Quietly shutting the door behind her Diana stilled. Feet unmoving against the foyer's salmon entrance rug.

The lights were on. Diana squinted as she entered the impatient house at the quick change from complete darkness to blinding fluorescent lights.

"Where were you?!" Her mother screamed viciously, Diana studied her momentarily for movement. Watching her chest rise and fall with vigour, her eyes wide with yellow-brimming agitation and red-coloured frustration. Diana's hand rested on the black door knob. It was cold beneath her rolling grip.

She felt like a teenager again. Getting scolded for staying out five minutes past her curfew. She didn't owe her mother an explanation. Moreover she couldn't give her mother an explanation, none of them wanted to hear about her terrors and the way things were too quiet in her grey room.

Her father stood to the left of her mother with sleep-crusted eyes. Gazing tiredly at her. He wore his navy pajama shirt and flannel pajamas. His foot tapped impatiently on the floor but he said nothing.

Phoebe stood too, arms crossed, anger roiling in her chest. Her angular face contorted into clenched teeth and darkened eyes. Like the rest of her family, she too wore her pajamas - a set of rose satin pajamas.

Perhaps they were expecting an explanation or a grovel. But a grovel was weakness. And in the world of Men, like those she'd seen on empty roads, weakness was death.

Kicking off her shoes Diana shrugged her shoulders with a hardened face, "Couldn't sleep." She began up the stairs, ignoring the brief ticks of silence. The wooden stairs creaked beneath her as she ambled.

In a whisper she heard her mother sigh heavily at Phoebe as she rubbed her forehead like she was trying to press the wrinkles away, "Phoebe go talk to your sister."

Throughout their youth, Phoebe had often been delegated with the task of "parenting". With the long hours of their parents jobs, Phoebe had been the one to cook, to clean and to take care of them.

So then, when Phoebe followed Diana up the stairs behind her, her steps were aggressive and impatient. The staircase creaked and bowed as she stomped up them.

The wooden stairs turned to tufted white carpet that itched beneath her feet. Diana made her way to her room, the music still echoing in stinging blares in her mind.

"Where were you? Don't lie to me."

"I'm not lying. I couldn't sleep." Diana turned away, she reached for the doorknob to the guest room.

"Do you need a therapist? We could find something. Diana we want to help." Phoebe grabbed her wrist, wrenching her momentarily away from the door. Her grip was boiling against Diana's wrist.

Immediately, she slapped it away.

She could feel the echoing pin pricks of where Phoebe's hand had wrested on her wrist. They burned through the skin like hot embers.

Phoebe stilled.

She stared at Diana as if she could see her own sister's bones were exposed. Perhaps she could see the fractures that ran through her ivory pillars. There was a light pink tint to Phoebe's face, a mixture of exasperation and anger. But there was something in her eyes, a lapse in the emotion that the rest of her face held.

But Diana didn't recognize it, only making her pulse turn louder and more heaving.

"Sorry." Diana muttered, low enough that she barely heard it herself. Sorry, I love you.

Phoebe stayed quiet, her shifting gaze made Diana feel small. There was a stare she would often do when they were kids, Diana and Henry had christened it "Phoebe face". Her jaw would tighten and jutt out only a bit, her rosy lips would retract and her eyes would darken.

Without a doubt, every time Diana or Henry did something wrong, the face would suddenly appear and without a word, it would shrink and scold them.

In that moment, whether Phoebe knew it or not, she was using the "Phoebe face".

In anger, Diana gritted out, "What am I supposed to tell you? I went on a drive because my bed was too soft? That sounds stupid as fuck Phoebe. Good night."

Diana didn't lie as she jarred with Phoebe, the bed had been uncomfortable after all. She had just simply omitted some key information as to why she'd left.

She slammed the door right in Phoebe's face. The slam reverberated through the walls, shaking the graduation photos above the mantle.

Diana heard her sister's feet stay and wait before the door for a few moments afterwards, both stuck in a sweeping quiet. Then, Phoebe left and Diana counted her creaking steps as she descended the stairs.

All the while muttering ascended from the foyer, rambled words that Diana couldn't seem to parce through and understand. Most likely, she surmised, something about Diana's behaviour. How she seemed different.

Unluckily for them, there was barely anything left of the Diana Winters they knew. It had rotted in the damp air of her cell.