The day was Wednesday and the sun was only thirty-three minutes away from touching its flesh-burning orange-red image to the cool blue-green body of water so vast that it could only have been an ocean and nothing else. From afar, one could believe that the tourists had all left and that the day was at an end judging from the seemingly straight and undisturbed line of the horizon. But at a closer look, one would notice two figures, one taller than the other but both so tiny that no quick-glance out the window would ever catch.

“We’re here.” the taller girl said, shaking free her long-bony fingers from the short and stubby ones of her younger sister. “Just sit here.”

And so the younger girl sat, exactly where they had stopped and exactly where her older sister’s toes had pointed and not a centimeter to the left or right of that spot, and said not a word. Not a word about whether their parents knew they had gone out, not a word about the evening-Disney movie that was going to show on television that night, not a word about the cookies on the table she had planned to eat, and not even a word about the hermit grab that had tickled and pinched her small toes.

At the age of seven, she knew enough that today was not her day, but her older sister’s day. She sat as still as the stone statues in their local park, with the only different being that she blinked and breathed while the statues did not. Her round eyes watched as her older sister walked farther ahead and began to dig in the soft and warm sand, with hands that today turned ten-years old. An age with twice the digits must mean that the person has twice the strength as they had before, that is what the little girl believed, but dare not tell anyone for fear of ridicule.

She dearly wanted to call out when the hermit crab pinched her toes, but bit her tongue and flung it off, praying to the heavens that her older sister had not seen her move. As the minutes passed and the sun had sunken so far down that only half of it could still be seen, she wanted to point out the changing colors of the ocean to her sister , who still dug at the sand with all her might, but held in the urge. Judging from her furrowed eyebrows and from the way she had held her hand on the way here, she knew that today was definitely not a day to speak when she had not been spoken to. The little girl continued to sit with her arms wrapped around her legs, staring aimlessly out at the darkening sky. Occasionally, she’d see how deep and how wide the hole had gotten, or whether her sister was still there. And thankfully, she was.

Finally, her older sister stood tall against the maroon sky and wiped away the sweat at her temples. “Come here.” she said curtly, without bothering to look back.

But the little girl heard those sharp words and shot up so quickly that she only felt the rushing feeling in her head and the tingling in her numb legs after she had made it over to her sister. She stared down at the hole, noting at its uneven nature and how it closely resembled a ramp that led into the darkest depths of the sea. The girl craned her neck back up to look at her sister, and reached out to touch her arm, but before her little hands made contact, her sister took a step back and said calmly, “Let’s play a game.”

“Ok,” she answered obediently, knowing well that this would not be a game, just like all the other times. “How do we play?”

“It’s easy for you. Just lay down in the hole.”

And so the little girl took off her pink little hat her mother bought for her at the marketplace a couple days earlier, and laid down in the hole that seemed to fit her perfectly. She remained still as her sister slowly began to pack the sand back around her small body, packing in the dirt tightly so not even an ounce of air could have stayed. But the little girl did not ask any questions and she remained calm and confident, if not in what her sister was doing then in what she so dearly believed in her young mind.

Soon, tears began to swell in her eyes and brightened them against the evening sky, reflecting what little amounts of sunlight still remained above the horizon. With each new handful of sand, a tear trickled down her rosy cheeks, but her older sister did not seem to notice. But the little girl was not expecting her to notice, and if she had, she prayed that she would continue not to care, as she had done in the past. She clearly saw the hatred that showed in her older sister’s pale face, and while she did not understand the reason why it was there, something in the back of her mind told her that it was her fault.

Yes, it was her fault. That is what the little girl truly believed, and that was the reason why she cried silently, as not to disturb her older sister even more. She believed that the certain something, was buried so deep in the back of her mind that it must have been left there from her previous life. And in this previous life, it was her that took away all the good things from her older sister. She had taken their parent’s undying love, taken her strength and confidence, her praise and limelight, and not to mention half of her room. She had known this feeling since the day she had been born, the day when her infant body was passed from the warm loving hands of her mother to the cold shaking hands of her three-year old sister. When those deep, soft eyes were replaced by a stare so dark and harsh that as an infant, she had forgotten to breathe.

So in the past years, she became the little slave of her older sister, following her wherever she went and doing whatever she was told. Despite the bite-marks on her left leg and despite her arm that had already been broken twice, she still willingly obliged to all that her older sister requested. Because since a young age, she knew she owed it to her.

Without knowing it, her older sister was finished. Only her small head stuck out of the sand, with sand packed so tightly around her neck that she could barely even turn her head.

“You wait here, I’m going to get more shovels,” her older sister told her.
“Ok,” the little girl replied, knowing quite well that once her older sister turned to leave, she would not be coming back for her. She heard her sister’s footsteps through the sand, and while each thump continued to become fainter and fainter, her heart did not race one bit.

“Wait,” the little girl finally called out, and was glad the thump of footsteps stopped. “When you get home, look under my bed. I got you something from Mr. Hurst’s stall yesterday when we lost each other. It’s not much, but it’s worth all the money I had in my piggy bank.”

There was no reply. Without warning, the thumping started again, this time faster than the last. Her sister was running, farther and farther.

The little girl smiled as she began to search the sky for the first star. “Happy birthday Erica!”, the girl called out as loud as she could, hoping that somehow her little voice could grow and ring throughout the town so her sister could hear her no matter where she ran.

Out of the corner of her eye, she watched as a baby sea turtle began to make its way toward the sea. “I guess it’s just you and me now,” she giggled softly as she felt her toes become damp underneath the thick layer of sand.

The tide was rising again.