The Sister's Story

I was born into a world of darkness. My earliest memories are of the cosy clamour that was our family: me, my parents, my brothers and sisters. Our home was full of noise and movement, of the shrill voices of my siblings arguing with one another: ‘He’s taken my food!’, ‘She won’t let me sleep!’ and so on. You know how it is: children fight constantly. My mother seemed worn down by it all: old before her time; aged by her incessant pregnancies. From time to time, she would cuff me round the ear for whining, or buffet one of my brothers when he got a bit too big for his boots; but I know she loved us.

We didn’t have much, but we were happy. I remember the hours we spent chasing each other up and down the long, dark passages, eyes bright with mischief, squealing our excitement. It didn’t matter to us that everything was damp and dusty, or that we never got to go outside. Safe and secure in the microcosm of family life, we played and fought, squabbled and reconciled, ate and slept. There were so many of us that my mother often lost sight of one or two and then spent unimaginably long stretches of time running around, trying to count us all and make sure no one was really missing.

It wasn’t long before some of my older brothers wanted to go and join Pa on his hunting expeditions. For a while my mother protested that they were too young – she was nervous of something, but at the time I didn’t know what that was – but Pa just kept telling her he’d look out for them and teach them to be careful, so in the end she gave in. She was pregnant again, you see, and I guess she thought the extra food my brothers could bring back would help in some way.

I can still picture Pa’s face in my mind as they set off that fateful morning. He loved hunting – always had done. He looked so excited to be taking some of my brothers with him: ‘It’s a real family outing this time,’ is what he said. I remember running over to him to say goodbye, and the way he rubbed his nose against mine in that affectionate way that fathers do. If I’d known then that it was the last time I’d see him, I would have held on tightly, not wriggled away from his embrace. As it was, I watched him say goodbye to the rest of my siblings, then my mother, wondering all the time what he would be bringing back.

I never saw him again.

It must have been hours later when my brothers returned alone, ashen-faced and shaking with fear. My mother shooed us little ones away whilst she heard their story. When I thought she wasn’t looking, I crept closer. Most of it was inaudible, but I could make out something about blood and guts and mangled remains. My heart froze.

Suddenly, a sound behind me made me jump. My head full of monsters and madness, I whirled round, but it was only one of my brothers. He looked at me enquiringly.

‘I couldn’t hear much,” I said, letting frustration colour my words. “Something got him, but I don’t know the details.’

‘Let me try.’

Unwillingly, I ceded my place. He listened intently for a moment, then nodded sagely. ‘That fits,’ he muttered, as if to himself.

That night, as we all lay snuggled together in the safety of the dark, he whispered what he knew of my father’s death. I was not the only one listening: my little sister, upon overhearing some of the more lurid details, passed on the gossip to the warm body closest to hers; and that soon snowballed and grew until, by morning, an avalanche of misinformation hit my mother as she was getting up.

‘Ma! Is it true there’s a monster out there with teeth and claws?’

‘But you can pick food right from the ground if you go outside, can’t you, Ma?’

‘There’s a bright light that hurts your eyes and it dazzled Pa, didn’t it, Ma? That’s how the monster got him!’

‘Children!’ I had never seen her look so angry. I was too little then to understand grief or pain. I was aware that my father was gone and wasn’t coming back, but I had no concept of time; didn’t know then that guilt eats away at you until you wish you hadn’t survived.

But life goes on, and so does time. Little by little, my mother settled into acceptance, but the light was gone from her eyes. When the babies arrived a few days later, she seemed quiet and withdrawn. I realise now that she was mourning on their behalf for the father they would never know.

I, meanwhile, was growing up fast – and so were some of my siblings. We still chased each other around the twisting passageways, but our games now had a different tone: the thrill I felt when one of my brothers caught me was ... altered somehow.

We were all aware of it. I noticed how each of my sisters appeared to run slower on purpose, almost as if to make sure that one or other of my brothers would reach her in time to grab hold of her and tumble her over on the dusty floor. And I was just as bad.

It seemed now that our games were more serious than play; as if our innocent childhood scampering had been merely the overture to what now followed: an invitation to the inevitable crescendo. Gasping and giggling, we rolled around in a tangle of limbs and laughter, that elusive spark of something more gradually being fanned into an almost uncontrollable longing until I no longer knew where I ended and my brother began.

Afterwards, we lay still in the passageway, hearts beating wildly, bodies entwined. My brother stroked my face, gazing into my eyes as if searching for himself. I felt a surge of affection laced with attraction: he was my brother, my friend: it seemed only natural that we had come together like this.

For a while we dozed, then coupled again, wrapping ourselves around each other, shutting out the world. Looking back, I feel the intensity all over again; remember how it felt when we were the only two in existence.

It was sometime later when my mother noticed my pregnancy. She didn’t have time to pay much attention to it, busy with all my younger brothers and sisters. As my belly began to swell, my desire for my brother-husband abated – although my changing shape didn’t dampen his ardour for me. He still coupled with me whenever he could, his breath warm on the back of my neck, his weight heavy against me.

Eventually, my mother took him aside. He was growing up, she explained, and it was now time he took on adult responsibilities. He was about to become a father, so he would join our older brothers on the next hunting expedition.

