My name is Ian O'shea and there is much I am happy to leave behind. This house, with it's big, empty rooms and creaky floorboard no longer feels like home. The only reason I don't leave is because of Shiloh. My wonderful, caring sister. She's my love and my life and I can't make her leave the one place she feels safe. When the parasites come we hide in the attic and fling the insulation over us. That's what we've come to.
A knock on the door breaks me out of my thoughts. I stand up slowly from the dusty chair that sits by itself in the middle of our living room and wrap my long, stiff fingers around the baseball bat perched against the wall. My sandy hair sticks to my forehead with sweat as I move towards the door. It's unwise to open it, and it's unwise to do nothing. And so I must make a choice.
Before I can doubt my instincts, I kick the door open and raise the bat above my head. With my momentum I could kill whoever stands before me.
So it comes as a surprise when I am facing only the frigid night air. I blink twice, just for good measure, before lowering my eyes to the ground. A pang of despair shoots up my spine when I see her. Long, flowing black hair, turned up button nose, soft cheeks round with the baby fat that has yet to disappear. She can't be older than five. If it weren't for those pale blue eyes my heart would have melted then and there.
"Who are you?" I whisper, and then clamp my lips shut. I know this girl, oh I know her well. I couldn't see it in the dark of night, but now that I've realized, I see how incredibly stupid I've been.
"Shiloh," I breathe, my voice cracking something terrible. How did she get out? I checked on her upstairs not forty minutes ago.
"We move fast," she coos, sounding older than her age. "We're efficient." Her baby lips curl up into a small, genuine smile, as if I'm going to accept this.
"Not we," I snarl. "Them. They. Shiloh, this isn't you."
"My name's not Shiloh anymore," she says kindly, like I'm the five-year-old. "It's Moonlit Path."
"No!" I shriek, backing away. "It's not! It's Shiloh! I know its Shiloh!" And then, without looking back, I sprint out the back door of that old, godforsaken house and I don't stop. I run until my lungs are searing with every breath and my legs are covered in scabs and my eyes are caked with dirt and dust. I run until I am a living corpse. And then I keep running.
I only stoped once I'd reached the caves. To this day I'm not sure how I found them. One moment I was ready to collapse in the New Mexican desert and the next callused hands were pouring water down my throat and washing my hair. Those hands ended up belonging to my brother, one I didn't know I had.
I've been here ever since, and I wish I could forget that other life of mine. I'm happy here, relatively, and without the baggage I carry I think I might be at piece too. But happiness and piece are very big things, and they don't come without a price. I would lose Shiloh without those memories. Eventually I decided losing her was worth living the rest of my life without a burning sorrow in my chest, and slowly I began to forget. I began to adjust, and I began to smile.
Then her voice rang through the caves, echoing off the walls. They said her name was Wanderer, a soul, a parasite. But that voice. It reminded me profoundly of Shiloh's, with it's sweet, ringing sound, and I knew in that moment, that I was a goner.