It was the morning after Halloween, 2012. I remember it clearly. My sister never came down from her bedroom.

The last time I saw her was the evening before Thalia disappeared. It wasn't exactly a good memory. At dinner, she had accidentally knocked over her juice. Our parents were furious. My father grabbed her by the arm and all but carried her out of the living room to punish her. I wish I could've helped her, could've made things better, so that my last memory of her wasn't so stained. But I was only eight. What could I possibly have done?

My parents were always furious with her. Never with me. As if I was the favourite child. Thalia always got the blame for everything. Even when I had been at fault.

Yet she never took that out on me. I don't remember a single time when she was angry with me. Thalia was my best friend. We used to do everything together. She would come to my room to play with me after school, I would sneak into hers at night so she could keep me safe from the monsters in our house, and I would cuddle with her when she was unwell or when she was hurt, to make her feel a little better.

And then she disappeared. All of a sudden. Without warning. As if she'd never even existed in the first place.

My parents told me she'd left. They told me she was a naughty girl and had decided to leave us all behind. She'd always been difficult. She'd always been getting herself into trouble. It wasn't that much of a stretch to think this might've simply been her next stunt.

The police looked for her, of course. My parents cried, telling everyone they'd do anything to get their daughter back. Telling everyone they'd take good care of her, give her all the help she needed, if someone would just bring her back to us.

I barely spoke at all. To anyone. I was heartbroken. My best friend. My big sister. Gone.

"Lucy! For God's sake, girl, fix your hair. And have you finished your homework yet?"

Lucy, who had just come downstairs to grab herself some breakfast, resisted the urge to glare or roll her eyes. She was 18 years old and in college. She didn't need her mother to chase her about studying. But her mother, who sat on the sofa and was painting her nails in some awful, bright red colour, liked being in control. There was no going against her if she was like this. Actually, there was no going against her, ever. "Yes, mother."

It had been the three of them for years; just Lucy, her mother and her father. She used to have a sister, a long time ago. Thalia. But after Thalia ran away, Lucy had waited fruitlessly, for years, for her to come back. She never did. Even ten years later, she still hadn't returned. Lucy had given up all hope by now. Thalia was gone. And she was never coming back.

Her parents were different since their daughter had left. It had changed them. They were a whole lot stricter with Lucy now. A whole lot less proud and enthusiastic when she did something right. A whole lot more angry and disappointed when she did something wrong. Almost as if she had taken her sister's place. As if it wasn't Thalia, but Lucy who had disappeared that day.

Before she had a chance to go to her room and grab her hairbrush, the phone rang. Old-fashioned as they were, her parents still had a landline, despite having the latest, most shiny mobile phones in their pockets as well. The landline didn't ring often, because people usually just called their cellphones nowadays, but it still worked.

"I'll get it!" said Lucy. It was probably some marketing person, anyway. She'd deal with that herself; she didn't need her mother in an even worse mood so early in the morning. "Hello?" But it wasn't a sales person. "Oh. Yeah, sure, she's right here. Mum, it's for you."

Lucy passed her mother the cordless landline and was just about to leave the living room, when a gasp sounded behind her.

Her mother sat on the sofa, her eyes wide and her face pale.

"Mum?"

For a few seconds, her mother just stared at the wall, with the phone still in her hand. Then she yelped and threw it away as if it had burned her.

"Mum, what's wrong?" Lucy rushed over and grabbed the phone from the floor. It wasn't disconnected yet. She held it to her ear and listened.

"You will pay for what you did, mother," someone snarled through the phone. "I am coming for you."

Lucy gasped for air and hung up the phone, throwing it on the table. She whirled around to face her mother, who sat on the sofa with her face buried in her hands. Nailpolish, which hadn't quite dried yet, had smeared all over her fingers. If she wasn't careful, she'd get it in her bleached hair as well, though Lucy sure as hell wasn't going to be the one pointing it out to her. "Mum, what on earth was that? Who was that? Mum!"

