Please Wake Up

"WHAT THE HELL IS WRONG WITH YOU!?"

Sunny wasn't used to Mari screaming at him, he didn't like it, he didn't understand.

He thought that violin, that stupid violin on the bottom of the stairs, would make him closer to Mari but all it did was just drive them further away, and now that he decided to just forget the whole stupid thing Mari was yelling at him. Didn't she get it, didn't she understand how he felt? He tried to push past her, he wanted to go to the bathroom and lock himself in it until Mari stopped yelling.

"WHERE ARE YOU GOING!" She screamed as she grabbed him.

"Leave me alone..."

Why was she doing this? Why? He tried struggling past her again.

"WE'RE NOT DONE TALKING ABOUT THIS! SUNNY!"

"I SAID FUCK OFF!" The words surprised even Sunny as he said them.

Mari was temporarily shocked by what just came out of her brothers mouth. She didn't understand what was happening, he was normally so sweet, so mild mannered, she just didn't get why he was being such a brat all of a sudden. For a moment she started to think that maybe she should just let him go, let the both of them cool off a little and then talk once they were both a little less on edge. Then Sunny began to push her...

"SUNNY!" She screamed, getting a firmer hold of him and trying to keep him in place!

"I SAID LEAVE ME ALONE!"

Again he began to try shoving her around and she just tightened her grip on him, they were practically wrestling now in the hallway. Mari began to feel herself knocking against the railing and losing her footing.

"SUNNY! STOP IT!"

And immediately after she screamed it Sunny gave one final hard push.

Mari felt herself lose her footing, but just before she fell over one of her arms grabbed Sunny's shirt and the other grabbed the stairs railing, she barely registered that she was pulling Sunny until she noticed him stumble past her and fall. For a brief moment she realized what was happening and tried tightening her grip on Sunny's shirt to keep him from tumbling down the stairs, but she just had the slightest hold on a tiny bit of his shirt and the moment Sunny's full weight pulled away from her that little bit of fabric slid right out of her fingers.

Mari stood near the top of the stairs, watching her little brother falling, striking midway up the stairs once, rolling a couple times before rising a bit, and then falling into the hardwood floor head first. Mari's heart stopped when she heard that final thump.

She just stood there, all the color drained from her body as she still clung to the railing with a vice like grip. A few seconds, then a few minutes, she stood there like she expected the next second she would jolt up out of bed to the sound of an alarm clock, but it never happened; and Sunny never made even the slightest movement or sound, the silence in the house could almost be felt.

"S-Sunny?" the words caught in her throat, coming out more as a breath than words. "Sunny?..."

Slowly her hand pried itself off the rail and she took a single step down, staring at the motionless figure. This didn't feel real, this couldn't be real, why couldn't she wake up?

"Sunny, please say something..."

Step by agonizing step she slowly descended closer to the tiny body laying in the rubble of a violin. A part of her mind knew what happened, another refused to accept it. He'd jump up as a big scary monsters, she'd jolt up out of bed, and everything would be fine. Yeah, that's how it'd happen, it was just a bad nightmare, nothing like this could ever actually happen, it just couldn't...

"Sunny?... Sunny!"

Her calls grew more and more desperate as she got closer, she was almost at the bottom and nothing had happened yet to wake her up. Why? Why wasn't anything happening. This wasn't real, this wasn't real, this wasn't real...

"Sunny, please, I'm sorry."

She knelt down beside him and put her hands on his shoulders, his small delicate shoulders, the shoulders she'd wrapped her arms around so many times, the shoulders she swore she'd always be there for whenever they needed her, the shoulders that always felt safe around her no matter what...

"S-Sunny, please wake up, please, don't..."

As tenderly as she could she turned her brother around and looked into his face, his eyes were half open but had no lucidity to them, his mouth hung open slightly but not a single breath escaped it. She just knelt there staring at his blank face.

"No... Nononononono..."

Finally that tiny barrier in her separating her mind from the reality of what she saw before her broke, this wasn't a nightmare...

"SUNNY!"

She quickly scooped the tiny boy up in her arms and held him as close to her as she could, tears streaked her face and moistened the soft hair on his head as she wailed against his head, rocking him back and forth slightly.

"SUNNY! SUNNY! I'M SORRY! I'M SO SORRY! I DIDN'T MEAN IT, I DIDN'T MEAN ANY OF IT! PLEASE WAKE UP! PLEASE WAKE UP! PLEASE WAKE UP!"

She began to practically chant out the words as she heaved and rocked, as if the words could somehow bring him back if she just screamed them loud enough, but no matter how loud she screamed or hard she sobbed the boy never moved an inch. Why, why was this happening? A recital? A stupid fucking recital?

Mari reached under Sunny's legs and shoulders and stood up with him, holding his light body close to her chest as she slowly made her way back up the stairs.

"Y-you feel cold Sunny..." Delusion began to creep into her mind again, "w-we should get you tucked into bed. That was a... That was a bad fall, you should rest..."

She reached the top of the stairs and managed to get the bedroom door open with the boy in her arms, half of her still spoke to him like he'd just bumped his head, but another half still fully understood and that half caused tears to still fall freely from her eyes no matter what she said or how she said it. Finally she walked Sunny over to his bed and lay him down in it, covering him up with the bed sheets. He just lay there, lifeless face with it's half lidded eyes stares out at nothing.

"Y-you really should get some rest Sunny," Mari said as she stared into those dead eyes, slowly reaching down and gently closing them with her fingers, one of the slid back open slightly.

Mari stood there for a few second, and then pulled up the covers and got into the bed with him. She held him close to her just like she used to when he was younger and had a bad nightmare, he was always such a scaredy cat and curling up with his big sister always helping him fall asleep when he was scared. "Don't worry Sunny, I'll keep you safe from the monsters" Mari would always use to tell him... But this time she wasn't so sure she could keep the monsters away. This time she might have been the monster.

"That's it Sunny," she had a hard time getting the words even she understood were delusional out of the lump in her throat, "just rest up, there's nothing to be worried about..."

She held his face against her neck, one arm tightly around his shoulders while the other desperately stroked his hair. She just stared over his head against the wall, lips pressed against the top of his head as she continued talking to someone she didn't want to acknowledge couldn't hear her.

"I-I'm not mad at you Sunny, you don't have to be afraid... It was just a little fight... Just a... A.... A stupid little fight."

Something in her snapped back to reality again for a brief moment.

"It was just a stupid fucking fight about a stupid fucking recital and now you're... Oh god Sunny! I'm sorry! I'm sorry! I'm sorry!..."

She repeated the mantra over and over again, gripping the boy so hard he wouldn't have been able to breath, if he could in the first place. She repeated this chanting until once again she began to slip back into the delusion that Sunny would just wake right up after this.

"I-I don't want to fight like that again Sunny, let's... Let's promise we never fight again, you don't have to do the recital, you don't have to play violin anymore... It's not worth getting into fights over something so stupid, right Sunny?..."

"Yeah, that sounds good."

Mari's stopped breathing.

Suddenly, without any warning what-so-ever, Sunny just threw the sheets off, sat up, and rubbed his neck a little with a pained expression.

"I'm gonna go take a bath, my heads all wet. Oh man I'm gonna be sore in the morning."

Mari just let out a sound from the back of her throat that sounded kinda like a squeak.

"Don't worry, I'll clean up the violin after." He said as he walked out of the bedroom

Mari lay there, her empty arms positioned as if she was still holding someone as she just stared blankly slack jawed at the wall.