I opened one eye as the welcome drizzle unexpectedly turned into a downpour. Groaning, I rolled onto my side and pulled my dark hood over my head.

The new, wet earth was just starting to smell like dirt. Until now, it had smelled like flesh. Rotting flesh. It was not pleasant, and neither was the sudden rainstorm, but both could be tolerated.

Recently, anything trivial could be ignored and forgotten. I had much more important things on my mind.

Absentmindedly, my hand reached up to stroke the new, cold marble. My fingers traced the inscription:









Alissa Marie Clarke

Once again, my still heart clenched at thinking her name. Poor Alis. My dear, dear Alis was buried seven feet beneath where I lay, stuck in a quickly decomposing casket. And yet, how I longed to be there with her.

If I could only hold her small, fragile hand once more…

I remember quite clearly the day she died. She had been sick for a long time, of course, but that didn’t lessen the stabbing agony that Death brought to my life.

Alice had been bed ridden for two weeks prior to her death. Every day, she would stare out the window, her already weakened mind somewhere else entirely. Just as I stayed by her grave, I never moved more than a few feet from her bed.

I believe she took comfort in my closeness, knowing she was not alone and unloved as she drifted away. I wasn’t the only one to hold her hand in the last few days, though. Our parents were, of course, always near by, ready to walk through a hale storm if Alice asked it of them. I was the only one who didn’t leave her room. Humans must be humans, and food and sleep were things even they could not go without.

But I am not human, so there was nothing to occupy my time and thoughts but my Alice.

If I could cry, I would have shed more tears the day she died than one hundred humans could put together. My grief was so absolute that I thought even my immortal body would succumb.

I sat in a completely catatonic state during the three days between Alice’s death and funeral. My eyes never moved from her peaceful face. It was only when they came to put her body in the coffin did I awake from my “slumber.” Truly, I threw a horrible fit and almost lost my self-control. It made my mother cry harder than I’m sure she ever did in her entire life, and my father was barely able to contain himself before he left the room. The doctor, pastor, and workers who had all come to carry my sister away stared at me as if I were the Devil himself.

After that, I did not leave the coffin. I walked next to it as it was carried to the funeral, against my parents’ wishes and pleas, and I have not since left the graveyard.

It has been two weeks since the funeral.

During this time, I have had the extreme displeasure of being quite alone with my own head. I quickly came to realize that there was only one place I would ever want to be, and that was next to my sister. Dead. However, I did not doubt that Death would bring me no consolation, for while Alice was assuredly destined to Heaven, I knew that if Death could ever claim me, I would find my home far below the touch of any angel. Like the rest of my kind, I am a monster. Truly I am.

In my time alone with my sister’s remains, I had also come to convince myself that her death was my fault. While she had always been frail, Alice did not become ill until I became the being that I am. It was two years ago…