Bound by Blood and Pain

My sister, Darlia, and I had always been close. Not just emotionally—we were like mirror images, reflecting each other in every way possible. We walked the same, talked the same, even laughed the same. It was as if we were two halves of a single soul. People who weren't familiar with us would confuse us constantly, and over the phone, even our parents couldn't tell our voices apart.

Things were always like that—until we turned sixteen.

On our birthday, we stood side by side, ready to blow out the candles on our cake, laughing as Dad fussed about placing an extra candle for good luck. At the last second, he accidentally tilted the candle he was holding, and a few drops of hot wax dripped onto Darlia's neck. She screamed in pain, her hand shooting up to her neck. And then I felt it—a searing, sharp pain on my own neck, so intense it felt like my skin was being burned away.

I clutched at my own neck, barely able to breathe, the pain blinding. I wasn't reacting out of shock. I was experiencing the pain just as if it had happened to me. I could see my dad's wide-eyed stare, his mouth open as he looked between us, but I could barely focus. The pain faded only when Darlia's did, leaving both of us shaken.

From that day forward, the strange link between us became something far more intense. Every feeling she experienced, I experienced too—fear, sadness, even physical pain. Our connection, once charming, grew disturbing and invasive, like we were bound in ways neither of us could explain or control. And then, things got even stranger.

One night, Darlia went out with her boyfriend, Trevor. She came home quieter than usual, her cheeks flushed and her movements tentative. She wouldn't look me in the eye, but as soon as she walked past me, I knew. I felt it—a sharp, aching pain, a mix of confusion and discomfort. Her virginity was gone, and somehow, impossibly, I had lost mine too.

I could feel everything she had felt—every physical sensation, every breath. A piece of myself was torn away, and I was powerless to stop it. I started feeling haunted by Darlia's experiences, a shadow of her own life with no control over what I felt or didn't feel. I could see the look in her eyes too, the guilt of knowing she couldn't stop it any more than I could.

As months passed, the weight of the shared pain and sensations drew us further and further apart. Darlia was trapped, too—feeling my pain when I stubbed a toe or cut my finger. It was a connection neither of us had asked for, something that turned our lives into nightmares.

Then, one evening, everything fell apart.

Trevor became distant, and soon after, he broke up with Darlia. She was devastated. I could feel the raw ache of her heartbreak gnawing at me day and night, pulling me deeper into a sadness that wasn't even mine. I tried to comfort her, to tell her he wasn't worth the tears. But I felt her spiraling, the hopelessness sinking in.

A few days later, she went to meet him, determined to confront him and find closure. I wanted to go with her, but she insisted on going alone. And then, as the evening wore on, I felt the terror surge through me, followed by an overwhelming pain—a stabbing, burning pain so violent that I could barely stand.

I screamed and collapsed on my bedroom floor, clutching at my stomach, feeling the impact of every blow, every violent shudder. The pain was relentless, each wave worse than the last. I could feel my life slipping away, and I knew, in my gut, that she was in danger.

When I regained consciousness, I was in the hospital, surrounded by my horrified parents. Darlia was gone. The police told us that Trevor had attacked her in a fit of rage and left her in an alley, bleeding and alone. The wounds she had taken were mine too, haunting my own body in bruises that shouldn't have been there.

My sister was dead, but our bond had kept me alive. Yet it was a life I didn't want. Now, everywhere I looked, I felt her absence—a gaping void where she had been. And when I closed my eyes at night, I could still feel her pain lingering, like a wound that would never heal.