“What are you doing with that?”

“What do you care?”

Cassie and I stood in the hall just staring at each other.

“Oh now it’s about us? But when I was dealing with all this bullshit last year, you wanted nothing to do with me. You needed time to ‘find yourself’ and ‘be your own person’, you had no interest in being a twin, let alone a sister.”

“You know what’s in there Claire. We locked it for a reason. Why do you want to start with this again, why do you want to ruin this day for us?”

“You know what fuck you. I only came to this stupid ‘reunion’ because you invited me and I thought you finally -”

“What are you talking about?” I interrupted her.  “You invited me.” 

“Don’t you think I’d know if I asked you to meet me? And why would I want to meet here anyways? I have always hated this place, it’s old, it’s in the middle of nowhere, and it’s been abandoned probably since 1995. You two are the ones who loved coming here.”

Her last sentence hung in the air between us. We both stared at each other as silence once again settled around us. Looking at her now and seeing how much she’s changed in the last year- and how she hasn’t- is reminding me of everything I’ve wanted to forget. It’s why all the mirrors in my house were removed or covered. 

Cassie moved first, searching her bag for something. She pulled out a small slip of paper, the border was decorated with red lace, and the message was embossed into the page. The signature however, was handwritten. 

“You’re seriously going to tell me you didn’t send this? You signed it,” she handed me the invitation. Sure enough, it was my handwriting.

“Cas, I didn’t send you this.”

“Well then who did?”

“Probably the same person who sent me this,” I pulled out a near identical invite, mine having a golden border instead of red. Cassie snatched it from me, studying it. 

“Why did they want you to bring the key? Why are they pretending to be us? What’s going on?” I could tell she was starting to panic 

“I’m sure it’s just a prank, maybe Collin is-”

“Seriously Claire? Collin? He’s an idiot and has no idea about what you did last year anyways.”

“What I did?! You’re just as guilty as I am, and you know I have proof so don’t try to start with me.” Cassie rolled her eyes but stayed quiet. “Now, can we please stop arguing and figure out what the fuck is going on?”

Cassie let out a sigh and nodded. “Good,” I reached into my pocket and pulled out the key to the attic.
“Wait, are you seriously going up there? What if this is a set up, or some kind of trap? 

“Well what else are we supposed to do? Call the cops? You know we can’t do that, and I thought you wanted to figure out what was going on?”

“I do but I can’t go up there again. Not now, not ever.” She took off walking down the hall towards the front door.

“Cassie, where are you going!”

“This whole thing was a mistake, I shouldn’t have come here. I’m going to go home and get back to my life and forget this ever happened, I suggest you do the same.” She pushed on the front door. “It won’t open. Why won’t the door open, what did you do!”

“Why do you still think I’m doing this?”

“Because there’s no one else here Claire! Now help me get this so we can be done with this!” I rolled my eyes, but began pushing on the door with her. It wouldn’t budge.

“Push harder!”

“I’m pushing as hard as I can, it won’t budge!”

“Claire I swear to g-” Cassie was interrupted by a loud crash.

“What the fuck?” Cassie and I walked back towards the attic entrance to find it hanging open, the lock was lying broken on the floor. 

“Claire,” Cassie whispered. I couldn’t move, couldn’t speak. My heart felt like it was going to burst out of my chest.

“It’s not possible,” I whispered back. 

“Well!” I closed my eyes at the sound of an all too familiar voice. “Would you look at this? I’m so glad you could both join me! After all, it is our birthday, we should spend it the way we have our whole lives! I mean you only turn 24 once, right? Although, thanks to you two, I almost didn’t” 

“Chloe, how did you…” Cassie trailed off, she sounded like she was holding back tears.

“Survive? Figure out your plan? Lure you both back here after you left me to die?”

“It’s not like that-” I started 

“Then what’s it like Claire? Are you trying to say you didn’t try to kill me?”

“It was an accident.”

“Really Cas? Is that the story you’re going with?” Chloe shifted her gaze between the two of us and placed a hand on her hip, like she was grabbing something.

“We were scared, we didn’t know what to do, you were unconscious, we didn’t-” I stopped myself. 

“No, say it Claire, tell me. You didn’t what?” I stood there for a moment before answering her. 

“We didn’t want to get in trouble.” That’s when she pulled out a gun. “Oh fuck.” 

“So you would rather leave me to die than call an ambulance and maybe get in trouble?” Cassie was crying now as Chloe went back and forth with who she pointed the gun at. “I don’t know what’s worse, you planning to kill me, or just leaving me for dead to save yourselves. Leaving your sister to fucking die on our birthday.”

“Chlo, can we please talk about this, please!” Cassie was begging between breaths. Chloe paused for a second, tears were forming in her eyes now. 

“I was going to tell you how I managed to survive, what I’ve been doing this past year while you two thought I was locked up there decaying, it really is a fascinating tale. But I don’t think you really care. You still haven’t even attempted to apologize for what you did.” She was fully crying now and her hands were shaking. 

“Chloe,” I said softly, “Why don’t you just put the gun down, and we can sit down and talk everything out. No yelling, no excuses, just talking, just the three of us.” I held my breath waiting for her response. I could see her thinking it over as she weighed her options. She took a deep breath. 

“No.”

That’s when the gun went off and everything went dark.