Shy Girl

I was coming here to get one thing, then leave. The house looked like any other average house in any other average neighborhood. But it wasn’t. This was my house. And this is my story.
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My family consists of mental people finding other mental people to breed with. I was the eldest daughter of a paranoid mother, and delusional father. I’m proud to say I was the first sane person in my family, but I would trade my sanity in a heartbeat. My poor little sister was born mute, she had no way to tell us she had schizophrenia. We found out when she woke the whole house by nearly tearing apart her bed to throw it at one of her “companions”. We took her to the doctor, so many test were run on my poor little sister, my shy little sister. But at least we knew what was causing all her distress. Like I said, I would trade my sanity in a heartbeat if only to stop her abusive delusions.
Mother feared she would harm someone, so she locked her up. We didn’t send her to school, never let her outside; she never knew of the outside world. She knew the four walls of her room, and she knew me. Mother and Father would sometimes pretend they didn’t have a second daughter, they had their sane first born to show off. I hated being their little escape from the reality of taking care of my little sister. It seemed they didn’t love her, but I did. I gave her some crayons one day, and held her on my lap as she drew on the walls. I ran a brush through her flaming red hair, often asking who she was drawing.
Not that she could respond, or know how to, but she seemed to enjoy my voice. Occasionally, she drew me, but she would get frustrated while doing so and she would scribble the red crayon over it. She could never seem to get the picture just how she wanted it. When my parents gave me an old Mario game, I happily took it to show my little sister. “You can play too,” I told her, smiling. She shyly took to controller from me, but quickly warmed up to the basic movements. As she played, she quickly pointed out how her favorite character was Shy Guy.
I don’t remember too much after giving her the game, but one day I looked at her and noticed she was wearing a Shy Guy mask. The only difference was her mask had eyelashes, and painted lips, other than that, it was a standard Shy Guy mask.
The mask scared me, but if she was happy, I was happy. She refused to take the mask off, even to play the game. Soon after acquiring the mask, my little sister began to draw more dark things on her wall. The recurring one seemed to cause her a lot of distress: a tall, faceless man, drawn as a black stick figure with a white head. Most of the drawings were of death, or just scribbles of “blood” over older drawings. It worried me, but I couldn’t confront Mother and Father. By the time I had tried to, they had left, saying they were taking a vacation. I frowned, the house had begun to smell like metal.
I kept blacking-out, often worrying myself to the point my body would shutdown. But I would fight my way out of the darkness, because my little sister needed me. My little sister noticed my lack of energy; she would always hold my hand and look at the window. “What is it? What do you want?” I would ask, completely drained and tired. I wouldn’t look at her though, not while she had on that mask. Finally, after days of just watching her look between me and the window, I finally understood what she wanted. And I was going to give it to her. Taking her hand, I led her out of her room, which was basically her whole world.
We walked carefully down the stairs, my little sister seemed to know where to go, she pulled me towards the back door. With trembling hands I grabbed the bloodstained handle, not even noticing the rotting corpse at my feet. The parent that had died trying to escape, Mother I think it was, but the corpse was too rotted to tell. I slid the back door open; my little sister looked up at me, and I looked down at her. Her masked lips tugged upward in a smile as she disappeared; I stayed standing there for a few minutes. I blinked a few times, allowing the darkness in the edge of my vision to seep in. I grabbed the hand of my tall, faceless companion before I completely blacked-out.
Dear “little” sister. How have you been? It’s been years since we talked.
I traced the knob to my old room. The place still smelled like metal, but the smell was now welcoming. I pushed the crumbling door open, taking in all my old pictures. Silly how I thought someone else did this. I did this, I did all of this. I quickly pocketed the old Mario game and looked out my window. My tall, faceless companion was waiting by the back fence. I left my room, my “little sister”, and my schizophrenia behind as I walked out.
Category:Mental Illness