Memory

Chapter 1

It all started one pleasantly warm summer day when I was around 14 years old. That was the 

best and worst day of my entire life. I should probably tell you about my family before I get into 

that though. It was just me, my twin brother, and our parents. My family was fairly normal. A 

majority of the time I felt like an only child, because my twin brother Alex and I had a mutual 

agreement that I wouldn't bother him and he wouldn't bother me. Even though we are twins, 

we're nothing alike. Anyway, back to the day it all started. I had just moved across the country to 

a state I knew no one in. I was terrified that I would never be able to make friends, but thankfully 

almost immediately I was proven wrong. The girl who lived across the street from my new house 

almost immediately came over and started asking questions. During her questioning she started 

talking about when she was little. So, I told her that I didn't remember anything before my sixth 

birthday. Of course my brother didn't either, so I had just assumed that was normal. The girl was 

horrified, and she said that definitely was not normal. Her name was Paige, as I later discovered. 

She was very sweet, but a bit to nosy and loud for my liking. Anyway, a couple months later I 

ended up going over to her house to jump on her trampoline. Of course clumsy me just had to 

fall off. I woke up in the hospital nearly five hours later, having no clue what happened. 

Apparently I had hit my head and stopped breathing. According to my parents I would have died 

if Paige hadn't immediately gotten her parents to get an ambulance for me. Of course after that 

we were like blood sisters, so we had to be good friends. Anyway, while I was in the hospital I 

kept getting these horrible nightmares. I would wake up sweaty and crying. The doctors said 

that I might have brain damage, so they took me in for a brain scan, but everything looked okay. 

In the nightmares I had different parents, and a baby sister. There's always an explosion and I 

see them, and a bunch of other people die. It is so horrific to watch all those people die and hear 

their screams of pain. My twin brother is always there too, and both of us are crying. He looked 

younger than my memories, which is odd. The doctors refused to discharge me from the 

hospital until my night terrors stopped, so I ended up putting a washcloth next to my bed to 

stick in my mouth and stifle the screams. Finally I got to go home, which I thought would make 

things better, but it just didn't. I knew everything was really worried about me, so I pretended 

that everything was fine. I even believed myself. At least during the day. At night was a different 

story. Sleep felt like torture as I relived that one dream over and over. Then, one night something 

changed. I had a dream about that family before the explosion. The mother would hug me and 

call me her ladybug. I could actually feel the love radiating off of her and the father. It was just 

the three of us, and we were happy. Then they told me I would be a big sister, which I didn't 

really understand but I was happy. The mother's belly got bigger and bigger, until one day they 

showed me a baby and said it was my sister. We were so happy, then it skipped a little while. 

There was a take your kids to work day. When we got to their work I recognized the building. It 

was the one that exploded. They brought me and the baby (who was probably around one now) 

inside, and left us with someone to take care of us. A while later the mother comes in and takes 

the baby to give her food or something. I'm tired, but just as I'm falling asleep sirens start going 

off, and me and my twin brother are grabbed and carried outside. We get out just in time to see 

the building explode. I wake up with tears streaming down my face. It feels more real than 

reality. Why does my brain keep torturing me?