I let my mind wander and I ended up drawing him…

It had been about three years since Kris had last seen him. She had never even managed to get his name so he was just a nameless face in her memory. Kris stared down at the drawing of him that she had just finished. Medium length hair that covered his forehead and a slight undercut. He wore a single earring on his left ear ,and right below on his neck, he had an intricate tattoo. She was amazed at how much of the design she was still able to recall even after so long.

“Who’s that?” said a voice right beside her.

Kris visibly flinched, disturbed by the fact that someone had entered her room without her noticing because of how enthralled she was with her drawing. She pulled her sketchbook close to her chest quickly in order to hide her drawing. Then she turned to look at the only other person who even bothered to visit her in her room besides her dad.

“It’s ok,” Layla reassured her, “You don’t have to tell me. I came to ask you about something else anyways.”

Kris looked at her sister cautiously.

What could she possibly want to ask me?

“What is it?” Kris asked her hesitantly.

Layla was a year younger than Kris. If someone looked at them standing right next to each other they would think that they were friends instead of siblings. The most drastic difference was their hair color. Compared to Layla, who had naturally platinum blonde hair, light blue eyes, and fair olive skin, Kris had midnight black hair, dark blue eyes, and vastly paler skin.

Her sister was the exact copy of Raina, their mother.

And unlike Kris, Layla was able to leave the house whenever she wanted. Her current baby blue dress practically screamed: I just came back from going out with my mom.

“Is it true that you’re able to see spirits?” Laya asked, getting straight to the point.

Kris’s eyes widened.

How did she find out?

Kris said nothing. Not because she didn’t want to answer her sister’s question but because she didn’t know how to approach a question she had never even expected her sister to ask in the first place.

I think dad suspects something but I doubt he’d tell Layla. Should I just tell her the truth? She’s my sister after all. What’s the worst thing that could happen?

“I- Um…” Kris said hesitantly as Layla stared down at her, waiting patiently. “I… can.”

Kris closed her eyes, scared to hear what her sister would say to her for even admitting the truth. Maybe her goal was to make fun of her for doing so.

“Oh my gosh, that’s amazing Kristina!” Layla practically yelled from excitement as she leaned in closer towards Kris.

“W-what?” Kris opened her eyes wide in disbelief. She definitely wasn’t expecting that reaction.

“I’m serious! Don't you know how cool that is? You have something special that not everyone has.” She gave Kris a grin.

Kris was momentarily stunned until her face broke out into a bashful smile.

“Is it alright if I sit next to you? To see what you were drawing?” Layla asked with a bit of hope in her voice.

“Yeah,” Kris said as she moved more towards the center of the couch to make space for Layla. “Here, you can sit next to me.”

Once they were both situated on the couch Kris began to show her drawings to Layla.

That day was the first time they properly started talking to one another, finally having a conversation that lasted longer than a couple minutes at the dinner table.

Both girls were unaware that It was the beginning of a short-lived bond between them.

Kris didn’t know why she admitted the truth. Why had she even trusted her sister? Unlike her other siblings, and despite being only one year apart, Kris and Layla weren’t that close. So it didn’t really make sense. They barely even saw each other regardless of living in the same house.

Now Layla would regularly come to her room to hang out with Kris and vice versa. Kris no longer played games that only required one person. Now she had a friend, her sister, who could be the second player that she was always missing. No longer did Kris stand by her door, listening to the laughter that echoed down the hallway from her sister’s room when she had friends from school over.

She was happier than she had ever been. Of course she still enjoyed hanging out with her paranormal friends, but it just wasn’t the same.

They started to have a sibling bond that should have been there from the start.

Their father, Stephan, was glad and overjoyed to see them getting along. Just as much as Alex, their older brother, would’ve been, but he was out of state attending university. The only person who didn’t seem to be happy was their mother, who would watch them—specifically Kris—with a blank expression.

Things were going well for many months until one night when everything changed. The night started off with random flashes of people’s everyday life. She would see them doing normal tasks like going to the store, taking out the trash, or walking home from school. She felt like she was a hidden camera spying on these strangers.

Then, after the first couple of times this happened, she noticed that numbers were appearing above everyone's head, and each of them unique to whichever person she saw. Some had higher values, while others started on a much lower scale. The one thing Kris started to notice was that they were all decreasing in value.

Since she thought that they were just random dreams she didn’t pay much attention until one night they suddenly took a turn for the worse. Seeing things no one—much less a child her age— should see, Kris’s dreams slowly turned into full-on nightmares as time progressed. Kris wouldn’t have cared if it wasn’t for the fact that she was able to recall everything the following morning.

Kris was not one to get easily disturbed by things considering she had a few demon friends that looked like they came straight out of horror movies. But the nightmares…they were horrible enough that they started to keep her up at night. She refused to sleep to the point that she started getting eye bags. She refused to close her eyes until exhaustion finally took over and she had no choice but to get some rest.

One day Layla came to visit Kris in the middle of the night, being careful not to make any loud noises that would alert their parents. She didn’t want them to find her wandering about in the house at such an odd hour. If she got caught she would have struggled to come up with a good reason for why she was out of bed, especially if she was caught holding a Oujia board. As Layla approached Kris’s bed she could see her sister hugging a body pillow. Layla smiled down at Kris, feeling a little bit guilty for wanting to wake her up, but she couldn’t wait.

“Kris,” Layla whispered. “Are you awake?”

