Mysteria

I remember everything. I can see it all clearly as though it were all happening in front of me. I was only 8 years old at the time. I was at home. Alone in my house. There was nobody around. It was late; the middle of the night. I was asleep but then suddenly something woke me so I got up and went looking for the source of what woke me. I left my room but I was careful not to wake my parents. They were home late 'cause they'd been out all night and they wouldn't want their sleep to be disturbed. So I crept through the house. It was deathly still and deafeningly silent. I'd never experienced anything like it before. It was as though the world was completely silent except for me. I was the only thing in the world that seemed to make any noise at all. The air was still. The trees were completely motionless which never happened at that time of year as there was always at the very least a tiny shudder of a breeze drifting through the trees. But not this time. I noticed it 'cause it was so unusual and it was because of that very reason that I felt the beginning of fear settling in me. The night was never this still or silent. Never. Then suddenly I saw her. A ghostly figure standing before me. She was pale and shined a silvery light. She was glowing like a firefly but her light was much cooler than the warming golden glow of that insect. She was wearing a silvery white night dress and had long, dark, wavy hair that fell down past her shoulders. She didn't seem real, yet I know she was definitely there. Her face wasn't happy or sad. She didn't look like she was feeling anything at all. She looked like a statue, but I could see straight through her like she wasn't there at all. But I know she was. I know what I saw. I know who I saw. It was my sister.
         I was completely paralysed by fear. Not because I thought I'd seen a ghost, but because it was my sister that I had seen. The fear flooded through me because I realised that if I had seen her ghost then what had happened to her? I finally felt my legs and my feet touching the floor and before I knew it I had raced to my parents' room and screamed that "Melissa's gone!" I ran to her room and saw that her room was perfectly neat and tidy. Her bed was perfectly tucked in and made as if no one had ever slept in it. Everything was away in its proper place as if it was a doll's set. Her window was open and her curtains fluttered in the breeze, but the trees were perfectly still. Her room felt colder than the rest of the house. I could feel it in my chest. My heart was racing faster and faster and when I looked back down the hall to where I saw the silvery girl she was gone. Melissa was gone. My parents finally woke up and searched the house for my sister. But there was nothing. No note. No missing clothes. No sign of a break-in or a struggle. No footprints. Nothing. She was just... gone.
         I was in the woods, running through the darkness. I felt like there was something... out there... watching me. Following me. But I couldn't see anything. I couldn't hear anything. There was nothing there. We never found her. We never found whatever it was that took her. We never found... anything. She simply disappeared, vanished, in the middle of the night. I remember the woods in the darkness. They were so still yet I could hear the trees blowing in the wind. The still wind that just didn't exist. I never could understand it. How could there be wind and yet no wind? How could everything be silent and yet I could still make noise? Why was I the only one that experienced these strange things? No one has ever been able to tell me. Everyone tells me I dreamed it or imagined it, or I'm delusional or something else along that train of thought. I know what I saw. I know what I experienced. I know what happened. Actually... I don't know what happened and that's exactly why I'm here. I've been searching for answers ever since then. Ever since that night. My sister disappeared. Vanished without a trace. And no one knows what happened to her. Everyone has stopped looking for her assuming she either ran away or is dead. But I haven't. And I won't. I'll never stop looking. I want to know what happened to my sister. I want to know what happened to Melissa.
         "Listen to the sound of my voice. Can you hear me?"
         "Yes." I replied.
         "Can you tell me what happened after your sister disappeared?"
         "I searched for answers on my own. The police stopped talking to me about the case after it had been exhausted for ten years. My parents were tired of my fixation on what happened that night. I think they'd given up long before the police even did. My family was falling apart and no one wanted to help me find her. So I went searching for answers. I looked for other cases that had been reported that were similar to this one. Finally I found you. You were all searching for answers. You had all been touched by misfortune and misery. You'd been pulled deep into mysteries that no one could explain. No one would listen to you and no one would help you. You'd all lost something or someone in one way or another. And now, myself included, we all seek answers. We seek the truth of what happened; why we all lost what we lost."
         "What took my sister Emily?"
         "Shhh. Don't interrupt."
         "Ask him!"
         "Be quiet!"
         "I have to know."
         "Erin!"
         "What took my sister?!-"
         "No, Erin!"
         "What took Emily?!"
         "You mustn't disturb him while he's in the trance!"
         "Tell me! You know the truth, don't you!? DON'T YOU!?"
         I heard voices speaking to me, but I couldn't see anyone. It was dark but the voices spoke to me and I listened. I felt two small hands grab me firmly, shaking me violently. Desperately. Her hysterical voice rang in my ears, echoing over and over again. Weeping and screaming. Over and over she begged me to tell her what I knew. She begged me to tell her what happened to her sister just as I desired the truth about my own sister. Melissa and Emily. Two victims of a crime we know nothing about. Two victims of a culprit that doesn't seem to exist. Whatever happened to me in the woods, whatever happened in my house that night, whatever secrets I knew but couldn't remember remained hidden in my unconscious mind. That's why Erin shouted and shook me. Her despair was worse than my own. Her sister was her other half; her other self; her identical twin. Melissa was only my older sister. I was 8 years old when it happened and she was 14. Erin and Emily were both 15 when when they were ripped apart. She disappeared from the face of the Earth and Erin was never whole again.
         "What happened? Did we find what we were looking for?" But everyone looked downcast in disappointment. And I knew at once that our investigation was not over. Far from it. We were yet to uncover the truth of what happened on that fateful night when my sister disappeared. We had just as many unanswered questions as we did before. Now it was up to us to find another way of unlocking what was hidden in my mind. If we could only discover those secrets... perhaps... maybe then...