Falling to a Memory

To be hacked when asleep...

The soft beam of the sun from the window of my apartment woke me up. I glanced at the wall and gestured to activate the calendar. It said:

6:00 AM | 20th June, 2042

The city is already up and running at this time. The sound of hover cars zooming through the skies can be heard from my room. I tried gesturing for the windows to shut themselves, but the sun felt so good that I just left it open. Living in a world like this makes people a bit lazier than usual. As I tried to get out of bed, Brielle snuggled closer to me, preventing me from moving.

"Hey sis, wake up. I got to go to work," I said softly while gently patting her forehead. She let out a groan and slowly sat on the bed.

"Good morning, brother," she said while stretching out her skinny arms. I swear, she behaves like my sister... my real sister. The way she hugs me, the way she wakes up and the way she talks to me reminds me of my sweet, sweet sister. Every day, the memory of her gets harder to forget. At night, while Brielle is fast asleep, I lie awake, thinking of what I could have done so that she would be right here with me, right now. I kept thinking of that day. The day when I never thought I would ever lose her.

We were walking around town, the thing she likes to do during my day-off. We bought two scoops of her favorite ice cream flavor, triple dutch while I went for three scoops of mocha crumble. Then, we went straight to the park to play on her favorite spot, the floating swings in the playground. She would ask me every time to sit on the adjacent swing beside her and eat the ice cream we bought. We would then talk about the anime series we used to watch every time. Although that day, something unexpected happened. She suddenly asked me about our father.

"Brother, is father a bad person?" she said, kicking her feet. There was a sad feel in her eyes. She loved our father but unfortunately, father is a criminal. He had done so many crimes but there was one crime that landed him in jail. He kidnapped a young girl. This girl was no ordinary girl. She was a daughter of a well-known person. Father didn't return the girl until a ransom was going to be given. Although the ransom wasn't given, he was caught. Since then, I never heard from him.

"No Brystl. It's just that father was not thinking properly about what he was doing. That's why people want to correct him," I replied, trying not to sound disappointed.

"Oh, is that so? Well, I am happy," she replied, showing a bright smile on her face. She kept kicking the ground to swing herself.

Then, an urgent call from the office I work with came up through my phone.

"Brystl, stay here for a while, okay?" I said to my sister, as I was about to take the call. The call was about someone stealing something, and it took about 15 minutes. Just when I was about to hang up, a loud scream echoed through the park and people gathered at the edge of the cliff. I wanted to check it out, when I realized I didn't find my sister.

"Brystl! Brystl!" I kept on screaming her name. I looked for her everywhere, when a lady came up to me. She told me that my sister chased something and didn't notice that she was heading for the cliff. That's when the lady screamed from across the park.

A cold feeling washed over me, making me feel numb everywhere. I ran towards the cliff to see if the lady was right. My knees lost their strength the moment I saw my sister's body laying at the bottom. The pain in my heart made it hard for me to breathe. Tears started falling from my eyes like a heavy rain. I couldn't help myself. I screamed at the top of my lungs. I started punching the ground aggressively with a string of curses to try to relieve the pain I was feeling. Then, I decided to climb down the cliff to hold my sister's dead body in my arms. Her face was peaceful. She didn't show any pain on her face. That made me cry even harder. Until now, that memory still makes me cry at night.