Prose: "smoke"

"Cat's in the cradle." She tilts her head, fixes glistening alive-dark eyes on those that belong to her twin, similar but not the same.

"Sis?" He trails a hand down her face gently, willing her to walk out of the muddled ash-smoke clouds of her mind, to talk to him, to -- if not be completely lucid -- at least hobble beside it.

"I never correct anyone," she blurts out in response -- of some sort. Her eyes widen, he can see the whites clear around her irises, her pupils contract and expand like a beating heart. "I can't bear it. I can't bear them being wrong. I can't STAND it--"

Her breathing is erratic, her grip around her brother's wrists tightens. "I thought everything would be okay. From now on."

His heart cracks, a hairline fracture moving with the speed of lightning across its surface, delicate and painful. "So did I, little sister."

For whatever reason, this seems to calm her. She sighs a little and leans back against the pillows her brother has propped her up against.

"Always be stopped in time. Always be mad. But...but there is solace. I feel. I see." Suddenly a beautiful, peaceful smile ripples across her face like the play of light on water. "I see for us. Now I know why I'm alive. This is why. Why I...when the dark presses in I can...I'm...it's good."

She's exhausted, but she turns gives her smile to her brother.

"World's mad. But the water flows. It's good. My family. It's good."