Meilan eyes shoot open and she jolts awake.

Her heartrate is racing and her breath is close to hyperventilating.

Glancing around, she sees her room. In front of her is her computer with Ebbie’s characteristics.

She was _asleep_?

It felt so real.

She’s had nightmares before, but this didn’t feel like any of those.

Nightmares are disorienting and hazy but permeate fear. She wakes from those, similar to this with only a wisp of a memory of it.

This one? She remember every single detail.

It wasn’t a nightmare. Or just a nightmare at least.

That leaves a question wide open. If it wasn’t a dream, what was it?

Dragging herself up, stretching her back out, she pushes on the desk. She winces as a pain shoot’s up her palm.

On her palm is a harsh indentation of her pen. Right where she squeezed it in her dream.

She wasn’t holding it when she woke up, so how did it get there? The answer deeply unsettles her, making her stomach churn painfully.

Was it real?

“Mei?”

Meilan nearly falls over, back into the chair with how bad she startles. In the doorway, Ling pops her head in. “Jeez, you ok? I called your names a couple times and I didn’t hear anything.”

If she could, she would strangle her for scaring her so bad. Her heart finally finds some peace and she feels like she’s in control of her body again.

“Yeah, I was just engrossed in writing,” she says. Her sister doesn’t look entirely convinced.

“You know how I get,” she adds for good measure.

She doesn’t need Ling thinking she’s nuts. Especially since she can’t tell her about the ghostwriter deal.

And her dream/whatever it was, it would make her sound crazy.

“Sure. I brought dinner, like I said I would,” Ling says, holding up a bag that assumedly has a the aforementioned food.

It takes Meilan a second to process her sentence. She recalls that now.

Sometimes, Ling cooks and brings some here since she knows Meilan forgets to eat. Writing mode takes over her brain and so other bodily functions come second.

“Thanks, I’ll be out in a minute.”

Ling almost leaves but stops once more, “You sure you’re ok?”

“Yep. Peachy.”

Even with her sister going to the kitchen, Meilan knows that she doesn’t believe her.

OoOoO

“Ling, do you ever think of yéye?” Meilan blurts out.

Both are on the couch after Ling heats up the homemade meal. The TV is on in front of them playing some reality show but the volume is low enough that it is just background noise.

Ling had said nothing, clearly waiting her Meilan to say something first.

Meilan doesn’t like silence.

So she asked the first thing that came to her mind. Her weird hallucination (?) of their grandfather.

“Of course I do. Every day,” Ling answers.

Her studying, calculating eyes pierce through Meilan’s soul. It makes her squirm in her seat.

She hates the way that Ling can read her.

Growing up, she used to say it was her older sister magic. That somehow, she could always know when Meilan is lying or hiding something.

“Why do you ask? Are you missing him a lot today? You know grief hits us at different times, sometimes out of the blue,” she says, in an overly soothing voice.

Meilan’s eye twitches at her tone. Internally, she knows Ling doesn’t mean to make her feel like this. Like she wants to fix her. But she does feel like that.

Maybe it’s the last born syndrome or something, but she constantly felt like she had to live up to Ling’s example.

That could be skewing her perception.

It just feels like Ling talks down to her. Especially about things that she knows Meilan knows.

But it might be all in her head.

“Yeah, something like that,” she says instead.

Instead of the interrogation that she expected, Ling carefully sets her plate down on the coffee table. Then she takes Meilan’s hands in her own. “You know you can tell me, right?”

It’s times like these that make her feel bad for ever disliking her sister.

She cares. And that’s what matters.

“Of course. I know that.” Her sister’s eyebrows raise. Not in question. It’s more of a you-seriously-thought-I-would-believe-that look.

“Then why are you lying?” She points out.

Meilan sighs. It wouldn’t hurt to get her vision off her chest. Maybe her sister can make some sense out of it. “Ok, you caught me. Like you always do. I’ll tell you.”

Maybe her older sister magic will be able to explain it.

“I had this weird dream where——,” she cuts herself off. Behind her sister was the strange version of her yéye. The image, still wavy and distorted.

He still has that frown, but he somehow doesn’t feel as intimidating as before. He simply shakes his head.

Almost like a warning.

That she shouldn’t tell Ling.

Having paused for a good fifteen seconds, Ling opens her mouth to question her. Meilan quickly continues her sentence before she can say anything, “where I felt like I relived a memory with him. I don’t know, it just made me miss him a lot,” she lies, hoping it’s not obvious.

Meilan hopes that her older sister’s lie detector ability falters just this once.

“Sure,” Ling responds slowly, “We’ll that’s normal to still be grieving and missing him.”

“That’s a relief,” she says, even though she is anything but relieved at her current situation. Confusion bubbles up in her gut, but she attempts to ignore and push it down.

She can’t deal with this right now.

Her sister fills the silence with cleaning up. She takes her own plate to the sink and puts the leftover in the fridge.

Meilan can’t take her eyes off yéye. She can’t focus on another but him. Or it. Whatever her things she is seeing.

