When I write.

Seven times

The letter of Jo's mother's passing reached her on a Wednesday. It wasn't much of a shock, really. Jo's father had passed a few months back and her mother hadnt been doing well ever since. Also, she as lived 88 beautiful years. So while Jo was certainly sad, she was also ready for this. She seemed to have grieved both her parents when her father's death began to heavily deteriorate her mother's health. Being the only member of the Wilson's family alive, she realised she would be getting the family house.

It had been years since Jo had seen the entire house again. Since she had moved out, she only came to visit and during those she only entered 3 rooms: living area and her room. As a child, she had apparently been diagnosed with a rare form of amnesia due to which she had no memories of the first six years of her life. When she was six, the doctors were able to find a cure to the disease and her brain began to store memories like an average brain does. She was simply asked not to withstand any circumstances to that might lead to overstraining her brain. It never bothered her much.

Excited to revisit her precious memories in her childhood home, she began exploring. As she recalled, there was one specific room that she wasn't allowed to enter, no matter what. Her parents would let her do anything but that. It was their only rule. Don't enter that room. Her mother explained that the room stirred up disturbing emotions connected with her disorder that she feared might cause the amnesia to reccur. Jo obeyed her mother inspite of her curiosity because she had always felt a chilly presence when she lingered about for too long near the place. "Not today.", She thought. She reached the room and stood at the door for a while, hoping that she was wrong a child. But she wasn't. There it was, the chilly presence, gripping her hand and making her blood freeze. Colder than ever.

Though Jo was frightened, she was determined to keep going. Inserting the key, she twisted till the lock click and swung the door wide open, hoping for the worst. To her surprise, she was presented with the prettiest, most tastefully decorated room she had ever seen. It was a shade of pastel pink and decorated with exquisite rosewood furniture. One of the walls read 'AMBER', the letters crafted carefully with ribbons, pearls and diamonds.

"Amber." The name struck a bell in Jo's mind. "She was someone important to me. Very important." Suddenly, the presence grew colder.

Her eyes wandered from one item to an other as her brain processed everything it was seeing. Things came rushing back to her, like puzzle pieces she never knew existed sliding back into place. Jo looked at the photo arranged on the nightstand. A sweet family of four, smiling in the bright sunlight. She recognized herself and her parents, but couldn't recall the fourth face, though she was certain that the girl kissing baby Jo on the cheek was Amber. "She was my twin sister! I am sure of it. But Mom and Dad always said that I was an only child, and why would they lie to me? What happened to Amber? Is she doing fine?" A billion questions came rushing to Jo and it was too much for her to handle.

She sat down, holding her head. She felt something against her back. She reached for it and picked it up in one quick motion, looked at it and just as quickly, dropped it, utterly horrified.

"What the hell?! That's blood!" She cried, feeling certain that the temperature dropped even further. It was almost as if the chilly presence was behind the returning these lost memories to Jo.

"Amber...she died...", Jo said, sobbing more in horror than pain, her eyes wide with fear. She couldn't take it anymore. She had to get out of here. Whatever happened, she'd rather not know. But as she began to walk towards the door, her feet stopped obeying her. She tried and tried to move forward, away from this nightmare of a room, but her entire body felt a cold, dark resistance.

"The presence... It's controlling my body.... No! Let me go, please!", Jo thought. She didn't have it in her to speak. Or she couldn't. No, she couldn't speak either. Her mouth was jammed shut. Her entire body felt disconnected from her. She couldn't do anything with it. Only her mind was still present, much to her dismay. Given the circumstances, she would much rather have her brain go numb.

Suddenly, her body began to move towards the study table. The presence made the sit down and made her hand open the journal lying on it. It opened to a page that read:

"September 6th, 2000

Dear Amber,
My sweet, beautiful daughter. I am so sorry for what happened to you. I know that sorry won't cover it, but I don't know what to do. I wish I had more time with you. I wish I had known that the last time I hugged you and kissed you was the last time ever. I wish I had never left you alone with your unstable sister. I wish I had come running when I heard you scream the first time. Or the second. By the third time, it was already too late. And now you're gone forever. I have no one to blame for it but myself and your father. I wish you know how much we love you."

Her hand went on to flip a few more pages and stop at a page that read:

"We are not ready to let you go. You might be gone physically, but I know that your soul is here with us. I can feel you. And I promise you that I'll give you the best life for as long as I can. And I promise I'll never let that monster Jo come near you again. Don't worry, baby. She has been cured of her mental retardation, so no one will ever suffer what you went through. I'll take care of her and give her the best I can, because inspite of everything, I cannot stop loving her. But I'll always love you so much more, Amber. And I promise she'll face the concequesces of her actions. Maybe someone will stab her 7 times the way she stabbed you with that stump of wood that I've still kept under the bed. I'll see. Until then, we promise to provide you with the best of everything. And I'll always be there for you, sweetie. I'm not going anywhere. Don't worry."

As Jo read, she descended into insanity. "I'm a killer. A murderer. I don't deserve to live."
"That's right, sister." Jo felt the cold presence smile as she took over her mind too. "Now we'll walk over, take the stump of wood you killed me with and stab you seven time in the chest just like the way you did to me."
"Yes, sister."

And with that, Jo walked over to the bed, bent down to take the stump of wood covered in Amber's dry blood and stabbed herself. Once. Twice. Thrice. Four times. Five times. Six times. Seven times.


Word count: 1224