"Get your father in here."

"But he's already working. You know he doesn't like being --"

"Get him in here, now!"

"Yes, ma'am," Lucy muttered, before rushing off to the study to go get her dad. She knocked softly and whispered through the crack of the doorpost, "Dad? Mum's asking for you. I think something's wrong."

"I'm busy!" he bellowed back.

Lucy flinched. "I know, but... Something happened." She didn't even know how to explain this without sounding like an absolute lunatic. "Mum's really upset. She asked for you," she added again, making sure he knew this wasn't her idea.

When the door finally opened, her father glared down at her, passing her by without another word. He was a large man, though it was more fat than muscles that made him so big. There was a wrinkle above his eyes that made him look as though he was always angry. As far as Lucy could remember, it had always been there. He marched down to the living room, leaving Lucy behind. She sighed and shook her head, dawdling for a few minutes before joining her parents downstairs. If she could, she'd just stay upstairs, out of their way, but she was afraid that would only put her in more trouble, once she would finally go 7downstairs for breakfast.

"I'm telling you, John, it was her! She sounded older, but it was definitely her!" her mother screamed as she entered the living room.

Not wanting to interrupt, Lucy froze by the door.

"It can't be her, for God's sake. She's been gone for ten years!"

"She was," said her mother with trembling voice. "She was gone. But now she's back."

"Who?" Lucy asked, unable to contain her curiosity any longer. "Who's back?"

"Your sister," her mother croaked out. "Thalia."

I had trouble sleeping when I was young. I used to be scared of everything; the dark, the sounds coming from outside, the little pinprick of light on my wall of which I couldn't pinpoint where it came from. But most of all, I was afraid of the monsters.

One night, I think I was about seven years old, I found myself afraid of the shadows in my room and went into my big sister's bedroom. She would protect me. She would make me feel better. She always did.

"Thal?" I whispered through the half-dark of her nightlight. "Are you awake? I can't sleep..."

She grumbled for a bit -- I'm pretty sure I woke her up -- and then said, "Come and lie down then."

Filled with relief, I crawled into her bed and huddled up against her.

"It'll be alright, Luce," she muttered, still half asleep. "I'll keep you safe from the monsters."

We fell asleep together, but it didn't last long. Some strange dream woke me up screaming less than an hour later.

"Shh, Luce!" Thalia immediately sat upright in bed, listening for sounds from downstairs. I wasn't supposed to be here. We both knew that. When she heard nothing, she turned to look at me. "It's okay, Lucy. It was just a dream. Go back to sleep."

But I couldn't sleep. Tears filled my eyes as I lay back down. Fortunately, my sister knew me well. She felt my fear and knew exactly what to do to make me feel better. To help me sleep. She began to sing softly.

"Goodnight moon, goodnight stars."

Her favourite song. Close enough to a lullaby to lull me to sleep. It never failed to.

"Goodnight old broke down cars."

She had a beautiful voice, my sister. Like a little angel. I would forget where I was when she started singing, as her voice drew me in.

"I'm going away, I'm leaving soon,

Goodnight darlin',

Goodnight m--"

"THALIA MALLORY!"

We both shot up in bed when the bedroom door suddenly opened. It was dad.

"I thought I heard something. Why on earth are you keeping your sister awake?"

I already opened my mouth to protest, but Thalia put a hand on my arm and said, "I'm sorry, dad. She couldn't --"

"You damn well will be! Lucy, sweetheart, go to bed, okay? You will not get out of it so easily this time, Thalia, do you hear me?"

"But I couldn't --"

"Go to bed, Lucy," Thalia whispered into my ear, interrupting me.

With a heavy heart, I did as I was told. But the angry screaming behind me as I left my sister's bedroom made sure I couldn't sleep again that night.

While her father went straight back to work in his study after what he called a "prank call", her mother could only sink down on the sofa with a piece of knitting in her trembling hands. Lucy overheard her whisper to herself and decided it was better to leave her be. She grabbed one of her study books and sat down with it at the dinner table; far enough away not to disturb her mother, yet close enough in case she needed anything.