Reappearing in her vision, Ling shifts from foot to foot. “I should get going. I have work in the morning,” she says. Meilan knows that she doesn’t fully believe her, but she doesn’t have the energy to convince her.

“Makes sense. Thanks for coming over and bringing food,” she responds, almost mechanically.

Ling pauses at the front door, her hand hovering over the doorknob. “You’re welcome. See you tomorrow?”

Knowing that she’s leaving an opening if Meilan wants to talk, she just shakes her head. “I have a lot of writing to do, so maybe skip tomorrow. But I’ll call!” She adds, mustering all the enthusiasm she can.

“Ok, Mei. Talk to you tomorrow.”

The door finally shuts and she is alone….kinda.

Yéye looks more like him.

Meilan turns to the darker version of her grandfather.

“What are you trying to tell me?” The question hangs in the air between them, unanswered.

His lips move, but she can’t hear or read them.

“Do you happen to have the ability to write it down?” She wonders aloud.

He continues to silently speak.

Just as she is about to ask something else, her door opens. Ling comes busting in.

“Mei, I forgot to….were you talking to someone?” Ling swivels her head but doesn’t look behind her.

Her response comes out really hesitant. “No?”

Unconsciously, Meilan’s eyes stray to the figure of their yéye. She’s not very subtle.

“What are you looking at?” Ling questions.

He shakes his head behind her sister. Meilan is really tired of not understanding what this means.

“Nothing?” The question mark is very decent in her tone. She can’t help it. Lying isn’t her strong suit, especially to her sister.

Ling crosses her arms, frowning at her obvious avoidance. “Do all your sentences end in a question mark?”

“Do all of yours?” She shoots back.

It’s in that moment Ling chooses to turn around.

Their yéye jumps at her, encasing her in darkness. Ling yells, falling to the ground as the shadow of his figure eats her up.

And Meilan is stuck. Literally.

Try as she might, she can’t move closer.

Ling is being consumed. It doesn’t make sense. He was warning her and now what is happening?

“Mei!” Ling calls out, her nails scratching at the ground, marking the wood.

“I can’t!” Meilan physically pulls her legs with her arms, trying desperately to move, but her feet are glued to this spot.

As she reaches as far as she can from her position with Ling’s scream searing into her brain, her eyes snap open.

Meilan shrieks, sitting up…in her bed?

She hyperventilates, trying to grasp onto reality. Naming things in her head, her unfocused gaze looks around her room.

It seems normal. Everything is normal.

But it isn’t.

Her head is jumbled. Nothing makes sense. Less sense than before. What the hell is going on?

Once her mind calms down, even just slightly, her thoughts become a bit easier to decipher.

She didn’t remember getting to her bed. What day is it even?

Scrambling for her phone on the nightstand next to her, she blindly taps until she gets to Ling’s phone number.

Is she ok? What was real and what was her vision? Dream? Hallucination?

“Hello?” Ling answers on the first ring.

“Oh thank god,” Meilan breathes out, thanking whatever gods out there that her sister is on the other line. Alive and speaking.

Maybe she can stop seeing Ling’s scared face before it envelopes in darkness now that her brain knows that she’s ok.

“You sound out of breath. You ok?” Ling questions. Even without seeing her, she knows her eyebrows are raised expectedly. “Yeah, I’m just glad to hear your voice,” she answers. Thats actually the most honest response she could have given.

“You just saw me yesterday,” her tone clearly accusatory.

Meilan doesn’t even acknowledge the potential talking down that Ling did. She can’t even focus on anything.

_Yesterday_. Ling was there _yesterday_? It feels like it was a minute ago.

It’s like she’s in a haze. Things are just happening to her…or not happening?

“Remind me, when did you leave yesterday?” She blurts out. She’s pretty sure she cut off Ling mid sentence, but she needs her to answer.

There’s an audible huff on the other side.

Normally, this would annoy Meilan, but she waits with bated breath for the reply. Her normal grievances with her sister pale in comparison with whatever is going on with her sanity.

Instead of a true answer, Ling says, “Mei, you’re acting weird.”

Thanks for the obvious.

Everything is weird. Now answer the question.

“Please answer it,” she pushes, desperation flooding into her voice. They don’t beg. It isn’t how they were raised.

Asking for help was weakness. Begging was even worse.

It feels pretty accurate with how weak she feels right now.

Maybe Ling picks up on it because she does eventually give the information Meilan was looking for, “I said I would call you tomorrow, which is today now. You just bet me to it. And then I left.”

“You didn’t come back in?”

Meilan knows that she just asked another question which doesn’t help her case, but it just flows out of her.

“No, Mei. What’s going on? I knew you weren’t alright yesterday,” Ling worries.

In an overly curt manner, she blurts out, “Nothing. No need to worry. Bye.”

And she hangs up. Not her brightest moment, but she couldn’t stay on the phone any longer.

In her vision (?), Ling potentially died. And it was just a mere moment ago. But in reality, Ling is fine and what did happen was yesterday.

She’s absolutely losing her mind.

It’s official.