Wearing Her Shadow: A Promise Written In Ashes

Chapter 1: The Last Wish

The rain wouldn’t stop.

It poured relentlessly over the hospital roof like a thousand apologies coming too late. Lara Ramos sat hunched in a cold plastic chair in the hallway, her nails digging into her palms, her heart beating so hard it hurt. The air smelled of antiseptic and grief. The fluorescent lights above buzzed faintly, casting a sickly glow on the scuffed white floor.

Inside the room just a few feet away, her twin was dying.

Lora. Her mirror. Her other half. Her louder, braver, beautiful sister who once made the world bow with nothing but a smile.

Now she lay still, surrounded by the sound of beeping machines and shallow breaths. The doctors had said it wouldn’t be long. Broken ribs. Collapsed lung. Internal bleeding. And a husband who hadn’t stopped shaking since the news reached him.

Lara stood when the nurse quietly waved her in.

Her legs trembled. She stepped inside.

lora’s skin was pale, her lips cracked. Tubes ran from her arms, machines blinking faintly beside her bed. Andrie Almonte, her brother-in-law, sat by her side, holding her hand like it was already slipping from him. His eyes were red. In his arms, swaddled in a pale blue blanket, was Vrex—just over a year old. Asleep. Oblivious.

“Lar…?” Lora’s voice was soft, barely audible.

“I’m here,” Lara said, rushing to her side, tears streaming down her face. She kneeled, cupping her sister’s hand in both of hers.

“I don’t… I don’t have time,” lora whispered, her eyes flicking toward her husband, her baby. “I need to ask you something. Promise me.”

Lara shook her head, already crying harder. “No, Lora. Don’t ask. Don’t you dare.”

“Please,” Lora rasped. “I need you to be me.”

“What?”

“Raise him. Be his mother. Marry Andrie if you must… don’t let him grow up alone. Don’t let him forget me.”

“No,” Lara sobbed. “Lora, no. You can’t do this to me.”

“I’m not doing it to you,” her sister said, smiling weakly. “I’m… trusting you. Because you’re the only one who could love him like I do. You’re the only one who looks like me. They won’t know the difference.”

Lara gripped her hand tighter. “But I’m not you…”

“You will be.”

Lora turned her gaze to Andrie. He was staring at the floor, his hand still wrapped around hers like he couldn’t feel her slipping away.

“Andrie… say yes,” Lora whispered.

He looked up at her, shocked. “Lora…”

“Say yes,” she pleaded again, her voice breaking. “Let her take my place. Don’t let Vrex forget.”

Andrie’s voice cracked. “Okay. I… I’ll agree.”

Lora smiled. The machines began to whine.

“No—no, no, no—!” Lara cried, pressing her forehead to her sister’s hand.

With a final breath, Lora whispered, “Thank you…”

And then… silence.

A stillness so cruel it strangled the room.

Lara didn’t remember screaming, but she did. She remembered the way her heart broke loud enough to echo off the walls. She remembered how tightly Andrie held Vrex. She remembered how cold lora’s hand became in her own.

She remembered the words.

*Be me.*

---

The rain still hadn’t stopped. Lara stood outside the hospital under a flickering light, soaked and shaking.

Andrie stood beside her, silent.

“I… I didn’t want this,” she whispered. “I didn’t want any of this.”

“I didn’t either,” he said quietly.

They didn’t speak again for a long time.

Then Andrie looked down at the baby in his arms. Vrex stirred, blinking, fussing.

Andrie’s voice was hollow. “He’ll never know she’s gone… if we do this right.”

Lara’s stomach turned. “I can’t lie to him forever.”

“You promised.”

The rain seemed to pour harder, swallowing them whole.

She looked at Vrex—and in his eyes, she saw Lora. The soft eyelashes. The little lips. His whole life was ahead of him, and he would never remember the woman who gave him that life.

Unless Lara lived for her.

“I’ll do it,” she said.

Andrie looked at her.

“But not for you,” she added bitterly. “Only for her.”

He didn’t respond.

She reached for Vrex. He reached back.

---

Later that night, Lara sat alone in her apartment with a suitcase on the bed.

She pulled out an old photograph—her and Lora, both nineteen, wearing identical sundresses and laughing by the lake. The freedom in their eyes was gone now. That lara no longer existed.

She opened the closet, pulled out Lora’s favorite blue cardigan, and wrapped it around her shoulders. It smelled faintly of lavender and formula.

Her phone buzzed. A message from Andrie:

*“The funeral is in two days. They want a closed casket.”*

Of course they did.

They couldn’t bear to see what was left of Lora. Just as no one would notice when lara slowly disappeared.

She pulled her hair into a low ponytail the way Lora always did.

She stood before the mirror.

She stared.

She practiced the smile her sister wore—confident, tender, a little tilted at the end.

She repeated in a whisper: “Hi, I’m Lora Almonte.”

Over and over.

Until she believed it.