For a while, they both sat in silence, working and lost in their own thoughts. Every now and again, Lucy heard shuffling upstairs, coming from her father's study. The only other sound was the ticking of the clock and of her mother's knitting needles.

It took her back, this silence. She remembered when she was little, and Thalia would sit at the dinner table doing her homework. Lucy wasn't allowed to disturb her, so instead she sat on the sofa, playing with her dolls as her mother was knitting next to her, keeping an eye on Thalia to make sure she was working. It was the same silence. Only the sound of a pen scratching on paper was missing. In moments like this, she could almost feel her sister's presence in the house again. She could almost fool herself into believing Thalia was still here.

Crash.

Lucy jumped, as her mother shrieked. "What the hell was that?"

Her mother didn't even have time to respond when another crash sounded. It came from the windowsill this time. Lucy rushed over to see glass shards spread out all across the floor. On top of it lay the picture frame that been standing on the windowsill.

Crash. Another. This time the photograph had fallen from the wall, only to smash to pieces on the floor. Her mother screamed again, just as the fourth picture smashed to bits on the hardwood floor.

Footsteps came rushing down the stairs, but Lucy barely heard it through the sound of another picture crashing. Her father burst through the door just in time to see another one fall. He froze in the doorway.

Lucy wrapped her arms around her chest protectively, scanning the room for more pictures. There was one more on the wall and one more on top of the cabinet. Both crashed down, moving of their own accord, within moments of each other.

When her mother's screaming finally stopped, they all stood there, silently, watching the now motionless, lifeless pictures lying in a sea of glass on the floor. All of them, all of the pictures that they'd had up on the walls in the living room, had smashed to pieces. How was that possible? What was this? Another prank? But how on earth could anyone have pulled this off? They'd have to have rigged the house or something...

Her father was the first to recover. He cleared his throat and grumbled, "Let's clean up this mess."

Without a word, her mother grabbed the dustpan and sweeper and started sweeping up the glass. Her father picked out the picture frames from amongst the glass, the ones that hadn't shattered, while Lucy collected the photographs. When she came to the last one, she froze.

"Er... Mum? Have we always had this one up on the wall?" She turned the picture around to show her parents. It showed the whole family together, years ago, posing for some Christmas photo. All three of them, plus Thalia.

It had been a long time since she'd seen her sister's face in this room, even if it was only a picture. Her parents had taken out the photographs of Thalia years ago, trying to banish her out of their life. Removing her, just like she'd removed them from her life, they used to say. They acted like she was dead. Which, considering the police had never found her, wasn't entirely impossible.

Lucy had never been happy with it; she wanted to remember her sister. Wherever she was now, whatever had happened to her, she wanted to remember the good times with Thalia. But Lucy didn't have a say in the matter.

"I threw that out," her father muttered, snatching the picture from his daughter's hands. "I threw that away years ago."

Her mother gasped and grasped at her heart. "It's her!" she whispered. "I told you! Didn't I tell you? It's her!"

"It's not her, for God's sake!" bellowed her father. "She's gone. She's never coming back. This... This... Must be another prank! A stupid, Halloween prank. It must be."

"How, John?" her mother hissed. "How could someone have done this?"

"She is not back!" The lid of his right eye twitched dangerously, as the wrinkle above his eyes deepened.

Lucy stared at the exchange, barely able to breathe. She'd never seen her parents so angry with each other before. The last thing she wanted was to pull their attention to her. Even though she wanted nothing more than to ask all the questions that raced around in her head. They thought Thalia was back? Could this truly be her sister's doing?

Was she... Alive?

"Girls, get down here, now! That's the second time. I'm not calling you again!"

"We're coming, mum! We really have to go now, Luce. We'll continue next time, alright?"

