Namal bounded down the stairs- her usual gait despite daily reprimands – and leaped to the kitchen. It was Saturday; her parents and sister, Arfa, were probably asleep. Elation was not allowing her to sit still: in a week was her twelfth birthday. She had already planned the event, sent out the invitations and bought every fancy item to use for her celebration. Imagining the scrumptious multi-layered chocolate cake she retrieved a cup – and the pang of guilt and melancholy that slammed her as her glance fell upon the family picture expunged any joy. Her parents, beaming, and the three of them – Namal, Arfa, Sara – very young, huffing. Sara would have been ten by now, but she had never turned six, a fire the cause of their irrevocable separation. She recalled it blazing, its tendrils of smoke reeking of the bereavement it sought to afflict. A tear glistened across her cheek.

Night- it had been dark, dark that could be perceived past the window, dark as the anguish they would have to countenance, when she had fallen asleep, resenting her sister’s snores. Maybe her fear of the dark had been a portent, given that her younger sister had not seemed to fear it at all. Shadows claimed her grandmother’s modest house more than most; her parents were out of station due to some work, leaving them there. After offering the night prayer, they had only watched some shows with Grandma, not bothering to stay up late.

“Wake up!” Yells and shrieks permeated from outside, but this one appeared closer, and hands grabbed her – Arfa, then about to be twelve – trying to drag her out of bed. Coughing and gagging, she sat up, the dense smoke frightening her enough to catch Arfa’s hand; they rushed to the doorway – and she would have stopped short had Arfa not barreled onwards. The scorching flame was everywhere, and it was death: her eyes would water to blindness, her breath would be impeded to the point of ceasing. Embroiling and obscuring, entrapping, the fire would devour her, but no, arms caused her to fling forward, down the stairs and out, beyond the gate and onto the street.

From the throng of concerned people flanking the house, a neighbour – a kind woman her grandmother’s age she recognized – rushed to them. “Are you all right? Where’s your grandmother?”

“She’s- she- I don’t know- when-when I saw the fire- I think the gas cyl-cylinder- I went to my sisters- I-” Tears streamed down Arfa’s face and the neighbour, nodding, placed a comforting hand on her shoulder, tentatively inquiring, “And so where’s your other sister?”

“I think she’s outside as I didn’t see her in the room-” Arfa whispered, but the neighbour was already shaking her head.

No. No.

“She’s- she’s- in the bathroom.” She remembered now. I saw her slippers at the bathroom door. I saw them, but did not notice. A sob broke out of her. She had left her behind, the sister without whom she could not sleep, who would be waiting, waiting for her and Arfa.

“Please, we have to go back, we will go back and get her and Gran, please, I’ll never argue with her again. I’ll share all my toys and novels, I promise,” she rambled.  Then gentle hands were guiding her to a car – her aunt’s, who had arrived on the neighour’s calls, and they drove away, away from the smoldering home soon to be ashes and cinders. 

A door’s creak transported her back to the present, and she shoved the past behind a closet; another thud indicated someone leaving the house. Probably Arfa, she thought, irked – her sister could have had at least checked in on her, have had breakfast with her. Between her school and ventures to the park – usually to study or write – Arfa had little time, it seemed, for her. Exasperation gave way to hurt; why did Arfa appear so distant, when they used to be close? They used to play, study, do everything together after the incident, until they gradually did not, not an unanticipated happening, but this level of aloofness – oh, she recalled. She was yet to apologise for yesterday.

“Look! The new animated movie is coming out this weekend,” she had said. Her sister had made a nearly imperceptible gesture, perhaps a nod, not looking up from her book. “Have you seen my textbook?” she asked, only to probe a response.

Arfa gave a monosyllabic reply, “No.”

Suppressing a suspiration, she tried to amuse herself by making planes from paper and throwing them around.

“Stop.”

“Why? You are busy with your own things. At least let me have fun.” She made a face.

“You are refusing to grow up.”

The remark, though void of a derisive inflection, reverberated in her head. You’re being a baby. You should be more responsible. You should latch less on your sister.

She swallowed, attempting to clear her head. Don’t think about it.

What happened next, she herself did not understand. Observing her sister’s stoic expression and blank gaze, a ludicrous notion seized her. Thoughts mashed together floated, a daze settling upon her, and she found herself struggling to discern dream from memory, reality from imagination. Panic inundated her, more from what crossed her mind during this rather than the trance. What if her this sister too, had died in the fire, and the person in front of her was an apparition? Gripped by an abrupt need to ascertain her sister’s corporeality, she reached out – and before she knew it, crashed into Arfa.

“No! I mean, I didn’t mean, it’s-”

“See.” No indignation, no rebuke, just a word.

“See how much your sister adores you. She has even made breakfast for you,” her mother said.

“Thanks.”

“You aren’t angry with me anymore?”

“I wasn’t angry. Now, Sara, can you hand me the cup?”

A splitting headache flared up, the searing pain causing blots across her vision. Sara? What? She looked around, found her sister gazing at her, but-

“I’m Namal.” The pain was intense, darkness sinking in and out. In, out, blurring reality.

“Oh no. Oh no no no.” It was her mother.

“It’s the birthday. It’s always the birthday. They used to celebrate it together. That’s why I tried to talk less, to not trigger.” Maybe it was her elder or younger sibling who said this. Maybe it was her father. Maybe they did not exist and were all imaginary.