Pestilence

"Huh? Am I hearing a misogamist talking here? Please don't die single girl, seriously." said my older sister.

"Yes I will die a virgin too!" I replied to her.

"Haha! You can't say that! Don't jump to conclusions darling!" giggly said by my older sister.

Few moments later, I started to feel super sleepy. My older sister noticed that immediately so she rushed to prepare a mildly hot glass of milk.

"Here you go..." said my sister after bringing me a glass of milk.

"Are you on the way to the hospital for your duty?" I asked.

"No, I have an appointment with my dentist. Rest well my baby girl..." my sister replied.

After she looked at her wristwatch, she immediately picked up her sling bag then went outside of my room and closed the door. Only around 3 seconds had passed, she opened my door again and said, "Remember not to buy meme coins, ok? You're not in crypto for memes."

"Yes, sis!" I replied.

As I drool while sleeping for hours, an ear splitting ringtone of my phone woke me up. Everywhere in my room is dark because it was already nighttime. Then when I became fully conscious, I answered my phone.

"Yes sister, why did you call?" I asked.

"Pat, I sent you a cash allowance for 2 weeks. You must buy your food online so you can't get exposure to the crowd of people." my older sister replied.

"Thank you, but why?" I asked her, full of confusion.

"I just have an important case here in the hospital." my sister replied with a choppy voice because maybe my phone or hers had poor signal reception.

"I don't understand, why aren't you going back home? Don't say you have a Covid patient or you're the one who got it?" I wonderly said to my older sister.

"Don't worry my baby girl, I'll be fine. Just keep yourself sanitized and healthy..." she replied.

4 weeks later, unfortunately, the unexpected just happened.

My world just shattered as I'm standing at the columbarium while holding my older sister's urn. I never thought she would pass away cremated. After the burial rites, everyone went home except me and two policemen. I can't help myself to stop whining so the two gentlemen policemen stay beside me.

Most people think, this COVID-19 virus wasn't real. They don't take it seriously, mostly those people who are not health conscious. They think it is just an over-marketed flu, but when this thing hits you, it will saturate your oxygen level below 95%, 90% down to 80%. If it reaches below 70% at your oximeter, you'll start panicking until it drops to 30% then your body will start to become too feeble to hold your life anymore.

If you think this COVID-19 virus wasn't real, I hope those who die from it aren't real too!

After I secured my older sister's urn, the policeman asked me to give me a ride on my way home, but I refused. The other policeman asked me if I had some relatives to pick me up. I said my uncle would come for me after 50 minutes and I showed a fake conversation from a dummy account in an online chat messaging app. The fooled two policemen just nodded and they said that I must take care on my way home then they walked away.

From now on, it's time for me to live alone since my sister revealed to me not long ago the truth about why we don't have parents anymore. She said that, when we were still little kids, our family got into a car accident. Unfortunately, our parents didn't survive the crash. My older sister and I are the only ones who survive but me, I went into a coma caused by a strong impact on my head. After a week, I regained my consciousness but I am not able to talk, just wide eyes open, that's all I can do at that time. Our father's wealthy relative adopted us after covering all our hospital bills and arranging our parents' funeral. My older sister is the only one who witnessed and mourned at the funeral of our parents because I still look like a dumb, sitting speechless on the wheelchair that time.

Week had passed after our parents' funeral and I was still in a wheelchair, traumatized, and unable to talk, then an unexpected unpleasant event happened. My older sister saw our uncle attempting to sexually harass me then she immediately hit his head with a baseball bat and escaped with me while carrying me at her back in the middle of stormy night. We rushed to the nearest police station and filed a case. Luckily, since we have no other known relatives to go to, the department of social welfare sent us to an all female Christian orphanage. In that orphanage, that is where my first memories began.

My older sister was a strong woman, she immediately left the orphanage at a very young age to find a job while studying and made her way to graduate in college as a professional physician, a Pulmonologist.

One day I asked her why don't we have any picture of our parents, she said that she burned it all while I'm still in a tragic trauma. She was too afraid to make me remember our parents and about the accident because she doesn't want me to suffer from depression.

"Roaaaaar!!!!" my metallic growl ringtone suddenly rang from my phone.

"Hello, who is this? How may I help you?" I asked as I answered an anonymous caller.

"Your pre-orphanage history was all a lie… It was all implanted to you by a notorious criminal…" replied by an anonymous caller.

To be continued...