"Aw, but Mr Nibbles will be sad if we leave the tea party now." I stuck out my lower lip and held out the stuffed elephant, begging for my big sister to stay here with me. I was being a brat, I knew it even at that young age, but it was a Saturday and I just wanted to play with my sister. Besides, everything was better than going downstairs, where perfection was required.

Thalia chuckled. "Mr Nibbles will have to wait. Come on, Luce, we'll get back to it as soon as we're done with the pictures."

"But I hate Christmas pictures! I like tea parties!"

"Lucy, come on, please? We'll get in trouble..."

"Alright, fine..." I grumbled, before adding, "We just have to clear everything away before we go."

"Lucy!"

"What? We can't leave a mess! Here, you take the cups, and I'll take the saucers."

Thalia shook her head, but she obliged, taking the cups off the table and bringing them over to the makeshift sink I had in my room. "Would you hurry up?" Thalia laughed when I dawdled.

"Mr Nibbles has --"

I was interrupted by the door slamming open so hard that I screamed. "What are you two still doing upstairs?" my father shouted at two cowering little girls. His face was twisted with anger, making me almost cry with fear. "Your mother has told you to come downstairs ages ago, and you're still here!"

"Sorry, daddy," I whimpered. "We were just playing."

His furious eyes slid from me to my sister. "You're the oldest. You should be the responsible one. But you never are, are you? You'd rather play than be a good example to your sister. I am not done with you, Thalia. Get your arses downstairs, now! And look happy for the picture!"

"Did we get everything?"

"I think so," Lucy answered her father meekly. "Oh, wait, there's a few more pieces of glass there, below the cabinet. Let me get the hoover."

Lucy had barely left the living room to get the hoover from the storage closet in the hall, when there was another scream. She came rushing back into the living room to find her mother huddling in a corner, whimpering with her arms folded over her head. "Do you still not believe me, John?" Her voice cracked. "Do you still think it's nothing?"

Lucy followed her gaze to the wall, near the ceiling, where a red liquid came dripping down from the corners. "Fuck. Is that...?"

"It's a prank," said her father weakly. "It must be. Tomato-juice, or something. Ketchup, maybe."

"It can't be," Lucy whispered. "Don't you smell that? That iron-y smell? It's blood, dad. Actual blood."

"It's Thalia," her mother whimpered. "Oh, God, save us."

Blood streamed down the white walls now, in large dribbles. The smell was nauseating.

"What's going on?" Lucy demanded. "Why do you think this has something to do with Thalia? Why would she do this? If she's really back, why wouldn't she just... come back?"

"Because she hates us," said her mother.

"Nonsense!" her father bellowed. "This is all nonsense! Your sister isn't back. She can't possibly be back, because she's dead!"

"You don't know that!" Lucy screamed just as loudly. She couldn't remember the last time she'd spoken to her father like this. She probably never had. But the fear of her father's wrath was drowned out by an entirely different kind of horror; dread that the last glimmer of hope for her sister's life was snuffed out. "Thalia disappeared, but she was never found. She might still be out there! What if... What if she survived? What if she really came back?"

Just then, her father gasped and stepped back, almost tripping over a chair. Wide-eyed, he stared at the wall. Where the blood dripped down, something else appeared. It was as if the blood was stopped by something, attached to the wall in certain places like glue. It formed letters. Words.

"Karma kills? What the hell does that mean?"

"That we're all doomed!" her mother screeched, wrapping her arms around her head.

"She's not back!" The vein on her father's temple throbbed so hard it nearly popped. His face had gone beet-red. "Stop saying she's back. She's not back. She's dead."

"How do you know? I thought the police never found out."

"I know because I was there, Lucy. Now stop talking and let me think!"

Lucy's jaw dropped. The drizzle of droplets on the floor and the childlike whines of her mother were the only things breaking the silence as her father, too, grasped at his head. The words seemed to burn on the wall. "What do you mean, you were there? You saw her die?"

"Shut up, Lucy."

"Mum?" If her father wouldn't answer, then maybe her mother would. She knelt down next to the whimpering woman and grabbed her arms. She trembled. Both of them did. "Mum. What is this? What does he mean, he was there? What happened?"

