They were sisters.
They were both very alike, yet both very different.
They were both very different, yet both very alike.
Both had night-black hair, cascading down their backs in beautiful waves. Both had startling scarlet eyes that bore no emotion. Both had brilliant white skin that was a stark contrast to their hair and eyes.
But the first sister prefered to stay in the darkness of her room, the deep navy blue curtains forever closed over her large window, her door forever locked, stopping anyone who dared to try and enter. She would never leave her room; not for food, not to use the bathroom, not to go to school. There was no need, not when eveything was brought to her by her family who feared for her health.
The second sister also stayed in her room. However, this was only for the daylight hours, for the sun always made her feel too hot and woozy. When this golden sun set over the rolling hills on the horizon, she was always standing on her balcony, watching the sky as it darkened. When the moon rose, she would carefully, and with practised ease, climb down the strong ivy that had spent many years climbing up the side of the house.
All this was the very reason a doctor and nurse had been called to the house. For the sisters.
The first sister had not been heard moving for the past two days. The second sister had fallen from her balcony and was now seriously injured. She too was in the first sister's room, sitting on a camp bed by her bedside with her parents.
The first sister's skin was dirty and grimy, hair tangled and falling over in her face, matted with sweat, her eyes dull, dry lips open a millimeter. She was deathly thin, unable to move more than a couple of feet, skin a sickly shade of pale yellow. The bedcovers did not help to cease her endless shaking and shivering, the room echoing with the sounds of her chattering teeth.
The second sister had already been checked over by the nurse, and her broken arm was now in a pot, held to her chest with a sling, while her stomach was covered in bandages that seemed to mould into her body. On her lap was a pair of handcuffs from a game many years ago. She looked little better as she fiddled with them.
The doctor looked up from his checkover, lowering his spectacles to the tip of his nose, looking grave. The nurse caught his eyes and ushered the parents to two seats, and stood beside them, knowing what was coming.
"There is nothing we can do. A dangerous disease has taken hold of your daughter's body, and there is no cure. She has an hour left, if that."
Before he had finished, the sisters' mother had broken down, hunched over, her shape shaking with harsh sobs of grief. Their father was holding onto her hand, stroking the top of it soothingly with the pad of his thumb, not daring to look in the direction of the doctor and his ill daughter. The second sister just sat there, staring at nothing, completely still.
As they tried to come to terms with the news, the first sister drew a shaky breath, her chest hardly moving, then stopped, her eyes glazing over as the doctor and nurse left the room.
They were sisters.
They were both very alike, yet both very different.
They were both very different, yet both very alike.