Book I - ch 1. Thank You for Your Life

* * *

Someone screamed, a shrill sound that made people cover their ears. Robyn searched for the remote as, on the screen, the boy who’d screamed looked at his friends, mortified. She turned the television off.

Robyn smiled. “Silence… finally.”

She was sure there would be a lasting hum in her ears.

Ready to scold Sarah for leaving the TV so loud, she stopped when she saw Sarah was asleep where she lay on the couch—peaceful and defenseless.

The urge to wake her up clawed at Robyn’s mind instantly.

She shook her gently, but Sarah turned and twisted into the sofa cushions, hiding her face.

Sarah mumbled a few unintelligible phrases, still lost in her dreams.

“Sarah?” Robyn insisted, shaking her harder.

“No… Don’t… Robyn!”

Robyn smacked her on the top of the head.

Sarah pulled back, startled awake. She raised a hand to her head, squinting because of the light. “What? Why’d you-? Did you just hit me?”

Robyn grinned. “Dinner’s on the table.”

* * *

Sarah twisted and turned on the couch, shoving a couple of cushions to the floor. Robyn picked them up, shaking Sarah as she went. Her sister started mumbling words she couldn’t understand. Robyn shook her harder, but all that seemed to do was worsen Sarah’s agitation.

Sarah kicked out and another sofa cushion suffered for it. “No… Don’t… Don’t die…”

Robyn used the last cushion she’d picked up to hit Sarah over the head.

Sarah came to with a start, swatting through the air as if she were being attacked by a squadron of bees.

Robyn threw the cushion at her. “Dinner’s ready.”

Sarah merely sat there, glaring at her sister.

With a sigh, Robyn turned off the television. “Maybe you would have fewer nightmares if you didn’t sleep watching TV. Especially stuff where people are getting cut in half.”

Sarah turned her glare at the TV. “That wasn’t what was on when I sat down…”

“You mean nodded off.”

“And they’re not nightmares.”

Robyn scoffed. “Really? Then what are they?”

“Dreams,” Sarah shot back as she made her way to the kitchen. “They’re just really, really freaky dreams that really, really freak me out.”

Robyn scoffed again and Sarah stuck her tongue out at her.

“Girls,” Mom called. “If you keep behaving like you’re a couple of annoying little brats, I’ll start treating you as such. Now sit down.”

“Hm… meat!” Robyn said with a funny voice as she tossed her hamburger onto her plate and took a seat at the table.

Sarah poured herself a cup of juice.

“Oh, Sarah. I forgot to tell you, Jeremy called this afternoon,” Robyn said.

* * *

The television and stereo were silent. There was virtually no sound in the house except the voices in the kitchen.

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“You know, I wanna protest this being assaulted in my own home,” Sarah said when she finished pouring her milk.

Robyn glanced at her plate. “And I wanna protest this silly notion you have that eating hamburgers with milk is actually normal.”

They glared at each other for a moment.

“And my mother said I should’ve had twins,” Mom said. “I think I would’ve left one of you at the supermarket one day and never looked back.”

“Her!” both girls shouted in unison, pointing towards the other.

Their father rolled his eyes at their usual antics.

“So, where were you today?” Sarah asked.

Robyn frowned at her. “What d’you mean? Class.”

“You were supposed to go with me to borrow Landry’s book, remember?”

“Sorry, I forgot.”

“Yeah, I kinda figured that when I sat outside your class for an hour only to find out you were ditching.”

Robyn glanced at Mom and Dad. “I was not.”

“Oh, you were invisible. I’m sorry.”

“Besides, nobody ditches in college. Attendance is more of an optional thing.”

“I must’ve missed that part of the introductory class,” Sarah mocked.

Robyn sank down in her seat. “I was behind on an assignment, so I went to finish it in the library before the last class. That’s why I forgot about you.”

“Fine. Can we go get the book tomorrow? I really need it.”

“And you’re not getting it from the library like everyone else because…?”

“All the copies are already out. Were you not listening to me yesterday?”

Robyn shrugged a shoulder. “Probably not.”

Sarah’s retort got cut off when the phone rang.