Her mother lifted her head and looked at her with widened eyes. "It's our fault, Lucy. It's our fault that your sister is dead."

Lucy gasped. "What? What are you talking about?" She glanced at her father, but he was just muttering to himself. "Mum, tell me! What are you talking about? What have you done?"

"It's our fault, Lucy. We killed her. She'd done something. Made a whole mess at the dinner table. We punished her. We had to! She was always out of line. You remember, don't you? But your father slipped. Swung the bat too hard. It hit her head. She was dead instantly. She was dead. She was dead." Her eyes wandered to the blood on the walls, muttering the same sentence over and over again.

Lucy's stomach turned. So Thalia had been dead all along. All those times her parents had told the police that she'd run off. All those times they'd said they didn't know where she was. That they hoped she'd come back home soon. It was all a lie. The whole thing was a lie.

Bile rose up her throat, burning her esophagus. She gasped, jumped to her feet and fled into the toilet to throw up.

Her sister had been dead this whole time. Killed with a bat.

And now, the time had come for revenge.

It was a summer day. I used to love the summer. The feel of the sun warming up my skin, getting to wear the pretty little dresses mum bought for me, playing outside all the time... But the one thing that stands out clearly from that day was the guilt. The sickening guilt, eating away at me.

"It was my fault," I whimpered to Thalia, as we walked home from school. "I took those crayons. I stole them."

"Don't tell them that," she said immediately. "Don't tell them, Luce. You'll be in trouble."

I cringed. The thought of my parents screaming at me was terrifying to me. Would they hit me, like they did Thalia? They never had before, but then they'd never been angry with me. Only ever with Thalia. "Why did you tell the teacher that you did it?" I asked. "You always take the blame. You don't have to do that."

Thalia smiled down on me. "Of course I do, Luce. I'm your sister. I just want to protect you."

"But now you'll be in trouble," I whispered.

"That's okay," said Thalia. She still smiled, but there was something else behind it. Something I didn't recognise at that age. "I can take it."

We walked the rest of the way home hand in hand. When we got there, mum was on the phone. Her eyes snapped to us as we entered the living room. They narrowed viciously on Thalia. She knew.

"Go to your room," my sister whispered to me.

"But, Thalia...!"

"Go. It'll be fine. Just go to your room. Now, Luce."

I did what I was told.

After her mother's confession, Lucy fled to her bedroom. She paced back and forth for hours, trying to calm herself down. Her big sister. Her beloved sister. Killed by her own parents.

She remembered when she used to think Thalia would come back. At first, she'd been angry that her sister had left her alone with those monsters. But the anger faded quickly, making way for a deep hole in her heart. She missed her big sister so much. Surely Thalia missed her, too? Surely she would come back?

Lucy would sit by her window, for days on end, just waiting, watching. Her parents had let her sit there, by the window, where But it had been pointless. Thalia was never coming back. She was gone. Even back then, she was already gone.

It was quiet downstairs. Lucy wondered what her parents were doing. What they were thinking. Did they regret what they'd done? Did they wish to have Thalia back, just as much as Lucy longed for her sister?

By the time she finally decided to go downstairs and check on her parents, the sun was already setting, which meant Halloween night had now truly begun. Shadows slithered along the walls, and the stairs creaked underneath her feet.

Through the six little windows in the living room door, Lucy saw her father pace around and her mother still sitting with her legs pulled up on the sofa, muttering quietly to herself. She pushed herself against the wall, hiding in the shadows, watching them. Was this regret? She hoped so. That would redeem them just a tiny bit. Perhaps they were different now. Perhaps they had changed.

"Would you shut up?" her father suddenly growled, glaring at her mother.

Her mother muttered something unintelligible.

"Bullshit!" her father exploded in response. "You should never have told that girl anything. This dumb prank will be over soon, but she won't let it go. She'll never bloody let it go."

