Siblings of Sorrow

She was running. Running for her life in the mostly bare cave-like hallways. The hallways smelt vaguely of sulfur, and the girl didn't smell great either. The girl was battered and bloody with a blood-soaked cloth from her pants around her arm. She was frightfully pale, as if she was terribly sick and hadn't eaten for days. Obviously tired and likely ill, the girl put her back to the grimy wall, panting. This didn't last long though and she stumbled quickly in an attempt to run. She was blocked at a corner by a blond young man in a battered silver suit. She gave him a look of confusion and anger.

"Why the fuck are you here!" The girl said weakly, taking a defensive stance

"Don't act all tough. I know your weak, I saw what you did you idiot. A touch of my hand could knock you over."

"How did you get here? I was run..."

The girl's own weight was now too much for her and she fell, being caught by the man, her head resting on his broad shoulders. He laughed a little.

"You idiotic little bitch. I never saw anyone actually use that ability."

"That's because you never seen love," the girl responded before coughing blood which ran down his suit.

"Don't worry dear. Soon you will have no blood to cough," the man said.

"You dick," the girl whimpered as the man sunk his teeth into her neck. Then the girl simply died in his arms.

"Such elegant last words," he said. He picked her up by the armpits, her body like a dangling doll in front of him. He kissed her cheek than dropped the lifeless body on to the floor. He then casually walked down the same empty hall his victim had frantically ran down not even five minutes earlier.

It must have been a while afterwords that a young woman came in the halls, pale and battered but nothing like the girl who was in the hall before. She wore a distinctive formal black jacket over a contrasting sports jersey. She ran down the hall but stopped upon seeing the corpse.

"L...Lucy!" She cried out, running over to the body to assure herself that the body wasn't just a body, but a live being. Tears streamed down her face relentlessly as she felt for any sign of life from the corpse.

"You... you can't be dead Lucy. You can't... you can't die twice! You can't die on me. C'mon wake up... wake up!" The young woman's cries were in vain, however, as her friend was dead beyond resurrection. She kept her head down and flooded tears like rivers and gasps of despair until a hand rested on her. Turning around she saw a worn young man in a sports jacket with dark hair and eyes identical to her own.

"Are you alright?" The boy whispered.

"Alright? Of course I'm not alright Alex. My best friend just died!" She shouted hoarsely. She then went into her former state of grievance, resting her head against the taller man. "I could hardly cope when Tali died and now Lucy died... You are all I got Alex. You, Nick, and Amanda are all I have."

"What about our family?" Alex said, wrapping his arms around the young woman. She returned the embrace.

"They don't know a thing about death. They don't know crap about the real world, or much about loss of any kind. Maybe our older ancestors do, but we can't communicate with them. You, Alex, and Amanda are the only ones I have left as real friends that will understand how I feel."

The two stood and hugged for a few seconds, tears slipping on to each others clothes and murmuring words of encouragement.

"Maybe we should lay her in the stars. That's what most of our family have done with dead friends in the past," the young woman said.

"That's a good idea sister," Alex said. However, instead of letting go of his sister he held her closer and kissed her. Not a quick kiss as one does with siblings but a longer, passionate one as if he was trying to kiss away the feeling of sorrow which was so present in the corridor.



"I call it 'Siblings of Sorrow,'" Amanda said, gesturing towards her latest art piece. It depicted a young man in a sports jacket kissing a woman who had similar dark hair.

Amanda's art teacher, Mr. Vandelay, looked the piece one of his best students had drawn with shock. The characters had an uncanny resemblance to two teens he knew, and they were even siblings. But how did she know them? They were worlds apart.

"What inspired you to do this? Are they suppose to be people you know?" Vandelay asked.

"Actually, I got this image from a dream I had a few nights ago. It was in an empty hallway, and the girl was mourning her friend's death and her brother was comforting her even though he was pretty upset too," Amanda said.

"Where there any names mentioned?" Vandelay asked.

"Yeah. The girl who died was named Lucy, the brother was Alex, and the girl mentioned a guy named Tali. I actually think my name was mentioned," Amanda replied.

Vandelay was now shocked. Alex was the name of the boy that looked like the young man Amanda had depicted. The name Tali was also familiar to him.

"You know, the funny thing is that a lot of my dreams turn out to be premonitions," Amanda said, leaning against the table beside the easel that had the suggestive picture. At that moment the bell rang.

"Amanda, I'd like to see you in my office," Vandelay asked his student as the students hurriedly put away their things to enjoy the weekend. Not replying, the pupil followed the master into the small room in the corner of the art room. The room had a desk covered in papers and a record player, some posters, and a shelf filled with a variety of vinyl records.

"What's up? Do you think I took a dump in the paint jar?" Amanda asked in her typically sarcastic fashion.

"No, it's about what you said about being able to predict the future in your dreams," Vandelay responded.

"That? You don't think it's bull... You don't think it's stupid?" Amanda said, a bit startled. She never really mentioned it, and when she did it was usually dismissed as elaborate lies.

"I happen to think that you are telling the truth," the teacher said. The needle on the record player went down and music started to play. None of them had touched the needle.