I stood by my car waiting for my little cousin Samara. She is now officially a freshman at my school. Finally I see her, swinging her Avengers lunchbox walking to the car. Samara lives with me, my little sister Jane, and my father Henry. We got in the car and drove down to the elementary school for my youngest sister. We were parked outside the playground where my sister was playing after school. Jane usually kept to herself when playing, but today I saw a girl with her. She was a girl with a pink ribbon in her hair and wearing a light blue sundress. I called out to Jane and Jane left her without even a ‘Goodbye’ which I scolded her about how rude it was to ignore someone who wanted to play with you. Jane looked at me weird and said she wasn’t playing with anyone and when I described the girl she said I must’ve been looking at someone else because there wasn’t anyone on the swing next to her. I shrugged it off and we went home. The next day I was in study hall and was playing games on my computer when I felt a light flick on the left side of my head. When I looked down I found a paperclip and looked around but no one was sitting to my left side. I continued my games before I felt another. Irritated, I looked up and saw the girl with the pink ribbon, but older looking, and she flicked another paper clip at me then ran out of the room. I followed her until she was turned the corner and I turned to go back to class when I ran head first into the principal. I said excuse me and went back to class. Later that night I walked up stairs, deciding to go to bed when my head started lulling as I watched television. Sleepy eyed and heavy steps, I got to the top of the steps and turned towards my room when I heard something like a bouncy ball bouncing in Samara and Jane’s room. I waddled over to their door, peeking in so I could catch them red handed playing after bed time but when I looked inside there was just a dark figure of a girl that looked to be Samara by her height, and she was just standing by the window. “Samara, go back to bed, what are you doing?” Samara still stood there, so I walked into the room, a hand hovering over her shoulder when she said in a voice not her own, “Death is coming, my dear Lily.” Horrified that she would say something like that to me to freak me out, I put my hand on her shoulder and jerked her to face me. When she faced me, it wasn’t her face I was looking at, it was instead the girl with the pink ribbon. She smiled an evil smile before I blinked my eyes hard and saw Samara’s face again. There were tears stuck in the corners of my eyes as I hugged her sleeping self to me, smoothing her hair. I was so confused and didn’t know who to get help from. After carrying Samara back to her bed and tucking her in, she started to murmur in her sleep.

“She won’t leave me alone...” She said. I ran to my room and jumped under the covers, pulling them over my head and not moving until morning.

In the morning, I woke up with bags under my eyes. It was a long night, full of fear and anger, I couldn’t get the pink ribboned girl out of my head. That day, I was jumpy, my friends asked if I was feeling well, to which I blew off most of their questions. I was in the bathroom, splashing water on my face, when I looked in the mirror and saw the girl behind me. Before turning around, since I knew she’d just vanish, I stared her down in the mirror, my face a picture of death. “What is your name?” I asked. The girl shifted, still smiling.

“Stacy, what’s your name?” She sounded childlike in a sense, like she was mocking me, and I wasn’t having any of that.

“What are you?” I asked in a firm tone.

“There are many names for what I am, ghost, apparition, living dead, I prefer just Stacy. I’m Stacy, Stacy, Staaaaaacy!” She started to sing her name over and over again until I had to cover my ears.

“What do you want with my family!?” I yelled over her. She started laughing, an echoing, shrill laugh that caused me to slide my way on the floor from the wall.

“Death, my dear Lily! I love it and your sister is close enough to it, I can smell it! I’ll finally have a friend for eternity and I can’t wait!” Lily finally vanished in a rush of wind as two or three teachers rushed into the bathroom to find me on the ground with my hands covering my ears. They coaxed me out of the bathroom, to face the hundreds of students outside who were witnessing my humiliation. The teachers guided me to the Principal’s office and didn’t leave until I was in the office with the Principal and even then they hovered outside the doors. When asked why I was screaming in the bathroom, I didn’t answer. The Principal knew I was the kind of student to be rational and thought I was in pain, or sick so he sent me home.

I slammed the door on my way in, my Dad eating a sandwich and asking why I was sent home, thinking I was delinquent. I didn’t answer, instead walking up the stairs to my room. I jumped on my bed, not bothering with my shoes, and took a deep breath, trying to think of what to do. I was so shaken up, and I kept thinking about how she said my sister was going to die. I laid there sulking in my misery for a couple minutes until I heard Stacy sigh, sitting on my window sill and looking outside. I looked at her with daggers in my eyes. “Won’t be long now,” She said in a singing voice. Fresh tears started to spring in my eyes thinking about Jane and Samara. Samara was as close to a sister as she could get and I loved both my sisters more than live itself. I flung out of my bed and started to throw things, anything I could find, it went flying through the air right at Stacy’s head, but to my dismay, it just went right through her. She kept looking out the window, not noticing my tirade and I grabbed my head in frustration.

“Why can’t you torture someone else’s family!?” I screamed at her. I sat on my bed, feeling hopeless and crazed.

