Chapter One: The One With The Fake Flower

"Oh come on! Don't worry too much about it, Shang. It's been two years. There's nothing we can do anymore. I don't think there's anything we could've done from the start. We're normal people, not investigators. Don't get ahead of yourself. Unexpected things happen. Maybe, well, you know,- she really did do that to herself."

The words of Rachel, Mew's best friend since kindergarten, stung not only my ears, but the weak part of my heart too, and if I'm being honest, probably the strongest of it that I had to offer. Someone being so careless about a death, even if it is in the past, especially someone whose been close to my sister before she vanished is a different kind of pain. The carelessness, the lack of empathy, - I almost rather wish she had a secret hatred for her she exposed only now. Maybe she was right, when she's speaking with this much conviction it's hard not to waver a little bit, but I didn't want her to say so. Truly, I didn't believe her. Not someone like that. It could be suspicious if I wanted to say so.

I mean, even with time, how does someone move on? Like that person never made any impact? For me, there's been no such thing as moving on. It's more about learning to deal with the void in your chest. It doesn't get easier to carry that emptiness; you just have to without any other choice. It's not that it gets easier. It's more like a suffering you get used to. One that you start to feel you deserve. One that so forcefully weighs you down.

I didn't have the energy to argue with her, so I nodded as if I agreed, giving her an open gate that fueled her to thinking she was right. As my thumbs twiddled in anxiousness, her pride was growing up toward the sky, a seemingly happy smile painting her face. It added to my anger, but once again, I bottled it up, remaining silent, that quiet being something she didn't like. She went on, my head looking down at my hands in refusal to accept she was in front of me.

"Shang, listen. Everything happens for a reason." Rachel stood up from her mattress, dusting off her jeans, and paced around her room with her arms crossed at her ribs. Another quiet came upon us, this one making both of us disturbed and uncomfortable, but I knew she wasn't going to allow it to last for long.

That's the reason her and Mew clicked so perfectly to begin with. Mew is the quiet type, and she liked someone like Rachel to fill that in. Personally, I didn't, - there's no sin in there being silence for the most part -but she's making it the most painful I've seen. I was hoping I could change her mind into helping me find the truth. That certainly wasn't going well. Nothing went my way anymore. Not that it ever did, but it's having its fun now more than ever in granting everything but my desire.

"God needed another flower for his garden. Another angel with him up in heaven, and don't you know that when you look at a field of those petal-y things, you'd pick your favorite one first? That's exactly what God was doing. He chose her." She said firmly, the chair to her desk pulled out from underneath where she took a seat before her eyes wavered back to mine. "I know that it's not easy but you should be honored that God saw something gold in that heart of hers."

The idea flowed within me, more than the blood in my veins itself. When I hadn't lost anyone that I was deeply close to, I trusted what she said on my own without anyone having to tell me. There was nothing about it not to believe, but when you pull out one card from a house of them, the entire thing comes tumbling down, and when one thing, no matter how drastic or no-big-deal it's labeled as, everything is wiped away.

What she's saying isn't comforting at all and it doesn't make any sense. Death could never have been intended to be a privilege. Otherwise it'd be the day we were waiting for since we were born; we'd cheer for our ends to come when they were barely beginning, so we could have the chance to upgrade ourselves in a new life up above.

God is supposed to be loving, kind, considerate, compassionate, wise, and everything good, so how could it be possible that he'd dangle people out here on the planet just so he'd take them back, right when we couldn't picture our days without them and right when he knew it would hurt? That's a world of hatred, wickedness, chaos and pain; He wouldn't be behind that, would he? I'd resent him if he was. The idea of heaven is cruel if you think about it, and the idea of hell is flat-out abuse.

