Come Play With Us
By
xXx MissHaunted-MoonLight xXx

Summary: Me and my sister, we shared the same birthday. And we shared the same deathday. And now, today, we will play with the stranger who has lived a longer life than we.

She’s here.

The chill is warning enough.

Rusting windows
Rattle
In my ears
And the candelabra swings freely.

The darkness is consuming
And I run to the curtains,
Yanking them wide
In terror.

The moonlight.
Sweet, blessed relief from
The darkness.

She filters in through the dust-covered glass
And casts
Eerie shadows across
The grimy, carpeted floor.

She’s watching me.

With a sob of fear
I bolt,
Drowning in the moonlight as it
Tears into my soul.

There’s a howl from
Beyond my family home’s four walls as wolves cry their horrified callings.

But I’m lost to their terrors.

Running does me no good anymore.
I’ve run too far.
I’ve run for too long.

Stumbling to a drunken halt on the landing above the staircase,
My eyes are riveted
To the hovering spectre of my once beloved
Sister.

And she smiles at me,
Her innocent little face alight with joy and delight,
Her once-sparkling auburn orbs
Now dead but pleading.

“Please, Sister. Come play with me.”

I’ve ignored her for a year.
And today,
Her birthday – Her deathday, I can ignore her no longer.

Feeling a frozen, phantom hand press
Gently
Between my shoulder blades,
My heart
Stops.

Skipping
Beats
Before ceasing to thump
Completely.

And I’m lost.

The stairs
Vanish

From beneath my feet,
And as my nightdress billows out like a cape around me,
The soft cotton fabric
Moulded lovingly to my sweat-drenched skin,

I know the end is nye.

The stairs collide hard with my back,
And the ghostly push becomes
A hazy memory.

As does the delighted chuckle of
My dead sister,
Who stares at me with joy,
Tears trickling like ice
Down
Her
Ashen
Cheeks.

Her laugh fades into blackness,
And my life soon follows it,
But not before my fading eyes
Can see the truth.

Her bright smile is infectious,
And I
Grin myself,
As she fades away, her eyes bright
And loving as she leaves me,

Disappearing into the night,
With nothing but the howling calls of the terrified wolves outside
To suggest she was ever here.

I died that day.
But my life didn’t end.

Not properly.

Now I stand beside her,
And we watch
With excitement
As a complete stranger visits the Manor in the
Dead
Of
Night.

He’s trespassing in our
Family home.
Our playground.

And together, we play.

Me and my sister,
We shared the same birthday.

And we shared the same deathday.

And now, today, the day of our birth
And the day
We died,

We will play with this stranger,
Who up until now has lived a longer life than we.

We want him to play with us.

Which is why I’m standing here beside my sister,
Watching with excitement as the moon
Filters in through his bedroom curtains
And the wolves
Howl in terror from outside.

“Please, stranger,” we whisper
As he bolts,
Just like I did one year ago.

“Come play with us.”