The steady beeping of the machine with its flashing numbers and line of ascending and descending lights reminded her of her music box. But instead of recording the rhythm of the beat, it was recording the very life of her sister.
The song was slow, weak, fragile.
It should have been vibrant and full of life, but since the arrival of the patient yesterday, the machine that ticked off the girl's vital signs by the second seemed to be playing a dirge.
AURORA IMOGEN ST. GREY.
Or so read the sign on the door of the hospital room. She had wanted to take a black marker to the sign all day. Her twin sister never went by her first name. It was so formal. It didn't feel right to see there in printed letters like the labels her sister had placed on everything in her favorite collection.
The girl held back tears that she had been fighting since yesterday and wanted to rip the sign from its place. It didn't belong there. Her sister didn't belong there. Dying like some sad experiment kept alive just to record data. The doctors had said as much. It's like she doesn't have any life in her, they had said.
But her heart still beats.
Yesterday had been like any other morning. The twins were on their way to school. Their uniforms were neat and pressed.
"Won't it be great to wear the uniform of Crystal Academy, Imagi?" Her sister cried as she pranced along the sidewalk. "You know, at first it seemed too fancy, but it means I don't have to wear this grey sweater any more."
Imagi pushed up her large glasses on her nose. "I rather like the sweater." Her bright blue eyes carried their usual unexpressive yet slightly confused gaze.
"Of course, you would," her sister laughed. Imagi had always been rather strange ever since birth. She liked things no one else her age liked. She did things her schoolmates wouldn't. And she certainly had curious opinions for a child just turning fourteen.
Her sister didn't mind. And if you did, it was best not to bring it up around Amaryllis Wolfram St. Grey (*see note below). They called her Wolfie and, as one boy in her home room class put it, it was because she could get scary when she was defending others, especially Imagi.
"We won't need these old things nice for much longer," she smirked like she did when she was getting a wild idea. "Wanna race?"
Imagi blinked and used a pale hand to brush back her grey hair as she tried to refasten the two shiny star clips that held strands of her long hair in place so that they wouldn't fail into her face like Wolfie's usually did. "I don't think this is such a good idea..."
But her twin sister had already started running.
That was the first mistake. Wolfie was like the wild wind, but Imagi was like a glimmering stone. And she would never catch her that day.
She had always been told to watch out for Imagi. Never leave her alone. She doesn't understand, her mother would say to her sister. She can't read people like you can. One day, Imagi's naivete may become a problem, her father had warned. Watch out for your sister.
How Imagi had chanced upon the stranger no one knew and now there was no one left to tell. Her sister had been the one to find her after she had realized that something was keeping the girl from following. Wolfie had turned back to find a harrowing scene that defied logic. Or, at least, that is what the officer said when she would later recall the events for the police.
All she could remember now was the hand in her sister's chest and the gleaming crystal, as delicate as a butterfly, hovering in the air.
Imagi had always been the one to remember details, after all.
And it was true. Other than the strange crystal and the song it seemed to hum as it was taken from her sister's heart, the only other thing Wolfie could recall was the wicked look of satisfaction on the face of the woman as she discarded Imagi's limp body like a doll as the life - the light - faded from her blank eyes.
All that was left of the scene was a pack of cards, the ones the girl had so loved to collect, scattered upon the pavement. The rare holo foil card glinted harshly in the light. She had meant to look at them when she arrived at school.
Now they just looked like a badly drawn hand in a game she had never asked to play.
Wolfie tried desperately to hold back tears as she watched the numbers pulse with a hypnotic consistently. She said she wouldn't cry. But her sister lay lifeless. It wasn't Imagi's fault.
Why did Imagi deserve to live? After all, countless star seeds are returned to Cosmos and the Cauldron everyday. Why should this one be any different?
A blood curdling scream of anguish rang from the room assigned to Aurora Imogen St. Grey. But there was no one there to hear it.
"Because it's all my fault."
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* Name reflects character before official approval to preserve the original contest entry text.
