The Buried Sister

The beeping of the heart monitor was the only sound in the room, steady and impersonal, like a metronome ticking out someone else’s life.

Claire blinked at the ceiling, its white tiles blurring in and out of focus. The light above was too bright, humming faintly. She turned her head toward the nightstand. The flowers there were wilted, their petals curling inward, already forgotten by whoever had left them.

Voices had come earlier. A woman who said she was her sister. A gray-haired man claiming to be her father. A fiancé, who leaned too close and smiled like he was trying not to panic. Their words had meant nothing. She nodded when they seemed to want her to nod, smiled when they looked like they might cry. But behind her eyes there was only blankness.

She remembered nothing.

By evening, the hallway grew quiet. Shadows stretched across the floor as the sun bled out behind the hospital.

And then she wasn’t alone.

At first she thought her eyes were playing tricks. In the far corner of the room, where the curtain hung half-drawn, something small and pale lingered. A child.

She blinked. The shape stayed.

It stepped forward, bare feet soundless against the linoleum.

Her stomach tightened. The child’s face was pale, translucent almost, but unmistakable.

It was her face. As it had been years ago.

Wide brown eyes. Round cheeks. Unruly hair tied back with a ribbon she dimly remembered owning. She must have been eight or nine in that body.

Her breath rasped. “What… what are you?”

The child tilted its head. Then it smiled, though the expression was wrong. Too sharp.

“Don’t you remember me?”

The monitor spiked, the beeps quickening.

Her mouth dried. She fumbled for the call button, but her hand was clumsy, weak. The button slipped out of reach.

The child padded closer, until it stood at the foot of the bed. The air around it shifted — colder, heavier.

“Don’t you remember me?” it said again.

Something flickered behind her eyes. A half-memory: running through woods, branches scratching her arms. Hiding in a hole in the ground that smelled of wet earth. Whispering promises to herself.

Her chest tightened.

The child’s gaze never left hers. “You left me there,” it whispered.

Her throat closed. She wanted to deny it, to scream she didn’t know what it meant, but deep inside, buried beneath the blankness, she did know.

The child climbed onto the bed. Its weight pressed on her legs, too heavy for its size. It reached for her hand.

She yanked her arm back, ripping at the IV. Pain shot up her vein.

The child froze, head tilted. The smile widened.

“Don’t you remember me?”

This time the voice carried hunger.

---

The nurse bustled in minutes later, humming. She checked vitals, replaced the IV, scribbled something down.

“Any discomfort?” she asked.

Claire’s lips parted, but she couldn’t bring herself to say it. There was a child in here. It looked like me. The words would sound mad.

She forced a smile. “Just tired.”

The nurse patted her arm. “That’s normal. You’ve been through a lot.”

And then Claire was alone again.

The shadows deepened.

---

The dreams started that night.

She was back in the woods. Running. Always running. The air sharp with pine and wet leaves. Someone was behind her, calling her name. She tripped over roots, fell into mud, scrambled up again.

A voice whispered in her ear though no one was there. Promise me. Promise me you won’t leave.

She woke choking on the words. The monitor screamed with her heartbeat.

In the corner, the child stood. Smiling.

---

By the third day, she remembered her name. Claire.

The doctor looked pleased when she said it aloud. “That’s progress. Sometimes memory returns in fragments. Be patient.”

But with the name came more fragments. Shards of things she didn’t want. The woods. The dark place underground. Blood on her hands, though she couldn’t remember how it got there.

And always, the child’s voice: Don’t you remember me?

---

She asked about the accident.

The doctor hesitated. “You were found on the highway. Car wreck. But the odd part…” He flipped through notes. “There was no vehicle. No debris. Just you. Walking. Covered in mud.”

Her skin crawled.

That night, she dreamed of digging. Small hands clawing at dirt, breaking nails, blood soaking the soil. Someone cried in the dark, muffled.

She woke screaming.

The child was on the bed again. Closer this time.

“Don’t you remember me?” it whispered.

She pressed herself back against the pillows, heart hammering. “You’re not real.”

The child’s face twisted. For a moment it looked less like her younger self and more like something raw, unfinished.

“Then why did you bury me?”

---

The memories came jagged after that. She was younger, running with another girl — her cousin? No, her sister. Younger by two years. Dark hair. Freckles. They had been playing in the woods behind their grandparents’ house. Hide and seek.

