No one tells you that the last normal day in your life won't feel special at all. Me and Noah, racing down Briar Lane on battered bikes, hollering into the woods as our voice echoed. Briar Lane had more cracks than pavements, and still we took it like it was ours.
We were twins- not by behaviour though. He was louder, quicker with a joke, a daredevil in sneakers with holes in them. I was the quieter one, the one who held back, who thought before leaping. But when Noah led, I followed.
That morning-the last one before everything-was as ordinary as a toast. Mom was in the garden humming a random song, her gloves muddy to the wrist. Our dog, Jasper was curled on the couch, twitching in his sleep. Inside, the house was warm with the smell of breakfast and freshly brewed coffee, and the sound of the ceiling fan tapping rhythmically against the plaster.
We were eating cereal straight from the box, sitting on the floor in front of the TV. Some old cartoons crackled on the screen, half sound and half static.
"You wanna go to the Ridge?" Noah asked, not taking his eyes off the screen.
I shrugged. "Though we weren't allowed."
"That's what makes it fun!"
That was always his answer.
The Ridge sat just past Miller's Fence, hidden by thick and wild undergrowth. It wasn't a mountain, at least I won't call it that-You have climb through a broken part of the fence, push through brambles and hiks up a hill that wasn't really steep until you were carrying your bike.
Kids said it was haunted, mostly because of the way it dropped suddenly into a sharp incline. Trees leaned weird there, and everything smelled like iron but no one ever found a body or anything. Just...a place kids dared each other to go.
We went anyway.
The Ridge was slick that day. Rain had passed through the night before and left the ground spongy. Our shoes were soaked by the time we got halfway up.
"Race you to the boulder."Noah said, already sprinting.
I didn't race. I just followed, like always.
He reached the top before me and claimed the flat boulder that stuck out like a crooked tooth at the Ridge's edge. He stood on it like he owned the sky.
"Oh come one, don't be turtle now!" He called down.
I remember opening my mouth to yell back when his sneaker slid. Just a bit, it didn't look like anything first. One second he was upright and the next-he stumbled, trying to catch the edge. Missed.
There wasn't a scream, just a thud. Then nothing.
It didn't look like the kind of fall that kills someone. Not from where I was standing, but when I scrambled down and saw him, I knew he was dead.
His legs were twisted the wrong way, his neck too. His eyes were open but he wasn't looking at anything.
"NOAH" I screamed until my throat bled.
Everything after that blurred. Police, ambulance, sirens. I couldn't hear properly. I remember sitting on the steps of someone's porch, a stranger's jacket around my shoulder.
Mom arrived and started crying. Dad was on a work trip and didn't make it back in time.
Time passed and the funeral day came.
I haven't spoken a word since that day. Mom was a mess by now and the house was very cold. The funeral was small, closed casket, too quiet.
People didn't know what to say to me. I was the one who saw it. The one who didn't stop him. A few adults asked stupid questions like "Was he acting different that morning?" Or "Did he say something strange?" Like grief was a puzzle you could solve.
All I knew was Noah was gone. That was all.
After all this, the house changed. Not in a haunted way-just empty. He wasn't in his bed. His toothbrush stayed dry. His shoes didn't move in the hallway.
Mom stopped cooking for a while, mostly sitting on the porch, dark circles under eyes, smoking. She said she picked up the habit again because it gave her something to do with her hand.
She never cried in front of me.
I started sleeping in his bed, it smelled like him. Dirt and shampoo. Some mornings I woke up thinking I'd dreamt the whole thing, that he'd come barreling into the room yelling for me to get up.
But he didn't.
A few weeks after the funeral, I found one of his drawings under my bed. It was crumbled. He used to doodle studd all the time-spaceships, weird monsters, stick figures fighting each other with swords. But this one was different.
It was the Ridge.
The boulder and the trees. They were darker and twisted. The ground was cracked like something had broken through it. There were two figures, one was falling and the other hand no face.
I rushed to mom with the painting in my hand.
"Mom, look at this! Noah drew it. See it's the same way Noah fell from the edge of Ridge!" I spoke in one go without breathing.
"Honey, that's not possible. Stop day dreaming!"
Mom belived it was a coincidence. I showed her, and she blinked hard like she hadn't slept. Then she folded it up and tossed it in the trash.
That night, I found the drawing under my pillow.
I didn't put it there.
That's how it starts, right? With small things.
A missing pair of socks, a door creaking open, footsteps you hear when no one else is home.
The first time I heard someone whisper my name, I though I was dreaming.
The second time, I knew I wasn't.
It came from the hallway, just past midnight. It was a soft, familiar voice.
"Noah?" I whispered back,
Nothing.
I walked out and the hall was empty. The door to his room was open-which I knew was closed earlier.
Curiosity got the best of me and I walked inside his room. It was still like before. Michael Jackson posters, bed unmade and his sneakers lay in a corner. It felt cold, not chilly, just wrong. It felt like someone had been there. I didn't knew for sure though.
Mom started to act different too.
She talked to herself, muttering while she washed dishes or stared out of the window.
I caught her looking at the Ridge from the window once,
"It's not fair" she said.
"What's not fair mom?" I asked.
She looked at me with sleepless eyes but didn't answer.
Another time, I found her sitting on Noah's bed, holding one of his shirts. She didn't look up.
"I heard him last night," she said. "He was laughing."
I didn't know what to say.
So I just nodded, because I heard it too.
That's the worst part? That's not grief nor nightmare. It's not knowing if what your seeing or hearing is real situation.
Is it ghost?
Or is it my brain trying to fill a space that used to be full of someone I love?
No one tells you how loud silence is. Especially when it whispers back.