The night that it took place was a few weeks after my sixteenth birthday. The anniversary of the incident. The shadows looming around the corners. A face in the window one minute, gone the next. My father said I was crazy, he blames me for what happened. My mother thought it was my imagination. I knew the truth, that someone was out there watching me.

The first time he visited me was a week before the day he died. My parents going out for a date night. It was a half-baked plan to try and fix a marriage that has been crumbling for years. Ever since the accident my father has despised me. He blames me. That’s okay because I know he’s wrong. I didn’t do it. My mother tells him that I am still a child that I need love. She still cares even if she’s dying inside now that he’s gone. My mother walked down stairs in a black dress that made her feel twenty years younger, like a time where she was prom queen wasn’t too far gone. Yet years of raising children has caused her hour glass figure to inflate and become disfigured. Her eyes sunken and darkened. Not to mention, constantly lying wears a person down, my mother has not meant an “I love you” to my father in years. Soon behind her my father followed, nothing is striking about how he looks tonight - the only difference is he has a simple dress shirt in place of the usual stuffy suit. He wears the same disappointed frown he always wears. It’s tight, the wrinkles on either side of his face deep and unmoving. My parents leave with a rushed “good bye and behave” as an afterthought.

The noises started around half an hour after my parents left. At first it was just a few taps, like the wind pushing the branch into the window. Nothing to worry about. The tapping continued and soon became deafening. When I could no longer take it I threw up the window into the frame and reached through it. I took the rough bark of the branch into my hand and twisted until it came off. Not ten minutes later, the tapping became a screeching. It was as if someone had put an old fashion chalk board right next to my ear and began to run their fingernails up and down it. Soon, all of the noise became too much for me. When my parents finally arrive back home, my mother wraps her arms around me, shushing me telling me it is all okay. At first I am confused, I try to tell her I’m not making any noise at all. It’s all the tree outside, then I realize that I’m screaming trying to drown out the terrible sound. When I finally calmed down my throat hurt from screaming. I knew it was him. He was coming back for me.

The tapping kept him satisfied for a few days. Then he started to show his face. It was late. I don’t know how late, late enough for both of my parents to be asleep and the moon to be high in the sky. I woke up for some reason I’m still not sure of. My lamp, which I slept with on ever since the incident, was still casting a yellow glow over the room. I got up to check the window. Maybe the tree is back? The floor is cold under my feet causing me to shiver. Carefully I pad over to the window frame and look out it resting my hands on the edge. A sick feeling washed over my body. The closer I stepped to the window, the more I felt my stomach turn. Somehow I felt like looking out of this window will put me in a dark hole. The sick feeling intensified. A little voice in the back of my head kept whispering to me that this was a bad idea. Without warning, a black shadow jumped in front of my face causing me to jump banging my head on the glass of the window. When I finally found my balance and could breathe, I looked again only to find it was the neighborhood stray cat jumped from my tree to my yard. I laugh at myself. I know I’m being ridiculous, he wouldn’t hurt me. I went back to bed. In the mirror that sits on top of my dresser and in front of my bed, I see him. Hair disheveled, skin torn on his torso where the train ripped through him. His face pale and spattered with blood. The blood was dark and fresh even though the accident happened years ago. He fell into the tracks when I was six. “Come with me” he whispered holding out a hand covered in blood with dirt under his nails. My breath caught, filling my chest like a balloon. This isn’t real. Maybe my father is right? This can’t be real! I ran back to bed hiding under the heavy comforter like this was a nightmare and I was waiting for my mother, like he use to do when we were young and he needed mother. It had to be a full twenty minutes before I uncovered my head. When I did, my hands were just as sweaty as before and my breathing just as shallow as the first time I saw him sitting casually in my mirror. This time there is a silver blade in his hand. “Don’t you miss me?” He begs, stretching his arm farther.

I take the knife. He disappears. Everything disappears.

My mother brought me home from the hospital, even though all my father said to her was “this was all her fault” and “this is why he’s gone, Susan.” The first thing I did was cover my mirror. That didn’t stop him - he began to show up in other places like the hall or under my bed. I even tried shattering mirrors. It didn’t help, he was always there. I could still see his face in pieces trough the broken shards his once green eyes full of life, now white and judging, stare at me as if into my soul.

One night I think my parents denying the fact he was still here became too much. I mean tonight is fitting. It is the anniversary. We had just finished dinner and we were in the living room watching television. We heard a bang come from the kitchen. My father got up from his seat on the old, worn brown arm chair to investigate. I trailed behind silently. My heart pounding, I could barely breathe, I knew it was him. As we took each step closer the more I knew it was him the blood leading from the hall to the kitchen was enough to tell. It was unnerving. I didn’t know what he would do, he was so angry. Once in the door way dad tried to turn the light on with no avail, using the flashlight on his phone he checked out the scene. There was broken glass on the floor and the knife block was laying on the ground. I tugged on my dad’s sleeve “we should go back” I told him. But he didn’t listen. He just asked what I was doing and continued into the kitchen. “What are you doing? Why are you walking through the glass with bare feet?” My dad questioned him. He said nothing, he simply kept advancing toward my father raising the knife in his hand. It was the same one he gave me. Before father said anything else, the knife was slicing cleanly through his neck. It was like it was going through butter. The blood splattered across his face. Making me flinch. I wanted to scream. My whole body ached for me to reach out and stop the bleeding. But I can’t. What scares me the most is he is now moving to where our mother sits. After a few more minutes, I finally convince my legs to carry me to the next horrific scene.

“Please, I love you so much darling” she cried, “no, don’t do this” tears soaked her face. She started to walk back but fell. That did not stop her, she continued to scramble backwards until she met the couch. Her hands gripping the cushions with fear in her eyes. They darted between me and him expecting one of us to do something. Me to save her. Him to finish her. He advanced slowly as if drawing this out. He was focused, dazed even. He kept his eyes forward and the knife high, ignoring the crimson blood dripping down it. Then in quick movements, unlike the limp he was originally walking toward her with, he sliced our mother’s throat just like our father's. He turned to me, our parents' and his blood mixed dripping down his face into his cheshire grin. He slowly turned to me keeping the knife raised. “We can be together now” he whispered. I smiled, I finally had him back. We really could be together. I was at peace I finally had my baby brother back. I grabbed his hand letting him lead me away. That’s the last thing I remember.

…

“Now Jayla-May, you need to come to terms with what happened. And stop telling this story it isn’t true,” the doctor sighed, setting his glasses on the table. “You need to tell the truth, you pushed your brother on to those tracks and killed your parents. You were found with the knife in your hand! You started killing at a very young age and you have now become very mentally ill.”

I smirked knowing his fate and told him the one truth I knew.

“I think you’re crazier than me. I can see him behind you now.”