AN: Well, Jess, here's your realistic Fang' sister oneshot. *bows* I hope you like? I hate writing in first person in present tense (no idea why I did it), so expect mistakes. This is utter crap—I'm already going to warn you.

This fic is dedicated to The Jessamine Riot.

I find that looking at life as if it is a book, overdramatizing every little detail, makes it a whole lot more bearable that it actually is. I grew up in a small town. With a life that dull, the only way to escape was to hide inside my own mind. Maybe that was what drove me to become a starving artist in this economy. I figured that letting my own ideas run wild would make life a whole lot more interesting.

I thought wrong.

Now I'm going to a small college, barely making it by with the wages I make as a waitress and the savings Mom gave me to pay for my college expenses. "Savings" probably isn't the best term to use to describe it. More like "abysmally small sum of money my dear mother gave me in order to make herself feel less guilty".

Before I left, she told me she didn't want me to pursue my dreams of being a writer. That is probably the one most important reason I decided to do this. Listening to Mother's advice has never been a strong suit of mine.

But maybe I should have listened to her. At least if I then, maybe I wouldn't be surviving on two meals a day and fewer commodities than ever before.

I light up my cigarette and take a long whiff of the smoke. I use a lot of money on my cigs, which is actually pretty damn irrational with all the money I have to spare, which isn't a lot. The young woman elegantly brings the cigarette up to her full lips and looks about the room condescendingly. It is merely a cocoon she will have to break out of in order to morph into a butterfly. She chuckles at her metaphor. Funny that she can use figurative language when she is literally near the end of her wits, about to ask her mother for money. Her mother. Who she hasn't seen for years.

The words run through my mind, but I dismiss them. It is no use putting my life into words that belong in the novel I will write someday. Overdramatizing things may seem fun now, but it won't help me later, when I literally run out of money. I look at the budget I wrote for myself a few weeks ago. Looks like I'll have to allocate less money for one of the things I need. I cross out the amount of money I should use for food and replace it with a smaller number. I leave the amount of money allocated for cigarettes intact.

Hell, I'm a budding authoress. I don't claim to be a mathematician or much of a logical thinker.

"Stacy, I'm going out tonight, okay?" my roommate and friend Melanie calls. She stands in the doorway of my bedroom and smirks at me. "You fail at quitting smoking."

"Shaddup," I mumble. As if to prove her right, I take another smoke from my cigarette. The young woman—

But Melanie interrupts my thoughts. She walks over to my bed and looks at my budget. She shakes her head. "You're going to die with this budget. Did you think before you wrote it?"

"I made it based completely on gut instinct." I give a wan smile, and she hits me on the head with my checkbook playfully.

"Stace, just ask your mom for money," she begs.

My face hardens. "No way in hell."

"Why not?" I mumble something. "Oh, is it because she didn't approve of your last boyfriend? Get over it, Stace."

I do not mention that that is the least of my reasons for disliking her. My main reason? Pure jealousy. My mom grew up in a poor neighborhood. The only way to make money was prostitution, so that was exactly what she turned to. But after she had me, she got a job as a waitress in a small restaurant. Eventually, she rose through the ranks, and when the previous owner passed away, she became the owner of the now popular restaurant. Turned out she was a natural-born businesswoman.

It isn't fair. She has a talent, I have a wannabe-talent.

I drop the cigarette in the trash and tell myself that I will quit. I know the longest I can keep away from smoking is about a day, so I may as well have not made the vow in the first place.

"You ever really gonna quit?" Melanie asks me. I look at her with a "duh" look, answering her question.

"Stacy, you can't survive on that small amount of money you'll accept from her. Eventually, you're going to have to ask for more money."

But I block her out, and eventually, she sighs, leaving. "Remember to not leave on the lights more than you have to. We barely have enough to pay the electricity bill," she says before she shuts the door behind her.

I listen to that piece of advice, at least. I shut off the lights in my room and set my glasses on my bedside table, intending to just go to bed. But when my head falls on the pillow, I am not able to shut my eyes. I just lay there, staring at the ceiling. The only light comes from my laptop, which is open to a blank Word document, waiting to be filled with words. But due to my inactivity, the screen eventually turns dark, and the laptop goes into sleep mode.

The bed is comfortable, but somehow, I just can't fall asleep. I'm in an idle state, on the verge of sleep. I trace nonexistent patterns on my ceiling. My eyes are half-closed and it seems like I am about to get my wish when I hear a tap on the window.

I sit up straight suddenly. I fumble for my glasses from the nightstand, knocking over my phone. I put the glasses on my face, and suddenly, everything is a little bit clearer. I turn my face to the window.

