Run-Away Little Sister: Hurting

Chapter One: Death

ANASTASIA'S POV:

The concept of death isn't something that can be easily accepted by young children. The concept of death doesn't make sense. How can something that was there one second be gone in the next?

The concept of death isn't understood. No one really knows why death is a thing. All humans know is that old age, diseases, or other humans physically harming someone to point of beyond return causes death. It causes a permanent sleep, it causes the breaths of a once living human being to slow down and eventually stop.

I was seven when I first experienced a traumatic loss. My parents who were my best friends had died. I didn't understand that they died, all I knew was that they were injured. They had been driving in the car, on the phone with one of my older brothers one second, and then the next second someone had ran a red-light killing them both almost instantly.

Matthew was the brother on the phone. It was on speaker-phone, and we both heard the ear-piercing shrieks coming from our mother and father. We heard the loud bang as metal crashed against metal from the cars colliding with each other. And then we heard the silence as the event that had just taken place was over.

It was quiet for a few moments, those were peaceful seconds, but then we heard a cough, our mother's cough. Her voice was raspy, but it didn't matter to us as we listened to her voice.

"Kids." I remember her speaking quietly, as if it hurt her to speak.

"Mom? Oh my God, Mom, are you okay?" Matthew spoke.

"Honey, go get your brother. Go get James." Mom groaned out painfully, and Matthew handed seven year old me the phone as he ran to find our eldest brother.

"Mommy?" I asked quietly.

"Hi, sweet girl." she coughed out.

"Darling, listen to me. I don't have much longer left..." she trailed off, going into a coughing fit, "But I want you to know that I love you... and your brothers very... much. O-Okay?"

"Yes, mommy. We love you too. You're going to be okay, right Mommy?"

"I don't think so honey. I-I think I'm going to go to a p-place called Heaven." she coughed out, her voice becoming more strained, "Listen, darling, no matter what you d-do in li-fe, Mommy and Daddy will a-always be pr-oud of yo-u and you-r brothers."

Her words continued to get more and more sluggishly spoken, as if she was falling asleep, having a hard time staying awake, "Darling?"

"Yes, mommy?"

"Beware of Cash. P-Promise me?" she rasped out, breathing heavily into the phone.

"O-okay, Mommy. I promise. I love you." I had a feeling, even as a seven year old girl, that this would be the last time I ever spoke to my mother again.

"I love you too, Darling. We'll al-ways be so pr-oud of you." Mom spoke after a few moments of silence, as if she was collecting her breath.

"I love you..." she repeated.

And then there was silence, nothing but the pain-staking silence as my younger self listened to my mother's final breaths before there was no noise at all.

That day my father had died on impact, my mother dying mere minutes after him. Seconds after my mother passed on, James, my eldest brother, came charging into the room, snatching the phone from my grasp.

He had called out for my mother, begging for her to answer. She didn't.

And throughout those chaotic seconds, Matthew and I watched on in silence, neither of us knowing what was going to happen next.

Seconds went to minutes, minutes went to hours, hours went to days, days went to weeks, and throughout that time I was placed on the backburner. It became incredibly clear to me, when I asked James three weeks after our parents deaths about what was going to happen.

Seven year old me didn't know nothing would be the same after that pain filled day.

"Jay?" I questioned quietly, as I pulled myself onto the couch, settling my bottom on the seat next to my big brother.

"What, Ana?" he seemed angry.

"What's going to happen now that Mommy and Daddy aren't coming back?" I asked sadly, as I locked eyes with my big brother.

"I don't know. I don't even know what really happened that day." James spoke, frustration clear in his voice.

"We called Mommy and Daddy on the phone." I told him quietly, after a moment of silence, "Then we talked to them, and after a couple minutes of us talking, we heard screaming and shouting, and then silence, and then Mommy started talking to us, telling Matt to go get you."

"So you called Mommy and Daddy?" James asked, with a stern edge to his voice, though I paid it no mind.

"Yes, Matt and me did." I told him.

And then the next second I was on the hard, wood floor holding my face as I cried out in pain.

"Jay, that hurt!"

"You are the reason Mom and Dad weren't watching the road?" his voice was louder than before.

I slowly sat up on the floor, tears in my eyes, "I don't know?"

"You helped kill them! This is partially your fault!" James suddenly screamed, sending a harsh kick to my tummy.

And as he continued to whack and kick at my tiny defenseless body, I whimpered out, with only one thought crossing my mind-

'I didn't even want to call Mommy and Daddy! Matthew did.'

I never said anything about Matthew being the one to call them, because I never wanted him to go through the same treatment I was subjected to.

As time went on, our brothers learned what most of them thought to be the truth.

James told them all the story he had come up with, truly believing I played a roll in the deaths of our parents. Mason and Jackson, twins who are only three years old than me believed him. It brought them to the conclusion that they were allowed to hurt me, given the fact that I had played a roll in "murdering" our parents.

Matthew who knew the truth stayed quiet, not daring to say that he was the one who actually picked up the phone and dialed the number, wanting to talk with our parents that night. And eventually, as James, Mason, and Jackson began assaulting me regularly, Matthew began joining in.

I had one more brother, a twin brother. He never knew the truth about what happened, but he never joined in on the beatings either. He'd bring me food, bandages, help me clean the house whenever he could. He was the best, until he wasn't. Eventually the kind acts began to slow down, and when I asked why he said that I hadn't given him a reason to believe that I wasn't at fault for our parents accident.

But had I ever given him a reason to believe I was?

And eventually my only real supporter drifted away from me. At one point in life we couldn't have been closer, and now at fourteen we couldn't have been more apart.

It truly hurts the most when that one person who made you feel so special in the past, makes you feel so unwanted in the present.

My life as the broken-down and hated sister, had been a life I was used to living, there's no secret about that. Everyone in town knew my parents had died, everyone in town knew that my brothers and I drifted away from one another, but nobody knew about the abuse: physical, mental, or emotional.

And I was damn glad for that.

Bring on the pain, misery, anger, sadness, and the tears, because this is my life and I know that in the end I will be resilient enough to make it out alive.

After all, trauma and abuse don't make a whole story, they only make a chapter or two, what happens after the trauma is over, is anybody's guess.

Death is anything but a friend.

Death is a nightmare you can never seem to wake up from. 

Author's Note - 

Here's the beginning of "Run-Away Little Sister: Hurting". This is chapter one, it's definitely different than the original, but I think that it's much better than the original. Let me know what you think about this chapter. And make sure you all comment and share this story with those who might like it. 

Thanks for reading! 

-Michaela {The Author} 

Original Version Published: February 14th. 2019 

Edited Version Published: July 23rd. 2021