Identical Faces

1 When I was eight years old, I made a deal with a demon. I traded away my own lifespan to save my sister, who was dying of leukemia. But nobody knew. My parents always told me that Vivian's days on earth were numbered. They told me I had to love her, protect her, and make sure she lived without a single regret. "Hope, Vivian loves both of these plushies. Just let her have them. Dad will buy you something else next time." "Hope, Vivian... she really likes William too. Can you just... step aside for her?" "Hope, your sister is literally dying. Why are you still fighting with her?" Toys. My parents' affection. The love of my life. I surrendered everything to Vivian for my entire life. They always told me I had plenty of time left. They promised that after Vivian passed away, they would spend the rest of their lives making it up to me. But I did not have much time left either. At the age of thirty-two, my sister passed away on her hospital bed with a peaceful smile on her face. She left this world with zero regrets. At that exact same moment, huddled on a freezing bench in the corner of the hospital courtyard, my breathing quietly came to a stop. "...William, Vivian's body is rejecting the new experimental drugs. She threw up the oatmeal the second she swallowed it." My mother's frantic voice echoed through the phone speaker. William immediately understood. "I will be right there." I sat at the dining table, watching him abruptly stand up and grab his winter coat. Whenever Vivian was in pain, she cried for our dad, she cried for our mom, and she cried for my boyfriend. She never cried for me. At first, when my mother wanted William to visit, she would call me to ask him. But somewhere along the line, they completely bypassed me, the useless middleman, and started contacting him directly. "Do you really have to go?" I asked softly. William paused at the front door. His tone grew heavy. "Hope, your sister is in critical condition. Try to be a little more mature about this." Perhaps realizing his words were too harsh, his voice softened. "Just be a good girl. Once... once all of this is over, I promise I will stay by your side and make it up to you." The front door clicked shut. I stared at the cooling dinner on the table and sat in absolute silence for a long time. Then, I pulled out my phone and tapped into a very familiar livestream channel. Vivian's radiant, smiling face popped onto the screen. "Ta-da! Welcome to day twelve thousand and nine of Vivian kicking cancer's butt! I ate eight meals today, but I am still starving because I threw up seven of them! Haha!" Vivian looked deathly pale, but her spirit was incredibly vibrant. She wore a knit beanie, with faint patches of thin hair peeking out from the edges. She was happily sharing her daily updates with her thousands of followers. My parents sat on either side of her, looking at her with nothing but absolute, tender devotion. The live chat was moving at lightspeed. "Keep fighting, Vivian! You are going to beat this!" "Omg, I am crying. Her parents' love is the best medicine!" "I am fighting cancer too, and seeing your positivity every day seriously makes my pain go away." "Wait, the whole family is on screen today. Does that mean the person holding the camera is the boyfriend?" Right on cue, Vivian looked up and reached her hand toward the camera with a brilliant smile. "Come here, William. The tripod is stable. You do not need to hold it." William's tall frame stepped into the frame. He indulgently offered her his hand, letting Vivian pull him into a hug and playfully shake his arm like a spoiled child. The chat exploded with hearts. "Ahhh! No wonder she is so happy today, her eyes are literally sparkling! The boyfriend is visiting!" "William is such a simp for her! He looks so professional and serious, but he lets her completely mess with him. They are totally couple goals!" Vivian's smile deepened. Through the digital screen, our eyes met. I was watching. And she knew it. She always knew. Vivian and I were twins. But I was born perfectly healthy, screaming at the top of my lungs, while Vivian was sickly and frail, as tiny as a stray kitten. When we were barely a month old, she was diagnosed with leukemia. Unfortunately, we were fraternal twins. My bone marrow was not a match. From that day on, my parents poured every ounce of their soul and attention into Vivian. They named me Hope, meaning I was supposed to hope and pray for my sister's survival. They named her Vivian, hoping she would be full of vibrant life. They told me my sole purpose was to pray for her health, while Vivian's only job was to survive. I was just a babbling infant chewing on my fingers. I had no idea I was carrying such a crushing burden from the moment I took my first breath. Growing up, I had to yield to Vivian in every single aspect of life. Just like my name, I existed entirely for her sake. When relatives brought gifts for twins, they usually bought two identical toys to prevent fighting. But my parents always bought two different ones and let Vivian pick first. I only got whatever she rejected. If she liked both, I got absolutely nothing. When we started elementary school, my parents practically begged the principal to put us in the same class so I could act as her personal caretaker. My backpack was stuffed with her pill bottles and thermos, leaving barely any room for my own books. My mother would kneel down and lecture me sternly. "Keep a close eye on your sister. Do not let her run or jump. If any nasty boys try to bully her, you have to protect her." I wanted to tell her that no one would ever bully Vivian. The teachers told the whole class that Vivian was very sick and needed to be treated like glass. The other parents sighed and talked about how pitiful the poor, beautiful girl was. Vivian instantly became the precious princess of the entire school. During recess, kids crowded around her desk, racking their brains to make the fragile, pretty girl laugh. And they quickly figured out that Vivian only smiled her brightest when I was being humiliated. So, my water bottle was suddenly filled with chalk dust. My textbooks and uniform were stained with permanent ink. My desk drawer magically spawned dead bugs and rotting garbage. My mother would aggressively shove my ruined clothes into the washing machine. "Hope, you are a little girl! Why are you always so