I looked at my sister as she struggled to explain herself, then cut her off. "I'm not the brother you remember."
My sister froze, her face paling. "I'm sorry. I, I know. I just wanted to say..."
"Don't." I looked away. "I never told her any of this. About the hauntings, my supernatural abilities, how often I dealt with ghosts, how I'd saved people and killed people. I never told her. She was smart; she must have figured it out. But she never brought it up in front of me. Sometimes she knew what I was going to do and worried about me, but she never asked..."
My sister didn't say another word behind me.
Neither of us stopped walking. We made it all the way to the entrance of the apartment building.
"Go home. I'm going back to the hospital," I said.
My sister looked at me, her eyes reddening slightly. She said nothing, just lowered her head and hurried into the stairwell.
I watched her retreating figure. A dull ache welled up inside me, but it soon faded, sinking deep down, where I didn't know when it might resurface.
I didn't go back to the hospital. Instead, I hailed a cab at the entrance to the neighborhood and rode all the way to Workers and Peasants Sixth Village.
A lot had changed in this world, but a lot hadn't.
My home address was the same. Workers and Peasants Sixth Village hadn't changed, and even Building Six was still in the same place.
Standing downstairs, I could see the cracks in the apartment building's walls just by looking up.
From deeper inside the neighborhood came the sound of machinery. Before entering, I'd also seen a construction notice and a ring of warning tape. Inside the cordon, traces of asphalt