Z2012SiteFLastPatient

There is always that one person you know who has a really cool family and in the fifth grade they have the best family tree. Like for instance their great uncle starred as the scarecrow in the //Wizard of Oz// or their great grandma was best friends with the person who invented microwave popcorn. And then there are those people who have family members who are criminals. Dad’s in jail for possession of drugs and breaking and entering, Grandma just got out of prison because she has sticky fingers, Great Great Aunt LuLu was involved in the shady murder of her billionaire husband. I didn’t think I was in either camp. Turns out I’m in both. Let me begin by saying that my life started out just like everyone else’s. I was born a normal baby to a seemingly normal family. I lived in a normal house with a normal dog. I went to a normal school and had (relatively) normal friends. I had a normal, incident free childhood. Fast forward 15 years. It was a warm night. The first night of summer actually. The night that marked the end of normal in my life. My older sister Morgan, who was 16 years old at the time, and her best friend Shyer snuck out the window in my room using the fire escape latter that is kept in one of the attic spaces upstairs. They were going down to meet Shyer’s boyfriend and together the three of them were going to go down to the old, abandoned Naval Yard. My dad was a contractor and had been working on a project out there and Morgan and Shyer wanted to go and explore because they said it reminded them of the places in the horror movies they loved so much. My dad was adamantly against it when they asked him about their little trip and so they decided to sneak out and go anyways. I doubt Morgan would have told me anything except her and Shyer needed someone to cover for them in case my parents woke up or anything were to happen and because, like I said before, they left through the window in my room. Anyways the two of them slipped out my room window at about 12:30 a.m., promising to return by 3:00 long before my parents woke up. And that was the last time I saw Morgan. Shyer would later be found by my dad laying unconscious by the old Infirmary. She was alive but left with absolutely no memory of what had happened to her. Whatever transpired must have been horrific though because she has never been the same. Shortly after returning her parents found her sitting in her room, knife in hand, staring at the wall, and muttering. She has been staying in a mental hospital ever since after medicine and therapy failed to help her. I woke up at about 2:30 in the morning with a bitter taste in my mouth and my hair stuck to my face with sweat. Since Morgan and Shyer weren’t supposed to be home for another thirty minutes I went downstairs and got some cereal and a glass of water and turned on the TV. I didn’t start to worry until about 4:00. My dad would be up in a little over an hour to head out to the construction site and if my sister wasn’t back by then I would have to either tell him where they had gone or lie. At this point I wasn’t particularly worried about their safety because for one thing Morgan was always running late but also because no one ever thinks this kind of stuff will actually happen to them. Well as you might of guessed an hour rolled by and my dad got up for work. By now I was not only worried about explaining the events of the night to my parents but I was also getting a little uneasy thinking about where Morgan and Shyer actually were. Worry was starting to ebb at my brain like waves, coming in and going out as I dismissed horrible thoughts as paranoia. I couldn’t bring myself to tell my dad what I had happened and so I lied and he believed me. I told him that I had seen Morgan sneak out and go to Shyer’s house, which was right down the street from our’s and that I didn’t know anything else. He believed me and was really angry at Morgan for leaving but he left a note to my mom briefly detailing what had happened and asked her to “take care of the Morgan situation” when she got up in a couple hours. Then he left for work. About a half hour later as I was pacing back and forth in the kitchen trying to develop a plan that involved finding Morgan and Shyer, getting them back to Shyer’s house, and getting me back to my house all before my got up in an hour and a half I got the call. You know when someone or something dies and your parents or whoever sits you down to tell you but just by the look on their face and the sound of their voice when they say, “We need to talk”, you already know. Well even though I couldn’t see my dad’s face when he called the house that morning I knew something was wrong as soon as he said my name. “Emma”, he said, “ I found Shyer.” Later I would overhear police talking about that my dad discovered Shyer hands bound, mouth gagged, and sitting unconscious in a chair in one of the back rooms of the Infirmary. But besides a bump on her head there she was left with no physical evidence of the ordeal. Of course the effects on her mental health was much worse. I forget the rest of the conversation I had with my dad. In fact the whole rest of the day was kind of a blur. I vaguely recall my dad coming home and breaking the news to my mother, police coming in and out asking for information and pictures, and a lot of worried faces pulling me in for hugs that I didn’t want. The next thing I really remember was opening the door to find a slight woman with sharp, angular features. She might have been considered beautiful once upon a time but time had taken its toll, eating away at the softness in her features and etching lines in her face. I probably wouldn’t have recognized her if not for her eyes. They were grey-green, the color of the sea before a storm. And they looked dangerous despite the smile that was pasted on her thin lips. It was my grandma.