xiomara at first, but then she found it comforting. But now the silence was all that could be heard, broken only by her sister's soft whispering.

"Ten… eleven… twelve… thirteen…"

Xiomara's head turned quickly to face her sister. The last note of the final number had been slurred and drawn out. Xiomara recognized that as the final point of consciousness on her sister's part. She envied her sister's ability to fall asleep so quickly, even if it took counting sheep to give her that restful slumber. Xiomara had tried that when her sister first started, but nothing had worked. Back then, the state of turmoil in Xiomara's life had been considerably less. She doubted it would work now if it failed to work then.

The silence began bearing down on Xiomara. A sharp ringing filled her ears, and her body became restless. She found the stifling heat of the blanket uncomfortable, so she flung it off. It landed at the end of the bed opposite of her head. The abrupt temperature drop had her body shivering, but she refused to cover herself.

She hated the silence. It was worse than the terrifying screams she'd heard only the night before. She missed the howling of the animals outside for even that was absent. She couldn't understand it. It became unbearable.

Xiomara glanced across the room at her sister. Her lump beneath the blanket was outlined in the moonlight, blissfully still and unaware of the torment her twin sister was currently feeling. Xiomara envied her that peace, almost regretted having wanted to disturb her. But she was selfish, if she only admitted it to herself. Xiomara needed comfort and knew that her sister would willingly give it disregarding what it cost her. Christiana was the caring one; Xiomara was the daring one.

Rolling out of bed, Xiomara landed on the balls of her feet in a crouched position. Slowly she straightened and began making her way to the opposite side of the room where the girl slumbered. The old wood flooring creaked beneath her light steps, but did nothing to disturb Christiana. She came to a stop at the edge of the second bed.

"Christiana," Xiomara whispered, leaning close to the sleeping girl's face. There was no response. Reaching out to shake her, Xiomara hissed, "Chris!"

Something wasn't right. Xiomara brought her hand away from her sister and looked at it curiously. Christiana was oddly cold, colder than the wind whistling outside. She was stiff; when Xiomara had shook her, Christiana had barely budged. A chilly horror began to seep through Xiomara's body, her stomach jumping to her throat in dread.

Xiomara reached out once more and grabbed her sister's shoulder. She shook it once more, but still nothing happened. She drew her eyebrows together and forced her sister's body to roll on her back. Xiomara's heart stopped, and her hand flew up to cover her mouth as she took an involuntary step backwards.

Xiomara stared into the confused gaze of her sister's lifeless hazel eyes. Christiana was dead. But she had just been counting! Her mind couldn't make sense of the jumbled thoughts flowing through it. All she knew was that it was beginning to grow harder to breathe, and she wanted so much to be able to look away! Nevertheless, Xiomara's eyes remained glued on her sister's face, an identical creation to her own.

Christiana's eyes were wide-open; her mouth gaped in a silent gasp. The pale parlor of her skin became clear white in the moonlight's rays. Her brown hair was pulled back in a high pony, the ends of it coming to rest sporadically against her navy blue T-shirt covering her corpse. The blanket no longer covered Christiana; Xiomara hadn't the sense to figure out where it went. It simply was not there. Nothing hindered Xiomara's gaze from taking in the entire length of her sister's deceased body.

It was horrifying…

A scream filled the air as Xiomara shot up right in bed, sweat covering her entire body. Her hand still covered her mouth; her body shook in unsuppressed fear. Her chest heaved with her rapid breathing; her heart pounded in her ears. Tears mingled with the droplets of sweat on her rosy cheeks. It was a nightmare, nothing but a nightmare. Yet, it had felt so real.

Xiomara swallowed and removed her hand from her mouth. She swiped the strands of hair stuck to her forehead back and proceeded to clear her face of the salty droplets. She flung the thin blanket off of her body and watched it pile on the ratty rug beneath her bed. She allowed the cool breeze sweep across her bare legs, her nightgown coming to just below her knees.

Resting both hands on the mattress before her, Xiomara reluctantly turned her head to face her sister's bed. Half-heartedly, she'd hoped to see a lump beneath the rags covering the bare mattress that once belonged to Christiana. Her mind recognized what had happened, but her heart refused to acknowledge it. She couldn't be dead! She just couldn't be! Yet…

Xiomara closed her eyes in resign as the day's images came back to haunt her. She still didn't know what had prompted the man's anger, doubted she ever would. She didn't know what, exactly had happened, either. She only remembered that it ended in her sister's death.

Christiana and Xiomara had been playing in the forests surrounding their family's home. Snowballs had been flying between the two, each girl hiding behind their own snow forts. Exuberant laughter or quick shrieks alternated as each girl alternated in receiving ice in their face. It was a good-natured fight, one the girls enjoyed participating in each winter.

Xiomara, after missing her sister by nearly two feet, ducked back down behind the wall of snow and reached for a pre-made snowball. She found only muddied dirt where her snowballs had once been. Without thinking, she hastily turned and stood, allowing a snowball to plow directly into her shoulder.

