should've stopped beating

He died because of me. I was the Leopard that killed my brother. He derived from God's path of good and bit into evil's apple. And now he doesn't exist. The nights after he died I couldn't stop thinking about how I was that leopard. Satan's snake sent from his depths of the dead to polymorph into my brother's killer. I was that leopard. I was that sword that did him oh so poorly. The weakness that controlled his body in his last moments, the plant that he fought. I was every single demon that he faced in the arena because I was his demon. I was hell while he was heaven.

Heaven's rays of golden sunlight would never be able to penetrate the dark hadalpelagic zone of Hell. It would never live in that darkness. Darkness was light and light was darkness when light showed your demons. I lived through the arena because just like me, it was hell. It was demonic. I was a light in a sea of sunlight and a drop of water in a wave of the tides. I blended in with it because I was hell.

The amount of guilt I felt filled me with every closing of my eyes, gulp of water, the every bump-bump that caused my blood to keep flowing. I did not deserve to be alive. I shouldn't be. It was like I had just exited the 80th again because I truly did not deserve to be alive. He should be. I should've died when that knife hit my eye because I died. My cannon shot. My body hit the ground. That should've been my end. It wasn't. Because hell is one hell of a present for those who already had it. Heaven never had Hell.

When Angel's death finally severed itself from my mind, I did everything we used to do. I'd sit on the bed and talk to the picture of him I had taped on the wall. He was truly an angel in heaven now, he was fulfilling my purpose. Standing above me and watching over me. I sure as hell hoped so at least; God was the only thing that he knew as a child. I'd talk to him about how our family sucks, and I hate them for it. I'd tell him how I wished I hadn't got up and left the house because I should have been there for him. I should've been that sister to support him. Because everyone deserves a chance to tell their story, and maybe if I stayed, we'd get to tell our own.

I spent a lot of time looking at the painting he made for me as a child. He used to love art. He was obsessed with it. He loved the idea of making an image come to life on a small piece of parchment, paper. He loved that art really could be life. He loved life, and how it was an art. Angel found beauty in everything, in death and in life. In the passing of a new withering winter and the rising soultiring summer. That all was art for him, because in his mind, we all were God's art. The painting he made for me was rather simple because he was still a child; it was the devil's pitchfork being crowned with light from above. Complete darkness everywhere besides that single, bright red pitchfork. Angel gave it to me because at that time, he was still being told that I was the devil.

"The light will find you."

Inspirational, I know.

It's been roughly a month or so since he died. Vecepia left and I was alone because I was too damn sad for her to handle. So I've just been burrowing in my emotional distress hoping that I could shut the fuck up about Angel for once. I never was close to him; so why did it matter?

because you're the reason why he is.

District Twelve never failed to lighten the mood because of how truly depressing of a scene it always was outside. Nobody was ever happy in their right damn mind, so I always stayed inside. At least for now. With Vecepia gone I had to get off my ass and find a job or I'd be homeless; no way I'd be able to step foot into my parents' home again. But for now, I'd stay inside my depressed state of a home. Maybe three pieces of furniture, a shitty furnace. It was nothing fun. But it was nothing anyway, who would ever pay me a vis-

Tap. Huh?

Taptap. Who the hell would be at the door?

I hobbled on over and opened it to find the other zombie of the district. Carter. What the hell did he want?

"Uh.."

Jesus, Hellion. Do you not know how to talk anymore?

"Hi?"