They found her in the morning.

Seventeen years of life had been reduced to a slumped over corpse with eyes that refused to shut. She made everyone uncomfortable now. The police couldn't look at her for long and her own parents could only glance at the dead paleness of her skin for moments at a time. There wouldn't have been a problem if she'd just shut her goddamn eyes. They were hollow now, more empty than spheres of space and twice as cold. They said nothing at all; quiet as the grave they put her in. The mortician never could get her eyes to close completely. In the end, mortified mourners gazed in shock as they lowered a girl into the ground who looked as though she were just waking up, rather than the cold, dead thing she was. Eyelids half-heartedly covered two black pupils and fading blue irises. Her lips, slightly parted and painted a clownish red, gave the impression of life where there was none. Cheeks were made up to simulate the blush of girls her age, and I'll be damned if she never wore a prettier dress in her life. She looked like a puppet now. A rag doll that was being thrown away because it had one rip too many. It was her final curtain, and they wouldn't even let her bow.

At the time, I remember being repulsed by the entire ordeal. She had been my friend, once. This cold thing had once been a girl that laughed and cried and breathed. I couldn't recognize the person that they had put into the grave. She looked like my friend, yes, but she was not the girl I knew. At first, I thought her parents or the police or that sleazy mortician had played some kind of sick joke on me. I wanted to scream out "Stop! Thats not her! Where did you put her!?", but words gave way to astonishment. I just..stood there, mouth agape until I realized I was gawking. I stared at her face the entire time. I said nothing and never shed a single tear. I couldn't. That was not my friend. All that lay before me was a body, poorly made up to resemble a sleeping, manequin version of the person I once called Sister.

Sister.

I won't ever forget.