My ghost sister

By: Mehr Gupta

There is no such thing as paranormal, at least that is what I thought until this happened..

I  was  jolted  awake  by  a  shattering  sound.  It  was pretty late on a cold winter night and my parents were not at home. In the middle of the bedroom, between our twin beds, I saw my sister’s favourite glass vase smashed  into hundreds of pieces. I immediately looked up at her  with  fear  on  my  face,  expecting  her to lose her temper and  scold me. But it became quite clear who was guilty. It was my beloved sister who was dancing to the music through her headphones. I sighed a breath of relief and looked over the table clock. It was half an hour past midnight. I called her to come back to bed. But there came no reply. “Vaani!”, I shouted. Yet there was silence. I jumped out of my bed groaning with anger and moved towards her. I realised what I had thought to be her headphones were in fact her pink fluffy ear muffs. Her eyes seemed to be shut. Was  she  sleepwalking? I started  shaking  her aggressively in an attempt to wake her up, but  she continued her wild  movements  which  definitely  was  not a dance!

I felt my heartbeat race and panic made its way onto my face. “Is this a prank? Not funny Vaani, STOP!” She was stepping on the shattered pieces of the broken glass vase. I tried to pull her away but saw red footprints on the  white  marble. Turning on all the lights, I raced towards my neighbours’ house and called them for help.

But when we came rushing up the stairs to our room, I was astonished to see that she was simply sitting upright on her bed reading a book. The red footprints seemed to have disappeared into thin air. The broken glass vase had somehow mended itself and was back on the bedside table. Looking at all of us with confusion but also an  expression of concern, Vaani asked, “What got into you? You just woke up, started shouting and ran away!” In utter bewilderment, I apologised to our neighbours for apparently raising a false alarm in the dead of the night. Still in deep thought and puzzlement, I slipped back into my  warm bed. And as I watched my sister continue reading under her night lamp, I slowly dozed off into a deep sleep.

The next morning, I saw Vaani sleeping peacefully cuddled in her blanket. Having almost forgotten the events of last night, I got off my bed to go to the bathroom. Suddenly my eyes wandered toward her  feet  which  were  poking  out  of  the  blanket.  The  colour  drained  from my face and I froze on the spot, my face  got white as snow, my brain trying to make sense of it all. In front of me, the soles of my sister’s feet were covered in fresh deep red slits.