Infliction |Infected Book 2|

Chapter 24 - Past

Vivian

My little sister was and always will be my little angel.

I was very close with my sister, Brielle, who I cared for as my own daughter. We were seven years apart, me being seven-years-old when she was born, watching my mother die as she held her newborn baby girl in her arms; the birth had been too much for her. My father was always working in the Science Lab at the university, and even though I wished so badly for me to be there with him, watching him experiment like I always loved to do, I took care of Brielle, filling in as her mother at seven-years-old.

I made her bottles, taught her how to walk, potty-trained her, and I even cried when she was five-years-old and went to her first day of Kindergarten.I had watched her grow up, and learn her ABC's, count to 100 and tell me the names of all of our Presidents. I was a very proud sister, and very protective of her just as a mother would be for their child. The first time she really got hurt, she fell down the stairs of our house, needing to get stitches in her forehead, and I completely panicked, crying with her as they stitched her cut shut.

One summer, in August, when Brielle was seven and I was fourteen, my father took us on vacation to Brazil, even though for him it was more like a trip for work because he always left us on our own as he went into the Amazon Rainforest with a group of people, harvesting rare plants for their research.

Brielle was extremely antsy, sitting cooped up in the house we were staying in, and she was bouncing off of the walls, driving me insane even though I usually was very patient with her.

"What do you want to do?" I asked Brielle one day, after she had decided to make a fort in the middle of the living room, using up all of the blankets, pillows, and couch cushions.

"I want to go exploring like daddy," Brielle told me, popping her head out through the opening of her fort. Her red hair, that matched mine, was braided in pigtails, her freckles spotting over her nose.

"We can't go out into the jungle," I reasoned with her. "It's too dangerous for us. There's lots of wild animals." I emphasized the last part making her eyes go wide.

"Wild animals?" her voice was excited, ringing around the room. "Oh please Viv! Can we please go? I've wanted to see a dinosaur in real life for my whole life!"

I laughed. "You're only seven, you'll have chances when you're older. Plus, there are no more dinosaurs. They're extinct."

"Extinct like mommy?" Her eyes were curious, yet sad. My heart broke.

"Let's not talk about mommy, sweetie," I told her, walking closer to her fort. Truth was, the pain of losing my mother had never gone away, but I tried to numb myself every day by being a mother figure for Brielle.

"Then are we going exploring?" Brielle crawled out from under the blankets and ran up to me, wrapping her arms around my thighs. "Please, Viv! I promise it won't be dangerous. I'll make sure of it!" She looked up towards me, her eyes begging me to say yes.

"Okay," I agreed, making her squeal as she let go of my legs so that she could jump in excitement. "But only a couple of feet in, that's it. If we go too far, we will get lost."

Brielle nodded her head enthusiastically, running for her shoes and slipping them on her feet and knotting the shoe ties. She held my hand as she skipped and we made our way to the jungle, towards the same spot I had seen my father and his fellow scientists enter.

"Brielle," I said, squeezing her hand. "You stay right by me, and we are only staying out her for a couple of minutes. Dad would be so mad if something happened."