“Because this is my house!” She suddenly shouted. She turned to me, looking furious. “My family lived here, my mother and father, my little brother, my dog Sammy. Yet I still felt so isolated, I went to school, came home, went to bed. Every day for eighteen years. Then my brother, Ethan, was walking Sammy across the street until a car pulled up next to him, and I watched from this window, as my brother got in, and I screamed at him to come back inside. He couldn’t hear me, like everyone else, and the next time I saw him, it was in pictures the police took of his body on the side of the highway. Those sick bastards that took him beat the bloody hell out of him, raped him, cut him, he didn’t die quickly. Then my mother...” She trailed off. “The depression was too much, they moved away.” Her lip quivered. “As for me, I died several years before all this happened. I was so lonely when my brother was a baby. I took care of him like my parents couldn’t, and I was so lonely I thought a rope and a ceiling fan would solve my problems. If I hadn’t decided to die, my little brother would be alive too. I’m trapped in this house and to whatever family comes here and I’m done with being alone. I’ve peeked at your sister’s life clock, and soon it’ll stop ticking. I won’t be alone anymore.” She turned to me and smiled. “I digress, you can’t do anything to stop your sister’s death, just like me. So now you’ll know my suffering!” She laughed and vanished as I heard my door wrenched open, almost off it’s hinges, to find my Dad there with a phone in his hand.

“There’s been an accident at the elementary school. Jane has been injured, she has a punctured lung, come on! We have to get to the hospital!” Dad yelled at me, but I was so stunned I couldn’t move. “Let’s go, Lily! I’ll get the car, so hurry up we need to be there.” He ran back down the stairs without another word. I felt like I was ran over by a steamroller. My chest ached as if I was the one with a punctured lung.

With fury I screamed at the top of my lungs. “STACY!” I yelled until I saw her standing by my closet, the darkness shadowing half of her face. I looked at her with an unfathomable expression, and I dropped to my knees. “Please, spare my sister. She’s so young and innoce-”

“So was my brother!” She cut me off.

“What if I go instead? Hm? Please, would you save her if I died instead, and I stayed with you forever. I-I promise, I’ll never leave you alone. Just please don’t make my sister die for you.” I clasped my hands together, begging her. Stacy nodded.

“Ms. Lily, please come with me.” She said softly. I scrambled to my feet and walked in the closet, where there was a box labeled ‘computer hook ups’. “You have to take yourself out of this live or else it won’t work.” She whispered, placing a hand on my shoulder. I couldn’t feel it there, knowing it wasn’t for comfort anyway, she wanted to push me towards it, make me eager. My pocket buzzed and I took out my cell phone. It was my Dad, saying he left without me and to meet him there, he was almost to where she was and he told me to come at once. I knelt down and opened the box, finding a box full of wires. I pick a long, thick wire that was black and used as a power outlet extension. I slowly walked out of the closet and looked up to the ceiling fan in my room, my mouth hanging open, in shock that this was the only way.

I stood on the edge of my bed and secured the end of the cord with the outlets on it to the fan. Then with what room I had left on the cord, I tied a slipknot and put it around my neck. As I wiped the tears from my face, I looked at Stacy. She had wide, hopeful eyes as she watched me. “You’re going to save her? Please do it now so I know she’s okay.” With an impatient look, Stacy vanished but only for a moment.

“Just know that now if you don’t follow through It’ll take less time for me to squeeze the life from her heart.” She brought her hand up and clenched her fist for emphasis. My phone buzzed in my pocket again, and my Dad told me that Jane was going to be okay and he asked me where I was. I didn’t respond, instead letting out a good long breath before typing a message to him. ‘I love you, tell Jane and Samara I love them. Tell them this was not my decision but to live long and happy lives knowing I did this to help them.’ I pressed send, knowing Dad won’t be able to understand quite what I meant, but someday I’ll find a way to explain it to them. I stepped off my bed, the rope catching me around the neck from falling. It tightened around my throat, choking me as I brought my hands up to my neck, but knowing I couldn’t fight it anymore. About five minutes later, I had stopped breathing, my brain still conscious, but my body unmoving. I could hear my Dad walk in the house, set his keys on the counter and sigh. I heard the soft thumping of footsteps coming up the stairs. I heard the door creak open and then it got noisy. Over the screams of my Dad, I felt the pressure of his hands on my wrists, hearing him scream, ‘no’ over and over again. I felt myself fading slowly as I felt the cord loosen around my neck and my body drop limp. The last thing I could feel was the weight of my body, being laid upon my bed.

Suddenly I was standing in my room, staring at my Dad hunched over my dead body. I walked over next to us, seeing the thick purple ring that was left on my throat. I leaned forward and reached a hand out to touch it but I felt nothing. “Dad..” I said. “Dad, it’s okay I’m right here.” I told him. He wasn’t responding, instead still sobbing and clutching me close. “Dad!” I said louder this time, putting my hand on his shoulder.

“You’re finally dead, Lily.” I heard behind me. Stacy was there, her hands folded in front of her in a sweet manner as she walked up closer to me. “He won’t see you, he’s old and doesn’t have the imagination.” I looked at him, knowing I should feel heart broken but I felt nothing but rage that I had killed myself. “Come with me,” Stacy said, holding out a graceful hand. I took it, confused and not able to feel anything but rage and hopelessness. We walked out of the house, and into our afterlife.