My name is Alexander, and my sister was killed by a monster that doesn't exist.

My name is Alexander James, and my sister was killed by a monster that I set free.

My name is Alexander J. Miller, and my sister was killed because of me.

It was a warm summer day when she died. She was wearing her favorite white sundress, and there was a mass of frizzy blonde hair twisting into a halo around her. An avalanche of golden light poured down from the lone basement window. Each step the two of us took sent a flurry of dust into the sunbeams.

The basement hadn't been touched in months. Its supply of preserves wasn't needed during the rich summer season. Ada had never even seen the basement before, and I myself had only snuck down once or twice. The basement was off-limits to us children.

That of course was the very reason we had ventured into the basement on that fateful day. Where is a child to go after all, but to where they are forbidden?

While exploring, we were drawn to a large framed painting leaning up against the wall at the bottom of the staircase. I hadn't taken much notice of it on my previous visits. It looked too heavy to move on my own anyway, but the two of us together stood a fair chance. Sure enough, we managed to move it working together. Behind its spot sat a little door.

It was made of worn dark wood, and surrounded by an arc of neat white stone. Just right of the center, there sat a tarnished brass knob.

The more I stared at the door, the more I seemed to fall under its spell. Almost without realizing it, I reached a hand out toward the knob. My fingers brushed the metal ever so slightly, and the door threw itself into my hand. The whole thing rattled and shook violently as though something powerful was trying to force its way through.

I fell backward, and Ada yelped as she scrambled out of my way. Then just as quickly as it had started, the door stopped moving and the air settled in a thick silence.

I looked back at Ada, and she nodded despite the fear filling her eyes. As she watched me, I crept back toward the door, grabbed the knob, and threw it wide open with as much force as I could muster. There was nothing inside, absolutely nothing at all.

I spent an eternity staring into the murky darkness. Then something shot out over my head, and Ada shrieked.

I whipped around and was something scurrying away through the shadows. Then I saw Ada. She was collapsed on the floor drowning in the ocean that was her own golden hair. Her face was was unnaturally pale, her blue eyes impossibly distant and blank. I fell to her side and held her face in my hands. She was ice cold.

At that moment, my heart shattered and I think I lost a piece of my soul. My Ada, my sister, my light had been murdered in cold blood and it was all my fault. It was my idea to explore the basement, my idea to move the painting, my idea to open the door.

I grabbed my sisters cold hands and yelled and screamed for my parents until my throat burned. When my grandfather found us, he had to pry me from her corpse. Her sundress was drenched in my tears.

On that day, my world was changed forever. Never again would warm summer sunshine feel welcoming, it would only remind me of her. Never again would I see her smiling face, because she lived only in my memories. I could never even marry or have children. I was too afraid of what losing someone else I loved so much would do to me.

The thing that killed Ada also disappeared that day, though not quite as completely as my sister. I hear it sometimes at the edge of my awareness, and I see it scurrying between shadows from the corner of my eye.

The creature is made of flashing claws and gnashing jaws. Its skin is an unnaturally pale greenish hue. Its teeth are small and sharp and neat. The worst part, of course, is the eyes. They are blacker than Alaskan midnight bathed in coal-dust, and they flash and gleam as it darts from shadow to shadow.

I have moved back into my childhood home in my old age. Even now as I am close to death and writing my manifesto, I can still feel it. The creature is drawing ever nearer to me. I believe it wants to finish what it started all those years ago. Perhaps it knows that I am nearing my end.

I look forward to the day when someone discovers this story and learns of my poor, dear Ada's fate. It has been my purpose in life to ensure that she will not be forgotten, and soon I will have fulfilled that purpose.

I think I will surrender to fate soon and let the thing take me as it took my sister. It would be a fitting end, I think.