Sister or Unicorn?

I spent the next few minutes watching the first episode, then the second one, then the third. Washing the entire night away just watching episode after episode, looking as my "Sister" had all sorts of adventures with her friends. I couldn't help but think about the past as I watched. Drifting away as I continued to watch another episode.

I was just four when it happened, barely could even remember living without her in my life.

My parents liked taking walks and dragging me with them. We lived in the country, my father was a game designer, head of a major company. With the increasing powers of the internet however, he didn’t have to leave his home to work. And this made his life with me and mom easier. In fact with all the money he was making, mom didn’t even have to work. Life was good.

I didn’t have very many friends at the time however. If anything my parents are definitely socially awkward. Not that I’m much different. Perhaps it was their tastes in media. Perhaps the way they were more honest with others. It didn’t matter to them though. They had each other, they had me. And one fateful morning they had a lavender unicorn as well. And boy I was pretty happy about it as well.

It was morning when we found her; the morning dew glistened in the rising sun. We lived near the woods, so some of the trees were blocking the sun’s rays. I didn't mind, it just made everything feel cooler, and to this day i still prefer cold to hot. I took off my shoes so I could feel the dew rub off onto my feet as we walked.

We had a trail by our house, a simple dirt road, my father made it himself, didn’t take much work clearing out the vines to make a clear pathway.

We were more than halfway through it when I heard a sniffle. My parents were too busy talking to notice, but I hardly paid attention to them at that age. I was curious, so I walked over in the direction of the sound. Making sure to watch where i stepped so i didn't end up tripping or stubbing my toes.

Upon walking off the trail I saw a dark purple figure near a tree. My parents noticed I had wandered off so they started to call out for me telling me to come back to them. The sound caused the figure to shuffle more behind the tree out of sight, by now my curiosity was peaked; I wanted to find out what it was. I thought it was a cat or something, so instead of jumping out I eased my way towards the other side of the tree. And that’s when I first saw her.

She was small, especially when she was curled up like she was. Almost as tall as a small dog, and shivering like crazy. Twilight was laying on a small little clearing of grass, her hair was messed up and a branch was sticking out of it. Her eyes were prancing about in fear, full of tears, searching all around her for possible threats, which was at the moment everything. She made a loud squeal and jumped upright when she laid those fearful eyes upon me. I wasn’t about to give up however so I stepped out and slowly approached her.

Every step I took towards her she backed up five more, constantly shuffling her way backwards to get away from the horrible monstrosity she saw before her. Even at such a young age I could see the terror in her eyes. So I did the natural thing. I stopped and getting on my knees, held out my hand to her.

She stopped as well, looking at me with a confused look on her face, but still full of terror. Unsure whether she should turn around and run, or risk staying a little longer. Finally she braved up enough to take a step towards me, then another, finally she had come right up to my body and stared at me, and then at my hand.

Slowly I made my move, rotating my hand and slightly easing it to stroke her mane. She flinched at first of course. But I was used to that, I had similar experiences with other animals particularly cats as we had five at the time. I removed the twig from her mane, which she liked immensely. Before long she had started to rub her head against the palm of my hand, before tackling me to the ground and clinging to me trying to get warm.

I laid there stroking her softly as we huddled there, until we both looked up and saw my father’s face, filled with shock and disbelief, and as pale as the moon.