Nobody's there.

I hear the front door of the apartment opening.

Melanie is not supposed to be home yet.

I place my hand over my mouth, muffling a scream. I mouth a prayer as I grab for my blankets, wanting to bury myself into them and believe that this is just a nightmare. A few minutes pass and my racing heart calms a little. I am about to pass this off as a bad dream and go back to bed when something in the living room is knocked over and lands on the floor with a thud. Someone curses.

"Okay, Stacy, you can do this. It can't be anything bad. You have a baseball bat. You have a baseball bat. You have a baseball bat," I whisper underneath my breath. This is an annoying habit of mine—talking to myself when I am nervous as hell. Not very useful when I am trying to keep quiet.

Melanie protested when I said I wanted a baseball bat for this purpose only. I said that it is a cliché way to defeat robbers and crap. I thought it would be amusing to keep it around. Melanie reluctantly agreed, though I could tell that she thought it was totally pointless.

"Not so pointless now, is it?" I whisper. I clap a hand over my mouth to shut myself up. I grab the baseball bat and brace myself. I open the door and poke my hand into the doorway tentatively, not sure what I will encounter. There is nobody in the hallway, so I assume that the intruder is in the living room.

I feel like the main character in every horror movie out there, walking toward my doom willingly. I grip the baseball bat tightly in my hands, taking extra care not to drop it, if such a thing is possible.

I count the steps as I walk down the hall, making sure not to make any noise. The lights are out and the floor boards seem to creak as our heroine steps lightly, making sure not to make too much sound, in case she encounters her doom at the end of the hall. The shadows are dark and they press down on her with no effect. She is fearless.

I shake my head. Maybe I'm not cut out for writing settings after all. Before I can try again, I hear another noise from the living room. I stop in my tracks. The steps creak, and in the dead silence of the room, they seem louder than she could have thought possible. And then suddenly, she hears a sound. It moves—no, reverberates—around the small apartment until it reaches her ears.

I am in the living room. There is a dark figure standing before me, dressed in black from head to toe. His back is to me, and I can tell that he hasn't noticed my approach. I don't know why he's here. His intentions may be completely innocent, but I'll never know.

He turns around, seeing me.

I swing before I can think.

I make contact.

The figure falls to the ground, clutching his head.

I run to the light switch and turn it on, hoping that Melanie will consider this a time when I am in desperate need of electricity and am not merely wasting it.

There's blood everywhere.

I know a hit with a simple baseball bat can't have caused that.

The young man on my living room floor—for I can tell that he is a young man now—smiles at me wanly. His hair is cut it a way that can only be described as "emo" and everything is covered in blood. I do not know why he can be this calm in the face of death. A baseball bat can't have caused that much blood.

"I had something implanted in me when I got caught by the School. Don't worry, it's not your fault. It was supposed to trigger this when hit with something," he says. He shudders in pain.

Even if he meant to hurt me (and was the School some kind of cult or something?), I did not mean to murder anyone. I'm not a pacifist, but even I know killing is bad. "You can't survive. Oh my god, we have call 911," I say. I run to the phone, but a hand on my wrist stops me.

"Listen to me. I'm your brother." I widen my eyes.

"But that's impossi—" I suddenly remember a conversation I once had with my Mom.

"Do I have any siblings, Mom?"

"No, dear. I just had you."

"But Mom, why can't I have any brothers or sisters?"

She hesitates. "Well, you had a twin. But he died. He died."

"Holy shit. I don't believe you. I don't believe you," I mutter the sentence over and over again as if it will make it true. Because if it is…

I just murdered my brother.

He looks irritated, if one can look irritated before he dies. He's leaning against the couch now, and I stand over him. "I don't care if you believe me or not, I just wanted to see you. I have a sister. Who would've thought?" There's a small, calm smile on his face. He takes a note out of his pocket. "Find Max. Give this to her." He hands me the note and I take it without thinking.

Before I can ask who the hell Max is, he dies.

Just like that.

He slumps on the couch fully. His breathing stops and he is perfectly still. I just stand there, looking at his corpse, wondering if his words are true.

I'm your brother.

Melanie finds me when she comes home standing next to a dead body. She screams and grabs my shoulder, shaking me out of my trance.

I open the note my nameless brother gave me and read it. I have no idea who I am supposed to give it to, but I may as well see what his dying message is.

I'm sorry, Max. I guess I won't be able to meet you in 20 years after all.

AN: Fuck. Why does everything I write seem rushed now? -_-

Review?