For most people, Christmas is a time of joy, a long-awaited reprieve from the daily

grind of life.

It is where families huddle around crackling log fires in the most gleefully tacky sweaters and tearing open the bright presents hoarded away under the blinking

lights of the Christmas tree. It used to be like that for us. But for the last decade, it's brought nothing but fear.

My sister still refuses to talk about it.

Every time I tried to bring it up, her jaw tightens and she retreat out of the room.

I don't blame her at all.

But that night has weighed on my mind for years, like a ball on the end of a dragging

chain.

I need to tell someone. like a ball on the end of a dragging chain.

I need to tell someone about it.

It was Christmas Eve, and I was already lost the dreams,

exhausted by my own ardent anticipation throughout the day for the morning

after, fuelled by copious amounts of sugar and cartoons.

Through the mental veil, a faint voice chimed through. At first I took it to be part of my dream landscape, but it repeated itself,

becoming clearer until I realized it was my own name.

Anthony It was my own name. Anthony.

A tiny figure hovered in the distance, flickering within my vision mirage-like.

It was followed by a sudden grown tightness in the center of my chest, compressing my breath.

I was compelled to stagger towards the shattered stranger, a hand clutched to my wheezing

chest.

Anthony.

...