I'm hanging out with my older sister, M. We've just been drinking and having fun around the house when M turns to me and says, "C has been really sick lately, when she dies we're not going to resuscitate her." C is our niece, she grew up with me and lived off an on with different members of the family until she became an adult. When she started living on her own she developed some kind of psychosis and got hooked on heroine. To my knowledge no one has heard from her in months.
I am obviously terrified, so immediately run to the hospital to find C. When I find her she's sitting in the lobby looking the same as she did the last time we met: puffy face, rough and swollen hands, hair dyed black and shaved at the side, a smile that is just a little too wide to be considered normal, and a garish Medusa tattoo on her neck. She doesn't look like she's dying and she seems happy to see me.
We run to embrace each other but I'm yanked back around a corner by M. I hear C fall to the ground as people run around, yelling "code blue." I struggle to escape my sister's arms and go to C. I'm screaming her name as I hear the doctors try to restart her heart, but M still holds me in her grasp. When C finally flat-lines, M turns to me again and says, "See, it's better this way. Now no one has to worry about where she is. We can all mourn and move on."
This is the most recent nightmare I've had:
I'm hanging out with my older sister, M. We've just been drinking and having fun around the house when M turns to me and says, "C has been really sick lately, when she dies we're not going to resuscitate her." C is our niece, she grew up with me and lived off an on with different members of the family until she became an adult. When she started living on her own she developed some kind of psychosis and got hooked on heroine. To my knowledge no one has heard from her in months.
I am obviously terrified, so immediately run to the hospital to find C. When I find her she's sitting in the lobby looking the same as she did the last time we met: puffy face, rough and swollen hands, hair dyed black and shaved at the side, a smile that is just a little too wide to be considered normal, and a garish Medusa tattoo on her neck. She doesn't look like she's dying and she seems happy to see me.
We run to embrace each other but I'm yanked back around a corner by M. I hear C fall to the ground as people run around, yelling "code blue." I struggle to escape my sister's arms and go to C. I'm screaming her name as I hear the doctors try to restart her heart, but M still holds me in her grasp. When C finally flat-lines, M turns to me again and says, "See, it's better this way. Now no one has to worry about where she is. We can all mourn and move on."
I woke up crying.