Just A Whisper

Prologue: People Move On, The Dead Can't

Lights flashed, horns blared, and pain flared. I couldn't focus on any one thing, the only thing that I knew for sure was that only I was to be blamed.

I couldn't remember why. Why I had stepped out, into the middle of the road without looking both ways. Why I had not heard the sound of the bus driving down the normally silent road. All I knew was that I had stepped into the way of the bus before it could put down the break.

I was now laying on the pavement of that same road I was stupid to cross, my lungs fighting to produce more breaths, my heart fighting to beat more blood through my veins, but not having the strength to do so. I was done. My last moments were going to be on this cold, paved road. I would have no time for goodbyes, no time to tell my family I loved them.

The lights, sounds, and pain faded until they no longer existed. Until nothing existed except me and blackness. Then I started to fade, and only the blackness remained. That only lasted for a little while though.

* * *

The first few years after my passing were horrible. Everywhere my family looked they seemed to be reminded of me and cried. I couldn't stand their tears. I couldn't stand that the tears happened all the time, and that no matter how many times I tried to tell them I was fine, it seemed to float off into the wind.

Every time they cried, a burning would fill my chest, and my brain would attack me with the knowledge that I had done this to my loving family. Now, what was once so full of smiles and warmth was full of tears and dread.

I watched as my happy little sister started to abuse herself by cutting her wrists. I watched her scream from the pain and shun the world around her for forgetting me. I watched her as she acted up in school, being sent to the principal's office on multiple occasions.

I watched as my "never-touched-alcohol" father started drinking the dread away. He started ignoring the rest of the family, as he downed his sorrow. He lost his job on the account that he never showed up, because of he couldn't get up do to his hangovers.

Most surprisingly of all I watched my loving, faithful mom as she tried to hide affairs from the both of them.

Everything went wrong. That was also my fault. I should have looked both ways. Should have opened my ears up to the sound of the traffic. If I could have done any of those things my family would still be in their perfect happy state.

The dread and abuse of body, alcohol and trust only lasted five years though, then things started to look up for them. My little sister, ten when I had died, got a boyfriend who couldn't make her happier. My father saw his life waisting away, his marriage slipping, and cleaned up. With my father back, my mom put an end to the affairs.

I should have been happy then. Should have been ecstatic that I was no longer the reason they cried. That they could live on. That was what I wished for, wasn't it?

I was petty, though. I was selfish, and horrible. I cried every time I saw them smile. I cried, because I could be forgotten. I could be placed in the back of their minds, where I could cause no damage. I was not needed for their happiness, their lives would go on without me just as well as they had with me.

My little sister surpassed me. She had lived a full two years longer. She had gotten a boyfriend out of life and I had not. I had not even received my first kiss as she had reserved many.