Laughing, Xiomara called out, "Time out! I need more snowballs." Christiana nodded in response, turned, and started rebuilding her ammunition. Satisfied that she wouldn't receive a surprise blow to the back of the head, Xiomara walked out from behind her fort and went to a rather thick patch of snow out of eyesight from her sister.

Without any consideration to the cold, Xiomara sat cross-legged on the ground before the patch and began packing together balls of snow. Each one was bigger than her hands, but small enough to be easily welded across the field in which they played. After the third snowball, Xiomara heard a soft gasp coming from the direction in which her sister collected her own snowballs. Turning her head, Xiomara paused in her own building and listened. Something wasn't right.

Forgetting about her snowballs, Xiomara quietly stood up and made her way through the copse of trees. Coming to the edge of the clearing, Xiomara stopped abruptly. Christiana stood not ten feet away from her, a snowball in both hands. Her back was to Xiomara, her face turned up to look in the hate-spewing gaze of a man dressed in a black cloak.

He was a fat man, his body stretching the material against his abdomen. His face was obscured by a set of thick eyebrows and an even thicker mustache. His head was balding, the thin, short pieces of hair sticking out at odd angles around the crown of his head. His right hand was held out. Xiomara squinted. He was pointing a stick at Christiana.

Xiomara leaned against the opposite side of the tree, obscuring most of her body but still allowing herself room to observe the event. Sweat perspired on the man's beefy face, his eyes bloodshot and bulging out of his head. The hand holding the stick shook violently. Xiomara couldn't decide if he was incredibly livid… or simply overcome with fear.

Christiana was shaking her head, denying the proclamation the man had made prior to Xiomara's entrance. Her hand came up and started pointing behind her, it, too, shaking. The man took a step forward, his stick hand becoming steadier.

"Don't move! I'm warning you," he growled menacingly. Christiana's hand froze midair, her body following suit. Instinctively, Xiomara wanted to go out and help her sister, but something prompted her to stay right where she is.

"Xiomara—" Christiana began to say, but go no further. From inside the house, the distinct sound of their mother calling, "Girls!" rang true through the little clearing. All three people turned in the direction of the sound. The back screen door slammed against its frame, and Xiomara knew it was only a matter of time before their mother would appear on the porch lining the side of the house.

Xiomara swung her gaze back to the man, who had already returned to glaring at Christiana. He made a grunting noise before he raised the stick in the air and mumbled a few words that Xiomara didn't understand. There was a flash of brilliant green light and the soft thud of a body against the melting ice. Xiomara closed her eyes to ward off the glare of light, but when she opened them she found the man grinning triumphantly at the girl laying limp on the ground. At that point, Xiomara ceased thinking.

Racing out from behind the tree, she reached for one of Christiana's abandoned snowballs and three it at the man. It hit him square in the nose, knocking the grin from his face. He glanced at Xiomara, and then down at Christiana. Xiomara noticed the color drain considerably from the man's face as he continued looking between the two.

"Xiomara!" her mother's voice echoed. Xiomara turned to find her mother leaning against the rail that lined the porch. "Where's Chris—" She stopped mid-sentence, her attention coming to rest on the man. Her hand came up to cover her mouth. Xiomara heard a stifled curse escape the man's wide mouth as she watched her mother hastily race back inside the house, urgently calling at her husband's name. Xiomara turned back to the man just in time to see him disappear in thin air. Rubbing her eyes, she made sure she wasn't seeing things, that the blinding glare from the snow or the green light had affected her vision, but he was truly gone. It was something else she couldn't quite figure out.

Xiomara turned back to her sister, who was still laying on the ground. Xiomara knelt next to her and reached for her shoulders. She began shaking them, calling out, "Christiana!" She shook them once more and then grabbed her face. "Come on, Chris, wake up! The man's gone!" But she wouldn't budge.

Her facial features were frozen in place, a confused yet shocked expression contorting them. Her mouth was opened as if she had been about to deny something. Her eyes were opened wide, full of quiet fear. Xiomara's eyebrows came together as she took in the scene. Why wouldn't she move? Why was she so still? She couldn't comprehend it, but her stomach was suddenly filling with thick unease…

A shiver overtook Xiomara's thin body, bringing her out of the haunting reverie. She now knew what that expression meant, why it had been so frozen in place. She didn't understand the why or how of it, only the what. As far as she was concerned, she didn't even want to know that much.

Opening her eyes, she leaned over the edge of the bed and picked up the blanket she had thrown to the ground. She glanced once more at her sister's abandoned bed. She'd never be back. Part of Xiomara had died with her sister; a hole would forever remain carved inside of her young heart. Laying back down against her thin pillow, Xiomara rolled on her side to face the empty bed. She pulled the edge of the blanket up to her shoulder and grasped it tightly in her fists once more. Tears began to spill from her eyes, silent and unbidden. She closed her eyes and willed for sleep to come.

"One… two… three… four…"