Kris didn’t show a sign of waking up after Layla called out her name a couple more times. She was out cold.

“Nevermind then.”

Mmph…

Layla heard a whimper just as she was turning around to leave her sister’s room. She looked back and saw Kris letting out muffled sobs as she tightened her grip on her pillow. She looked down at her sister with worry, wondering what she was dreaming about that resulted in her crying out in silence.

Without hesitation Layla crawled into Kris’s bed and carefully reached out for her sister’s right hand. She unclasped it from the tight grip Kris had on her pillow, and then she intertwined Kris’s hand with hers.

Kris, feeling someone’s sudden presence in her bed, woke up and made eye contact with Layla, who was now laying across from her.

“Layla? What are you doing here?”

“So this is why you’ve been looking so exhausted lately?” Lyala interrupted with concern. “How long have you been having nightmares?”

Kris said nothing. She didn’t want to say anything until she saw Layla’s face filled with worry. “I started having them once every week. But now it feels like I’m having them everyday.”

“Do you want to talk about it?”

“I can’t remember what happened in them after I wake up.”

That was a lie.

Kris didn’t want to burden her sister with things she saw at night. The awful things that kept her awake. This was one of the few things she would never share with anyone, not even her dad, who would probably worry and fuss over her when he couldn’t do anything about it.

“I’m okay now, you should go back to your own room,” Kris insisted.

“No,” Layla replied firmly. “I’ll stay here and keep you company. When I have nightmares Mom always holds my hand like this and it helps me sleep better.”

Layla reassured Kris by tightening her hold on her hand slightly. “So I’ll do the same for you.”

A pang echoed through Kris’s chest. She wanted to clench a fist close to her chest to ease the hollow feeling there, but she didn’t want her sister to notice.

Mom…

“Go back to sleep. I’ll be here if you wake up again,” Layla said as she adjusted the sheets to cover both of them for the night.

“Okay.” Kris closed her eyes and smiled a bit, knowing she wouldn’t be alone for the night. She wouldn’t spend the night alone while she had those nightmares that would continue to haunt her in her sleep.

“Thank you, Layla.”

From then on Layla would sneak into Kris’s room so they could sleep together. She never failed to show up even when Kris insisted that she shouldn’t worry about her, which only resulted in Layla getting annoyed.

Kris felt more at ease knowing that when she’d wake up she wouldn't be alone. But that didn’t mean the nightmares stopped. Instead, she felt them getting worse as time went by. She was still reluctant to disclose what they were about to anyone, not even to her own sister who always asked her about them. Kris would always just say that she wasn’t able to recall anything. She figured it was best to keep her in the dark.

This was their routine for a couple of months until it suddenly stopped one night.

Kris was awakened in the middle of the night once again, but this time it wasn’t because of a nightmare, instead it was an entirely different feeling. She couldn’t really explain it. Something just told her to wake up.

Kris yawned as she sat up in her bed and looked to her right where Layla would usually be sleeping next to her. Tonight, Layla was nowhere to be found.

“Oh! Kris, good you’re awake!” said a voice from the other side of the room.

Kris turned to where she heard the voice coming from, but she was still disoriented from waking up.

“Layla?” She rubbed her eyes and squinted to get a better look.

“Come join me.”

Join you?

Kris was confused as to what Lyala meant by that. The fog from her mind slowly ebbed away as she started to notice a faint glow coming from the middle of her room.

Candles?

Kris’s eyes immediately went wide with horror as she stared at the scene before her. She was staring at what was standing behind Layla.

It always seemed off-putting how invested Layla was in Kris’s abilities to communicate with entities that she couldn’t see or hear. How she constantly asked and was content to get answers from Kris even if she couldn’t confirm anything for herself. She had asked Kris to prove her claims every now and then, and Kris always complied because she was just happy to talk to her younger sister.

The only time Kris refused to give into her sister's request was when Layla came to her one random day holding a Ouija board and asking her to play with it. At that point it finally clicked in Kris’s mind that this was how Layla perceived all of this. She believed this was all fun and games when in reality it was far from it. It was right then and there that Kris passed along a warning she too had received from Amaya.

“Compared to some of the other ridiculous things that mortals have invented in order to communicate with us, what was originally invented as a form of entertainment in order to gain financial wealth through sales, the Ouija board was the last thing we expected to have actually worked. The desire of humans to attain answers that were far from reach was so strong that the link between the user and the board allowed for actual communication to pass through.” This is what Amaya had said to her many years ago.

“Yet we weren’t the only ones humans were able to create a link with,” Amaya had said as she pointed to A, who was sitting right next to her. “More malicious entities were also able to create links with you guys, thus resulting in unfortunate hauntings from unwanted things.”

“And it’s always a pleasure,” A said as she grinned at Amaya who ignored her.

“So stay away from Ouija boards,” Amaya sighed. “That’s what I would tell you. You being who you are and this thing being here right now, I know my warning is useless, but if you ever come across those who wish to use it, pass the warning on would you?”

Kris kept her promise and warned Layla when she expressed her desire to use it.

And yet despite Layla agreeing to get rid of it, here she was in the middle of the night with candles surrounding her as she sat on the floor with the same Ouijia board that she agreed to get rid of weeks ago.

The faint illumination from the candles lit up her face and a wide excited smile spread across her lips as she looked up at Kris, oblivious at the dark creature that had manifested behind her.