We Are One - Yeiri Farias
The darkness of my shut eyelids is the same as the darkness that encroaches on me when I open my eyes. I reach around, with heavy arms that barely move at my will, looking for anything or anyone that’s here with me. I feel dirt, then the wall behind me… I can feel splinters. I stop breathing for a minute, waiting, hoping that I hear someone else close to me. I exhale, after almost suffocating in the silent darkness. It’s only me here. I try moving from the spot where I’m sitting, but my muscles feel as if they’re made of gum. Finally, I found my small coin purse on my leg. I open it, hoping that my cellphone is inside. It is. I click the power button, and my friends smile at me in the background picture. I try to unlock it, but the password has been changed. It’s not much use, I think, when the low-battery alert pops up. 3% is all I’ve got.
Darkness clings to me as I move my weak screen around me. I can’t call, but at least I can figure out where I am. That’s when I notice the dress I’m wearing. Sequins. Silver sequins from my prom dress…
Did I go to prom? I try calling my friends, maybe we had too much to drink and passed out somewhere. No sound comes out of me, and my tongue feels fuzzy, like a caterpillar I saw at the museum a long time ago. Memories come to me slowly, yes, the date at the museum with blond hair, blue eyes, and thin fingers that hold my hand sometimes. Who has blond hair?
A splitting headache stops me from remembering names right away, but I can see Jeremy’s face in my memory after giving it some effort.
I try standing up again, but crash down on the dirty concrete floor. The warmth on my skin increases along with my heart rate when I recognize the cardboard boxes next to me. “Christmas” is written on the side. I may have ended up in my own backyard.
I hear hinges squeaking. I drop my tiny cellphone somewhere in the folds of my dress, but I don’t rush to grab it. Instead, I use my hands to cover my eyes from the blinding light coming in. A dark figure appears against the light, and I recognize her within seconds. I want to scream, to ask her for help, but my tongue is still heavy and thick.
“Rise and shine, baby.” My sister greets me, her heels clicking on the cement as she gets closer.
“Sy…” I wheeze. It’s Sylvia. She’ll know what to do. My throat burns and I can’t speak. “I thought you weren’t talking to me, Amber. Or have you forgotten?” She says with an icy tone. She kneels next to me, first to caress my cheek, until I feel the slap. “You sure missed out on a party. Jeremy and I had a wonderful time.” Her words sting, but I can’t even flinch. She moves around my limp legs, and I see her wearing a silver sequined dress like mine. Her long, flowy hair is gone, her pale face now framed with my usual short bob and overgrown bangs. And a white corsage adorns her wrist—my corsage.
She sees me eyeing it and tells me, “It’s mine now. It should’ve been mine from the beginning, just like many other things, just like Jeremy. You knew he liked me first, and you still went after him. You just couldn’t stand seeing me have something nice.”
She leans in front of me, her face looking so much like mine that we finally look like twins. I think of the lecture in my English class about fate. I think of our faces mirroring each other until we were 14. We look like the same person once again.
“Sylvia,” I try again, but another slap from her cold hand on my face silences me. She slaps harder until it turns into punching.
“Shhh. It’ll be over soon.” She whispers once the punching stops. From a plastic bag, she’s pulling out a syringe filled with dark liquid. Hot tears roll down my cheeks, and I think I have blood on my lip; there’s a metallic smell in the air now.
Through my shaky vision, I see my sister wearing my face and smiling down at me.
Yeiri is currently pursuing her B.A. in English and plans to get her M.F.A. in Creative Writing after that. Inspired by her father and maternal grandmother, she fell in love with literature at a young age and has an ever-growing list of books to read and stories to write. Her writing can be found in Gypsophila Zine and The Borderline Lit Mag.
