Deception

epilogue*

// and seem a saint, when most I play the devil //

Ten years later

The bustling streets below should have distracted my thoughts but it doesn't. My mind is solely focused on what happened this very day, ten years ago.

Everything happened such a long time ago, but to me, it feels like it's only been days.

I can hear the faint sound of the television in the background coming from the living room. I turn my full attention back to the city I'm in, the place that I now call home. I look out the window and everyone below looks so small from my view up here.

My hand unconsciously goes to the necklace I'm wearing, and I start to play with the charms on it. I feel around the pentagons that join together, feeling the sides of the shape, as my mind goes back to where it all ended.

I wish I could go back to hours ago when I was lying unconscious on the sofa because now everything seems too real.

Mom and dad are talking to the police officer, while I stare blankly at the plain walls of the hospital. Doctors and nurses walk past me, but I don't seem to acknowledge them when one sentence keeps repeating in my head.

"Your sister committed suicide."

Those words that mom said to me when I first woke up echo through my mind endlessly.

I couldn't believe it at first, and I still don't think I can now. How could she be dead? She was alive merely hours ago, on Christmas day. And now, she's under a white cloth.

Mom and dad's eyes dart to me every few seconds, but I barely notice it.

Kristiana is dead.

They said it was an overdose, but it just doesn't make sense. Kris wasn't like that, she was the good girl. She didn't have any troubles. Her dreams were about to be fulfilled, but now all of it is impossible.

They found a note on her bedside table. They said she felt guilty for doing what she did to people. But it doesn't make sense, Kris would never do that to anyone.

Nothing makes sense anymore.

They said they were sleeping pills, why would Kris need those? She said she just had a migraine, right?

How many more secrets did she keep? Why did she have to hide everything from me, from everyone?

I saw Tom earlier. His eyes were puffy, his nose red. It was a clear sign that he had been crying. I think everyone there was crying really, but I was the only one without wet cheeks. I think it just hadn't dawned on me then.

But now everything seems all too real.

It all seems so real that Kris is dead. That my sister is no longer here. That my own sister, killed everyone I had ever grown to care about.

That she's a murderer.

I walk back into the living room, just in time to see my face on the TV. It is a trailer for my new horror film called Cassandra.

My thoughts start to wander again, I've been thinking a lot for the past few days. I know I've said it a million times, but it feels like that day was only so long ago.

The day that marked the end.

I bring my fist up to knock on Kris' door after I showered, right before I was about to sleep.

"Kris?" I call out softly, careful not to disturb anyone else in the house.

I hear a faint "come in" from the other side, so I open the door. I can see Kris sitting cross-legged on the bed, straightening her back when she sees me. I extend my hand that held the pills, "Here's the aspirin that mom wanted me to give you."