"You shouldn't have killed her!" her mother hissed. Lucy's heart picked up. At least one of them was sorry about what happened to Thalia. At least one of them felt some regret. "Look at what you have done! She's come back. She's come back to take revenge on all of us. You've doomed us all, John!"

Oh.

No regret after all. Only fear.

Lucy's hands balled to fists and she gnashed her teeth, backing away from the door. They deserved whatever happened next. They deserved nothing more.

In the first eight years of her life, Lucy had come to hate her parents for everything they did to her sister. In the last ten years, she'd also grown to hate herself. How could she not, when her father kept calling her useless and her mother kept correcting every single little thing she did?

For a very long time, she wondered if Thalia had felt like that, too. As if the world didn't need her. Lucy's heart ached every time she thought of her sister. If only she was still here. If only she could share the pain with her.

But she wasn't. Thalia was gone. She'd been dead for ten years, and the people who had done that to her didn't even feel any regret for the lives they'd destroyed.

Another scream interrupted Lucy's thoughts. She ran back to the living room door and peered through the little windows. A gasp escaped her. Her father had backed up against the wall, staring up at the flickering lights above his head. Anger mixing with horror on his face. Her mother had crawled up off the sofa and grasped her husband's shoulders, hiding her face in his chest. He barely even seemed to notice.

That's when the music started.

"Goodnight moon, goodnight stars."

It howled through the living room, sending a chill down Lucy's spine. Even though it wasn't her voice, but the original version of the song, it was as if her sister was here. It was as if she was right there next to her. Watching their parents suffer. Watching their parents finally get what they've always deserved.

"Goodnight old broke down cars."

Their father paled at the sound of the song. Thalia's favourite song. Her lullaby for Lucy. She could see it on his face; the doubt, the wondering if his daughter was back after all. If she'd returned from the dead to get vengeance.

"I'm going away, I'm leaving soon."

"Th-Thalia?" he asked, his voice barely rising above the music. "Are you there, honey?"

Lucy scowled. How dare he call her that? After what he's done to her...

"Goodnight darlin'."

Their mother sank to her knees on the floor, below her husband's feet, and bawled. "Thalia!" she screamed. "Oh, Thalia, I'm so sorry, sweetheart! I'm so sorry! Please, forgive us!"

No, Lucy thought. It is much too late for that.

"Goodnight moon."

It was the morning after Halloween, 2022. I remember it clearly. My parents never came down from their bedroom.

The last time I saw them was the evening before they disappeared. At least, that's what I will tell everyone.

I have given them plenty of time to change their ways. They have had plenty of opportunities to become better people. Yet they've always refused. They are who they are. They always have been and they always would be, if I hadn't put an end to it.

I wonder what Thalia would think. Would she be proud of me, for finally standing up to them? Would she be grateful, for having gotten her revenge through me? Or would she be disappointed in me, for lowering myself to their standards? That is the one thing I'll ever regret about this. Becoming so much like them, in order to rid the world of their evil.

Because that's what they were. Evil. All the villains I've seen in books and films would never even come close to the monsters living in my house with me. They were devils. Thalia was the only one keeping me safe from them, always taking the blame, always directing their attention to her. Until she disappeared. After that, all they had to let out their anger on was me. And they did. God, they never stopped. I got everything Thalia had been getting for so many years. Hatred grew inside me, blowing up day by day like a balloon.

And then they disappeared. I'd been planning it for years, of course. The time had finally come, on the ten-year anniversary of my sister's death. I made them disappear as if they'd never even existed in the first place. Just like they'd done with Thalia.

Now, all that's left to do for me is pretend they ran away. The police will look for them, of course. I will cry, playing the part of the good daughter. Telling everyone I'll take good care of them, give them all the help they need, if someone would just bring them back to me.

And I will not be sad that they are gone. 

Round 4 - the final round!

Prompt: Horror. Loosely based on the picture below; the shadows of the man and woman, like monsters, representing the way Lucy sees her parents. 

Word count: 5024