filthy? You are nothing like your sister. She is so clean and elegant." Tears welled up in my eyes. "Mom, the kids at school are bullying me." My mother frowned and turned to Vivian. "Vivian, is that true?" Vivian held up a sparkly hair clip a boy had just gifted her, blinking in innocent surprise. "No way! Everyone at school is so nice!" My mother slapped my shoulder. "Liar! If you keep making up stories for attention, you are not getting any presents next time!" I felt so incredibly wronged. I had not received a new present in years. Every time Dad brought something home, Vivian would look at it with wide, hesitant eyes, touching everything, unable to let anything go. And Dad would always say, "Hope, just let Vivian have it. Dad will buy you something else next time." But "next time" never came. The bullying at school, my mother's absolute distrust, my father's neglect, and Vivian's quiet tyranny left me sobbing into my pillow night after night. One day, exhausted and with swollen eyes, I accidentally handed my water bottle to Vivian. I did not know some boys had dumped crushed chalk into it again. Vivian took a sip, started coughing violently, and was rushed to the hospital. My mother, eyes red with fury, slapped me so hard my ears rang. "Hope! Just because your sister refused to cover up your lies, you actually tried to kill her!" I cried hysterically. "I did not put that in there! I swear it was an accident!" Nobody listened to my defense. My parents hovered over Vivian's hospital bed, showering her with frantic affection. Through the gap between my parents' shoulders, Vivian looked at my tear-streaked face. She smiled brilliantly, but her eyes were swirling with dark, concentrated hatred. She hated me. And that hatred peaked when we were eight years old. When we were eight, Vivian's cancer relapsed aggressively. The doctors pulled my parents into the hallway and told them she would likely not live to see eighteen. While my parents sobbed outside, Vivian lay on the bed, weak and feverish, and whispered, "Hope, I want to live." My heart ached. She was my sister. I wanted her to live too. Right at that moment, a man materialized in the center of the hospital room. His lips and eyes were stained pitch black, and massive bat-like wings folded behind his back. He introduced himself as a demon. He asked if I was willing to share my lifespan with my sister. Vivian's eyes shot wide open. She stared at me, desperate and begging. I glared at the creature defensively. "The books say demons are evil!" The demon simply raised a brow, amused, but remained silent. Vivian panicked. She dragged her frail body out of the hospital bed, hyperventilating as she wildly clawed at my clothes. "Stop making excuses! You just do not want to save me!" "I want to live! Why won't you save me?!" She cried so violently that the emotional overload caused her to pass out entirely. I was terrified. Watching her lips turn blue and her skin fade to a deathly gray, panic completely consumed me. The demon chuckled softly. "Oh my, what a tragedy. She is dying right now. She will not even make it to eighteen." I was so scared. I was scared the demon was tricking me and would eat my soul. I was scared of what would happen to me if my lifespan was ripped away. I was scared that if my sister died right in front of me, my parents would blame me forever. But mostly, I was terrified of watching my own twin sister die. She still wanted to see the flower fields. She still wanted to sing in the school talent show. So, I said yes to the demon. The demon told me that excluding my first eight years, I was destined to live for another seventy-two years. He would take one-third of those remaining years as his payment, and transfer another third into Vivian's body. I counted on my small fingers. That meant I was only going to live to be thirty-two. It felt so incredibly far away. I could not even imagine what I would look like twenty years from now. But it also felt so short. My mother was thirty-three. That meant I would die before I even reached my mother's current age. The demon extracted two glowing golden orbs from my chest. He took a deep breath, swallowed one orb, and let out a satisfied sigh. Then, he pushed the remaining golden light into Vivian's chest. The color returned to her cheeks almost instantly. When my parents rushed back into the room, Vivian woke up. The second she saw me, she started screaming hysterically. But the demon had already placed a temporary hex on our voices. She shrieked and babbled, but could not form a single coherent word about the deal. The sheer terror of almost dying, combined with her deep-seated resentment toward me, drove her completely insane. She pointed a shaking finger at me and desperately mouthed lies to our parents. "It was Hope! Hope hit me! She bullied me! She wants me dead!" My parents were horrified. Initially, they might have doubted it, but Vivian's tears were so tragic and desperate. My mother cried in heartbreak. My father dragged me out of the room by my collar, kicked the back of my knees, and forced me to stand in the freezing hospital corridor. "Think about what you have done! Do not even think about coming back inside until you confess!" I stood shivering in the hallway until past midnight. Only after they had fully coaxed Vivian to sleep did they drag me back in. Under their terrifying, disgusted glares, I sobbed and swore that I would always protect my sister and never hurt her again. From that day on, Vivian found her ultimate outlet. She constantly invented new ways to frame me, running to our parents to complain just so they would punish me. And my parents never doubted her for a second. In their eyes, Vivian would always be the little angel covered in IV tubes, who fought for every breath but still smiled and said she was not in pain. The way my parents looked at me shifted from anger, to disgust, and finally, to utter apathy. Vivian always hated me. Especially on those nights when she lay in bed, swallowing handfuls of pills, in so much agony she could not sleep. She thought that after she passed out that day, I had cold-bloodedly rejected the demon. But the demon had been very clear from the start. He was exchanging lifespan, not health. Even though she would spend her life chronically ill, and I would spend mine perfectly healthy... We were both going to die at the exact same moment.