Robyn stopped laughing, took a sip of her juice. “Your turn.”

With a grimace, Sarah got up to answer it.

“Anyone expecting a call?” Dad asked.

Sarah didn’t hear an answer, so she figured no one was. She gave the couch a longing look and pulled the phone along with her so she could sit down. She picked up the receiver right when another shrill warning sounded. “Hello?”

A distorted voice came through with neither feeling nor hesitation: “A new nation will arise from fire and yours is the sacrifice required. Thank you for your life.”

The phone fell from her hands.

* * *

“Where’s the ketchup?” Dad asked as he searched around the table.

Robyn slammed the cupboard door shut with too much force.

“Planning on breaking it?” Sarah asked.

* * *

The front door was broken down in a single burst of noise. Sarah froze before she’d even taken a step back towards the kitchen. Someone screamed, maybe it was her. Shots were fired, and she dropped to the floor, hiding behind the couch.

Mom hadn’t even time to react. She was dead before she hit the ground.

* * *

The ketchup bottle fell and shattered, its contents spilling across the kitchen floor.

* * *

The kitchen table was turned to serve as shelter.

Dad had a gun.

The strangeness of that fact tore Sarah away from her paralysis. In the chaos, she couldn’t think of anything but getting to them, but there was no way.

“Get out!” Dad shouted, firing a couple of shots to keep the men at the door distracted.

Sarah bolted for the living room window, so she was the first outside. She turned back in time to see Robyn making her way to the kitchen window on the other side of the house.

She heard or imagined her sister call out her name. There was no sign of Robyn anywhere.

There was nothing but gunshots.

She clambered over the fence to the neighbor’s yard and kept going as fast as she could.

It was as if the world didn’t know what had happened, didn’t care. She glanced back for a mere second and almost tripped over a fallen branch.

Sarah stumbled onto the street behind her house and broke into a faster run, frantically searching for a place to stop and hide.

A few houses away, the shots could no longer be heard, but Sarah didn’t slow down. She dreaded to think of what silence could mean.

She considered knocking on someone’s door and calling for help, but that could get someone else killed.

Killed… the word dredged up what she’d been refusing to acknowledge.

Tears blurred her view.

She ran harder.

In the distance, cars pulled off at high speed. She threw herself behind a few trash cans and hid, realizing how difficult it was to breathe. Shaking from head to toe, Sarah hugged the ground, expecting those cars to come towards her at any moment.

They never did.

Unsure how long she waited, her entire body felt cold and stiff when she crawled to her feet.

There was no sign of Robyn. She looked all around. There was no sign of anybody.

Sarah tried to keep breathing, but either the air or her lungs weren’t cooperating. She took in a deep breath, but it didn’t help. When she realized she was about to pass out, she tried to sit back down, but she wasn’t sure she made it.

* * *

Sarah stared at the ketchup spilled on the floor. It looked like blood to her.

Robyn laughed. “I know it’s pretty and all, but there’s something you can do besides staring, like cleaning it up.”

“I was trying to remember this dream I had just now.” She couldn’t look away from the red mess.

A few drops had gotten onto her leg as well.

“Sarah, finish your hamburger. You can clean it up later,” Mom said.

“So, does this mean we’re out of ketchup?” Dad asked.

“Of course not.” Robyn pulled out another bottle from the pantry. “Not like Sarah’s gonna ruin this dinner. After all, we gotta celebrate. I finally turned in my paper for psycho class.”

“Stop calling it that,” Dad said.

Robyn handed him the ketchup bottle, unrepentant. “Well, that’s what it feels like because it keeps trying to drive me insane.”

“Sarah,” Mom insisted. “Come sit down and finish your dinner. It’s nothing.”

But she couldn’t stop looking. It didn’t feel like nothing. Something wet slid down her cheeks. She realized she was crying.

* * *

Sarah opened her eyes, coughing and sputtering as she tried to breathe. With a burning pain, the faraway place where dinner had been finished in peace was cruelly washed away and reality was once again brought to life. She curled herself into a ball in the shadow of a tree and wept.

It was all a lie, a trick her mind was playing on her.

There was no family dinner.

She was alone.