The cemetery is quiet, the kind of quiet that feels wrong. No birds singing, no footsteps on the path. Just the slow drip of water sliding from the trees onto the mud. The ground sucks at your shoes as you stand in front of the stone. Her stone. The name stares back at you, sharp and final. Your sister. The only person who ever gave a damn whether you lived or not. Now she’s just letters carved in rock, while the world keeps moving without her, without you.

There’s no family left. You never really had one. Your parents were gone long before you understood what that meant. Your sister filled the gaps, held you together when you should’ve fallen apart. She was older, stronger. She looked out for you when no one else did. And now she’s gone. Murdered. The word doesn’t feel real, even when you say it in your head. But the grave doesn’t lie. She’s in the ground, and you’re still here, half-alive, dragging yourself through days that don’t matter anymore.

You think about how it happened. About whether she was scared. Whether she called out for you in those last moments. You weren’t there. You’ll never know. That’s what keeps eating you alive. You picture her face when she realized no one was coming. Sometimes you see it when you close your eyes, sometimes when you’re wide awake. It doesn’t leave. It doesn’t let you breathe. If she was your anchor, then losing her was the knife that cut the rope. Now you’re drifting, waiting to sink. Some nights, you want it to end. Not because you’re brave, but because you’re too tired to keep carrying this weight.

Then you notice her. A girl, sitting low against another headstone just a few rows away. She looks like she’s been there for hours, maybe longer. Her knees are pulled tight to her chest, her hair sticking to her face, damp from the rain. She isn’t crying. She isn’t moving much at all. Just sitting there, her hand pressed flat against the stone like she’s holding on to it for balance. There’s something in her stillness that feels wrong. Like she’s been hollowed out the same way you have. Like she knows what it’s like to lose everything and keep breathing anyway.

Her voice cuts through the air, small and uncertain. It barely carries, like even speaking is a risk.

— “Visiting someone?”