I truly loved my sister.

I loved the whispered conversations we’d have at the crack of dawn. Her confiding her worries in me, me offering warm comfort. Or sometimes, the other way around. I loved the trust built in our relationship, in every single promise we kept and hug we shared.

I loved her gentle smile and wicked sense of humor. I’d laugh at the pranks she pulled at me, every single one creative and truly evil in the way only a sibling can be.

I loved our bond. And when that bond disappeared, when she did, so did a part of me.

It was a simple Monday morning when I heard my mum scream from downstairs. I rushed down, panicked, and found my mother looking pale faced at a corpse. I didn’t recognize it, not at first.

But looking closer, I could see the dull blonde hair of my sister. The striking set of brown eyes staring emptily at the sky. The note clutched right in her closed palm, crumpled.

I saw death for the first time in my life, and it terrified me.

Hours later, hours of aimless staring and a numb sense of dread, the police questioned me. I answered everything on autopilot, my body far, far away. My voice came out robotic and stilted, emotionless. I was shocked. I couldn’t even cry.

And weeks later, her death was declared a suicide. The note clutched in her palm was shown to me for the first time, something I could never imagine my sister writing. And that was the first time I cried. There was no murderer to catch, no grudge to keep, no revenge to dole out. There was just my sister and her decision, a decision that would haunt me for perpetuity.

I felt my throat closing down and my vision blurring, those words going in and out of focus. Finally, the pressure that was building for so long burst out like a broken damn. I felt shattered as I sat on that floor and cried my heart out. I grieved.

I grieved a lost childhood, a lost adolescence, a lost life. I grieved that I’d never see her wedding, her success in life, her first breakup. I grieved my sister and the memories that came with it and it broke me inside. I atleast wanted a moment to say goodbye, to hug her one last time, to persuade her not to do it. And even if she did, I’d have the solace of knowing I tried.

I didn’t know why she did it, when she seemed so happy and at peace in our house. I couldn’t, never would be able to understand and it ruined our happy family.

So I set out, exactly one month later on a fateful Monday morning. I followed the mirage of my sister’s path to the roof of our apartment building, imagined her climbing this exact ladder. Imagined her dull blonde hair whipping past her eyes in the breeze, imagined her gaze over the vast city glowing in the night.

I came to the edge and looked down, down, down and held my breath. The 10th floor of our apartment building was a long way to fall, but I felt numb to it all. I smiled at my sister standing beside me with the same expression and it steeled my resolve.

I grabbed my sister’s hand, finding nothing but air, and pulled her towards the edge. She nods slowly in my direction.

And…we jump.

My sister’s mirage falls away as I find myself screaming, frightened, terrified.

I don’t want to fall anymore. I don’t want to feel the wind whipping past my hair and freezing my tears before they fall. I don’t want to fall, but im falling and falling and nothing will stop it.

I don’t feel the crunch of my bones as I close my eyes.

I don’t feel anything.

Just a darkness, a void…

An emptiness.

Where is my sister?