I could not sleep at all while he was gone. The image of my father haunted my mind: his face that last time I had seen him, bright with anticipation, not knowing the dangers he was about to face. Was I to lose my husband in the same way?

And yet my fears were all for nothing: the conquering heroes returned, furnishing our home with such an abundance of food that I thought they would never have to go hunting again. I immersed myself in my pregnancy, eating my fill and letting my body ripen lushly.

One particular delicacy tasted so wonderful that I ate and ate until I had exhausted the supply. When I realised it was gone, I wept. My brother-husband hastened to reassure me. He and my other brothers would go hunting again, he said, when the rest of the store was gone, and then he would find me more of this wonderful foodstuff; but I shook my head rebelliously.

‘I need it now!’ I insisted. Then, ‘If you won’t go and get it for me, I’ll go myself!’

In vain, he tried to persuade me not to be so foolhardy. I was resolute. Eventually, he agreed to go, but added that he would have to sneak out when everyone else was asleep lest one of my other brothers tried to stop him.

‘Let me go too,’ I pleaded. I had never been outside the walls of our home and I wanted to explore the bigger world.

He shook his head. ‘It’s too dangerous. I wouldn’t want to lose you.’

Later that night when he thought I was asleep, the warm shape next to me shifted and stole away. I followed at a distance, unwilling to be left behind. The way ahead was dark, but I was used to the gloom, having lived all my life in it. It wasn’t hard to follow him as he crept silently along the narrow passageway.

After what seemed like endless twists and turns, my brother stopped and sniffed the air. Then, with a decisiveness I hadn’t known he possessed, he sidled smartly to the left and was gone. I inched forward, holding my breath. How had he disappeared?

When I saw the opening, I understood. Turning myself sideways like a shadow, I flitted through, my heart full of anticipation for the adventure before me. What I saw next took my breath away.

First, the blinding light we had all heard about. For a moment, my eyes hurt, unaccustomed to anything but darkness; then, as my brain stopped tingling and my senses cleared, I could make out shapes and shades, light and dark. The ground beneath my feet was hard yet warm. I followed the source of warmth and light high, high overhead, hanging in the great vastness that was unlike anything I had ever known before. All this existed, and I had been unaware!

Then, gradually, I began to focus on my more immediate surroundings. A little way ahead, the terrain changed: something tall and strange stretched as far as the eye could see. I ran towards it, my curiosity getting the better of me. This stuff was soft, like cobwebs, but not as sticky; and when I nibbled a corner, the taste was not totally unpleasant.

But there was no time to explore this new environment: I needed to locate my brother for without him, I would be unable to find my way home. Raising my voice, I cried out to him. My call sounded shrill and reedy in the air.

Within moments, he was by my side, scolding me for following him.

‘I wanted to see what it was like,’ I told him. ‘Why didn’t you tell me about all this?’

He shrugged. ‘If I’d described it, you still wouldn’t have pictured it. Not like being here. Anyway,’ his tone became brisk, ‘now you’re outside, you can help me. Come on.’

He darted off in the opposite direction and I ran after him. The rumours were true: huge lumps of food lay scattered on the floor only a short distance from the spot where the two worlds met. Greedily, I grabbed a chunk of something that resembled what I had been craving and stuffed it into my mouth. A sensation of pleasure flooded my being. I reached for some more.

‘No!’ My brother’s voice was a sharp warning. ‘There are dangers here. Take what you can and fill your pouches, but don’t stop to eat.’

I should have listened to him, but the food was so good and my desire for it so strong that I failed to heed his words.

‘Sister!’ The warning came too late.

A shadow fell across my patch of ground. Looking up, I saw huge columns covered with a fur like my own, and higher still, some kind of gigantic face with enormous eyes and teeth almost as large as my head. I froze in terror.

An endless moment hovered in the air. My breath came in short, sharp pants; my heart threatened to explode.

Then, out of nowhere it seemed, my brother was scampering in front of the beast, weaving backwards and forwards as if to invite it to follow him. I knew what he was trying to do: he wanted to draw attention away from me.

Perhaps it would have worked had the beast been smaller, slower. As it was, a huge paw flicked out, pinning my brother to the ground. I could hear the crunch of something splintering and I knew my brother would not move again.

The huge eyes now shifted onto the sorry, squealing mass of fur and bone. As the last breath squeezed from his body, I heard my brother gasp, ‘Run!’ and I did; not stopping to grab any of the food we had found; intent only on reaching the safety of the hole in the wall.

Weighed down by the babies I carried, I thought I would be too slow. It was only as I reached the hole and pushed my way back into darkness that I allowed myself to feel the full horror of what had just happened. My brother-husband was dead, and I had been the cause of it.

Somehow, I managed to stumble back to the nest, to the still sleeping bodies of the rest of my family. Nudging my mother awake, I burrowed into the softness of her fur, weeping my guilt, my pain. I had sacrificed my babies’ father merely to satisfy my own greed, and I could never forgive myself. He was dead; and I had only myself to blame.

Her tail wrapped around me as I slowly sobbed myself to sleep.