But it wasn’t a game for long.

There was shouting. Arguments between the adults in the house. Something about custody, money, secrets. She and her sister hid in the woods, whispering.

Promise me we’ll never let them separate us.

Then the shouting turned violent. Screams. A crash.

They ran deeper into the forest.

She remembered finding the pit. An old root cellar, half-collapsed. A perfect hiding place.

She remembered helping her sister climb down.

And then…

Nothing.

---

On the sixth night, the child sat cross-legged at the foot of her bed, humming softly.

Claire forced herself to speak. “Who are you?”

The child blinked, tilting its head. “I’m you. The part you left behind.”

“No,” Claire whispered. “You’re her. You’re my—”

“My what?” The child’s smile sharpened. “Your sister? Your best friend? The one you swore to protect? The one you buried when they came looking?”

Claire shook her head violently. “That’s not true. I wouldn’t—”

But the memories surged now, unstoppable.

She had heard footsteps in the woods. Voices calling their names. She had panicked, shoved the dirt back over the cellar. Covered it, so no one would find them.

But then the voices faded. Hours passed. Her sister had cried from below, begging. Screaming.

And Claire had walked away.

---

The truth hit like ice water.

The child was not her.

The child was her sister.

Don’t you remember me?

---

The next morning, the fiancé came again. He held her hand, his eyes full of worry. “Claire, you’re scaring me. You hardly sleep. Please, let the doctors help.”

She stared at him, trying to recall his name. Nothing came. But behind his shoulder, she saw the child grinning.

The fiancé squeezed her hand. “You haven’t changed. You’re still the same strong woman I—”

“No,” she whispered.

The child’s voice echoed through the room, though only she could hear it. You have changed. You left me to die. And then you erased me.

The fiancé frowned. “What?”

Claire ripped her hand away. “Get out.”

---

That night, the child climbed onto her chest, its weight crushing her lungs. Its face was inches from hers, breath cold.

“Time to remember,” it whispered.

Her mind cracked open fully.

She saw herself, older now, standing at the edge of the pit years later. The ground disturbed. Bones visible. She had covered them again, forcing herself not to look too closely.

She had told herself it wasn’t real. That it was just an animal’s den. That there had never been a sister at all.

But there was.

And she had buried her alive.

---

Claire screamed, thrashing against the weight, but the monitors shrieked with her, alarms blaring. Nurses rushed in — but they didn’t see the child. They saw only Claire clawing at her own throat, tearing at her skin, eyes wide with terror.

They held her down, injected her with something that burned through her veins. The world blurred, sounds muffled.

But the last thing she saw before the darkness swallowed her was the child’s face, smiling.

---

When she woke again, strapped to the bed, the doctor’s voice was calm, practiced.

“You’ve suffered severe trauma, Claire. Sometimes the mind creates… fabrications. People who aren’t there. To protect you from the truth.”

Her voice was hoarse. “The child. My sister. She’s real.”

The doctor frowned. “Claire, you never had a sister.”

The words hit harder than the restraints.

“No,” she whispered.

But when she searched her memories now, she couldn’t tell which ones were real. Was there a sister? Or was the child only a fractured piece of herself, the part that never grew up, the part she buried?

The doctor’s eyes were gentle. “You’ve carried guilt for something that didn’t happen. That’s why your mind created her.”

She shook her head violently. But the doubt crawled in.

---

That night, the child appeared again.

It leaned close, whispering: “He’s lying. You know the truth. You killed me.”

Her tears burned. “But the doctor said—”

“Don’t you remember me?”

She screamed, the sound ripping through the ward.

---

Days blurred.

The fiancé stopped visiting. The doctor spoke of long-term care. They increased the medication.

And still the child came.

Sometimes smiling. Sometimes crying. Sometimes crawling across the ceiling like a spider.

Don’t you remember me?

She couldn’t tell anymore if it was her sister or herself. If she was guilty of murder or madness.

All she knew was the voice.

It would never stop.

---

Three weeks later, the hospital discharged her to a rehabilitation facility.

On the drive there, she stared out the window at the trees flashing past. The woods looked familiar.

She realized with a jolt where they were taking her.

The facility was built near her grandparents’ land.

Near the pit.

Her heart pounded.

And then, in the reflection of the window, she saw a small pale face grinning back at her.

“Home,” the child whispered.