Dimitri
Mozog
I watched the pyre of Sofiya, Valeralyn and Vladimir burn in front of me.
Nikolai had given a long as speech, a lot like the one he gave in Imporia but I couldn’t even comprehend it.
All I could see was the dead body of my baby sister. And Vladimir. And their daughter. Sofiya’s entire body was charred. Her usual light skin tone was now a horrid blackish red. I didn’t see blood but I knew it was there earlier. Someone must’ve cleaned them. Her long blonde hair, the little that were left, had lost all its usual shine and had turned black. And Valeralyn, that little thing, wasn’t even able to open her eyes before she had to close them. Forever. Vladimir had a whole in the middle of his stomach. I was sure he had impaled himself with a wooden stake.
The fire slowly began obstructing my vision of them as it covered the entire pyre.
“Dimitri,” Mikhail stepped up beside me, placing his hand around my shoulder.
I couldn’t find my voice to say anything to him. And for the first time, I didn’t feel the urge to fill up silence with silly words, to make everyone smile and laugh, to make everything okay again.
Nothing about this was okay. Nothing was the same, it never will be.
Javier was gone. Sofiya was gone. So were Valeralyn and Vladimir.
There was a hole in my chest that would always be empty. It felt like someone had shattered my heart and tried to tape the broken pieces together. And a Sofiya-shaped piece was lost in oblivion. Never to be found. And no matter how much I tried, I would always feel that void. Not that I wanted to even try to fill it. I would rather miss her every second of my life than even try to forget about my baby sister.
“… going to be okay.” He was saying something but his words didn’t seem to pass through my ears.
“D, I can’t sleep,” Sofiya used to come in my bedroom every night till she was almost twelve.
She hadn’t been able to say my name till she was almost six. And ever since our parents left us at Viktoria’s, because they couldn’t be bothered to look after two kids, Sofiya constantly needed to be reassured that I wasn’t leaving as well. They had come into Viktoria’s house, asking for a place to stay for the night. And they had disappeared before sunrise, leaving us with nothing but each other. That had made Sof fearful of the night.
“Come in,” I always said, “I’ll tell you a story.” And then I would make up the most random story that popped in my mind and add my twist to it. It always made her giggle and laugh out loud, which was all I had ever wanted.
“There once used to live a handsome mosquito,” I started.
“A handsome mosquito?” She laughed.
“Of course, why not? And he was in love with a leech.” I said and she looked amused.
“A mosquito can’t be in love with a leech, silly!” She rolled her eyes, still giggling.
“In Dimitri’s world, it can! So he asked her to be his girlfriend one day. And the leech said that she can’t because she’s dying.”
“Why is she dying?” Sof’s eyes widened.
“That’s exactly what the mosquito asked!” I exclaimed. “Then the leech replied that she needed blood to survive but wasn’t able to find a human to feed from. And then she added that she’s starving, so if she didn’t have blood soon, she’ll die.”
“So then the mosquito said, don’t worry, I feed off from human blood too. I’ll bit one and transfer that blood into your body!” Sofiya scrunched her nose in disgust, surely imagining it.
I controlled my laughter at the ridiculous story I had created. “The mosquito then flew away in search of a human.”
“And that’s when he found the most handsome boy he had ever seen in this whole world, with the biggest muscles and sweetest blood-me!” I grinned.
Sofiya laughed, slapping my arm playfully, “I knew it!” I usually found a way to add myself in any story.
“So he settled on my bicep,” I said and pointed at my arm which had no muscles, considering I was only nine. But I still flexed the little I had and grinned at my sister, showing off. “And when I saw that the mosquito was feed off of me, I got angry! Because first of all, he didn’t tell me he wanted to sit on me, he didn’t ask permission to take my blood and he was hurting me.” I huffed. “That was extremely rude of him.”
Sofiya rolled her eyes again but let me go on.
“So I flexed my muscles like this,” I flexed them again, “and so much blood got pumped into his body that it burst. All his blood-my blood got splattered over my arm like a glob!” I grinned.
“Ugh! That’s so yuck!” She cringed.
“Well I washed my arm later.” I rolled my eyes. “So the mosquito was obviously dead. And the leech soon died too. The end.”
“What kind of story is that?” She groaned.
“An awesome one? It teaches you to not prank me and mess with me. Or else these muscles will cause you a lot of trouble.” I grinned.
“Oh I’m so scared!” She said with a straight face.
And so naturally, I began tickling her, making her burst into fits of laughter and her begging me to let her go. Which I did, after I was satisfied with her level of suffering.
We slept together that night like we did every time she came to my room. But the reason this memory was my favourite one was because the next day, Mom had spotted multiple mosquito bites on Sofiya, too many to not be concerned. And she refused to use a mosquito repellent for quite a while after that.
Because in her little mind, she thought she was saving the lives of many mosquitos and leeches. And as dumb as that was, in that exact moment, I had realised that my baby sister will grow up to become a beautiful person, inside and out. It was a perfect example of Sofiya’s innate goodness, her undying love for those whom she cared about.
And now, she was gone from this world. Forever. Taking all the goodness along with her. She was the light of my life, the one to slap some sense into me, the one to guide me, the one to love me unconditionally, to care for me.