There has to be some sort of explanation; something we're missing, but one thing is for sure. Everything does not happen for a reason. Crap just happens and while some of it might be in our control, and though some part of that mess can be fixed, some of it simply can't. Some of it happens as it does, and there's not one thing that we could've done to have made it any different. There's absolutely no one to blame, no one to point fingers at - except this cold, dark, and aimless world held in (probably) the Devil's hands and whatever it is that made him so angry.

It could be that he knows the world that's meant to exist is coming up, and that when it does it's over for him. His time is limited so his goal is to bring as many people as down with him before we get there. I don't think it's that stupid of an assumption. The life we have now, this can't be it, can it? It's too fragile for an environment that's so careless and all over the place, and it couldn't be how we were purposed to live. After all, nothing about this is how anyone would define 'living". We're alive, and breathing, suffering our way through every minute of it, but we're far from living. Actually living.

There has to be something more, somewhere or sometime. A Paradise that I can't properly explain - that'll erase our haunted throwbacks and that'll bring back all the magnificent things that we swore we'd never let ourselves lose, but that we had to without a choice. Maybe our loved ones will come back to us then, and we'll hang around with them with a natural appreciation for the little things. The sunset, the sunrise, the countless stars, the pebbles through the water that's crystal clear. The mini umbrellas in our smoothies filled to the very tip-top. Those kind of things.

Call it far-fetched, but to me, it's not too far out there. I can imagine the feeling of arriving to that place when the time has finally come. It'd be like a hike up the top of a mountain taller than the tallest one we know. There'd be struggle, hardship and times more stressful than the others, but trudging through all of it and arriving to the top will turn every bitter into sweet. The image is absolute bliss, and it owns tranquility more than the crash of waves to a shore ever could. With Mew, we can finally catch up on all the things we've missed, together.

Yes, call it far-fetched, but it's the only thing that's keeping me sane. I'd be much more content knowing that my little sister is in a deep sleep that only God can wake her up from, than having to accept that He snatched her from me after he gave her to me in the first place, full on aware she'd become my world or that she's burning alive. If all that people see in it is a fairytale, then let me keep this fairytale. Let me believe I'll see her again, one day soon enough. Let me believe that I'm allowed to want to know how she actually left me behind, until then. Leave that part of me alone.

"I'm going to find out more about it. If you want to help me or you don't, that's up to you, but I'm going. I'm going no matter what." I insisted, and Rachel's eyes shifted. She thought she's won already when I got so lost in thought, which is nearly a given, because I've laid back for two years, but she couldn't be more incorrect this time. The more she poked at me with her side of the logic, the more my instinct was getting certain that somewhere the cops went wrong, and that Mew didn't leave the way everyone thought she did. I couldn't rest that way. Guilt was in hiding for way too long, somewhere out there and people were letting that be?

"Shang, you can't." She replied sternly, with a concerned squint, but no more followed from her for a good while. Her body was still, and it's the most stunned I've seen her in a while. If she's one of those who sincerely thinks that just because someone has passed their right endings don't have to be worried about, I'm questioning Mew's friendships. This girl is supposed to know my sister better than anyone besides the family, and none of us have felt they had to step up except me? How could she be that way? "Come on! I want what's good for Mew just as much as you do, but you know you can't! Even if you did, what can you possibly do at this point? I think this is pretty hopeless. We don't have any power to face anyone and the case closed a long time ago. What options do you have? How about that? Have you thought about that?"

"How about the fact that 730-something days have passed and we've done nothing. That's an option that shouldn't even exist! We've been living life going through the same motions, with something always feeling off. Or is that just me? Figuring this out is the only option. I love my sister, Rachel, and I know what kind of girl she is. The way she left - it's not her. It's unlike her." It's the first time I raised my voice in the last couple years now that I think about it. I've gotten pretty too myself after everything went down, but as it bottled up inside of me the cap eventually came flying right off. The mood stuck with me so much that it's because of it I stepped outside her room and shut the door too hard, leaving on my own with a few last words.

"Rachel Grace Omosura. Are you coming with me, or are you not? That's what this is coming down to."