"Huh? Am I hearing a misogamist talking here? Please don't die single, girl, seriously!" my older sister said.
"Yes, I will die a virgin too!" I replied with a quirky face.
"Haha! You can't say that! Don't jump to conclusions, darling!" she giggled.
A few moments later, I started feeling super sleepy. My sister noticed and rushed to prepare a mildly hot glass of milk.
"Here you go..." she said, handing it to me.
"Are you on your way to the hospital for your duty?" I asked.
"No, I have a dentist appointment. Rest well, my baby girl..." she replied.
After checking her watch, she grabbed her sling bag and left, closing the door behind her. Only three seconds passed before she opened it again. "Remember not to buy meme coins, okay? You're not in crypto for memes."
"Yes, sis!" I replied.
I drooled while sleeping for hours until an ear-splitting ringtone woke me. My room was dark, it was already nighttime. I answered the phone.
"Yes, sister, why did you call?" I asked.
"Pat, I sent you cash allowance for two weeks. You must buy your food online so you don't get exposed to crowds," she replied.
"Thank you, but why?" I asked, confused.
"I just have an important case here at the hospital," she said, her voice choppy from poor signal.
"I don't understand. Why aren't you coming home? Don't tell me you have a COVID patient, or that you have it?" I wondered aloud.
"Don't worry, my baby girl. I'll be fine. Just keep yourself sanitized and healthy..." she replied.
Four weeks later, the unexpected happened.
My world shattered as I stood at the columbarium holding my older sister's urn. I never thought she would be cremated. After the burial rites, everyone left except me and two policemen. I couldn't stop crying, so the officers stayed beside me.
Most people think COVID-19 wasn't real. They didn't take it seriously, especially those who weren't health-conscious. They called it an over-marketed flu. But when it hits, it drops your oxygen level below 95%, then 90%, down to 80%. If it reaches below 70% on your oximeter, you start panicking. Below 30%, your body grows too feeble to hold on to life.
If you think this virus wasn't real, I hope those who died from it weren't real either!
After securing the urn, one policeman offered me a ride home, but I refused. The other asked if I had relatives to pick me up. I said my uncle would arrive in fifty minutes and showed them a fake chat from a dummy account. The officers nodded and left, reminding me to stay safe.
From now on, I would live alone. Not long ago, my sister had revealed the truth about why we had no parents. When we were little, our family was in a car accident. Our parents didn't survive. My sister and I did, but I fell into a coma from a head injury. After a week, I woke up unable to speak, just wide-eyed and silent. Our father's wealthy relative adopted us, covering hospital bills and arranging the funeral. My sister was the only one who attended and mourned; I was still in a wheelchair, traumatized and speechless.
A week after the funeral, while I was still wheelchair-bound, my sister caught our uncle trying to sexually harass me. She hit him with a baseball bat, carried me on her back through a stormy night, and rushed us to the nearest police station to file a report. With no other known relatives, the Department of Social Welfare placed us in an all-female Christian orphanage. That's where my first memories began.
My older sister was strong. She left the orphanage young, found a job while studying, and became a professional pulmonologist.
One day I asked why we had no pictures of our parents. She said she had burned them while I was still in trauma. She feared reminding me would bring back depression.
"Roaaaaar!!!!" My phone's metallic ringtone suddenly blared.
"Hello, who is this? How may I help you?" I answered an anonymous video caller.
"Your pre-orphanage history was all a lie… It was all implanted to you by a notorious criminal…" the caller replied.