Forever

“Help me now, tell me how, how can this last forever?”

-          Forever by Red

                                I glanced at the uneven stone tiles as they rapidly neared me. I did a little quick thinking before angling my body to reduce the damage that was sure to occur when I crash landed. My bare feet met the grainy floor and the shock raced up my spine, throwing me a distance away from my enemy at the same time. I slowly lowered my arm from where it shielded my face from the flying rocks, albeit a bit shakily. If Brother was here, he would never feel afraid, not for a second. With that thought in my head, I hardened my gaze while I watched the group’s leader shift in to battle stance.

My teeth worried along my bottom lip unconsciously until I noticed and halted that motion. Reaching for the training that Father had hammered in to me and Brother since young, I steadied myself. Quickly, without wasting even a second, I hurled my body headfirst towards the weaker minions. Punches came easily to me as I knocked out the men one by one. Their fists never touched me since I expertly ducked and lunged at their stomachs. Good, I can do this. A relieved smile eased its way on to my face as my confidence grew just barely.

However, it was this arrogance that took me out. Despite my easy defeat of all the gang’s useless subordinates, I had left the leader alone for too long. I didn’t see the dagger that cut through the air to reach me until it was too late. I had missed the chance to dodge or fight back—it was too near me now. Fear paralysed me while the sharp weapon closed in for the kill.

A throb started in my cheek as it was nicked and I braced for a much more unbearable pain of the dagger slitting my throat. Yet, it never came. I slowly opened one eye. A familiar, strong back and silver-blond mop of hair blocked my view of the gang.

“You can’t do this, you know, Dev. Leave me some of the fun, too!” Brother teased me with that easy-going voice.

He came for me. Brother held the dagger in one hand with a relaxed smirk, much to the chagrin of the gang leader. The spiky-haired man snarled, lunging at Brother with his fist. Nonetheless, Brother knocked him down with a powerful kick to the side. With a sigh, he turned towards me reproachfully.

Brother delivered a chiding flick to my forehead with his left hand, “Don’t ever do this again, Devlin.”

“Uh…” I stumbled slightly, blinking.

Then it hit me. I had failed in taking down the gang that wanted to kill Brother. Brother had had to save me again. My sweaty palms rubbed against my filthy shirt uneasily. I caused Brother trouble once again.

“I, um…” I focused my gaze on anything but Brother, “I’m sorry. You had to come and… help me again.”

Brother laughed, startling me a bit.

He smiled, clearly amused, “Don’t be silly, Dev. You’re my little brother. What sort of older brother would I be if I let you get hurt? Now let’s go home.”

Brother strolled down the path to our house, his backpack swinging from his shoulder. His strong frame just looked so reliable. A thick trail of red snaked between the long fingers of his right hand, glistening in setting sun. Wait—red?

“Brother, you’re bleeding!” I yelled, running towards him.

He blinked, staring at his hand like he hadn’t noticed before, “Ah… That I am.”

We bickered all the way home, arguing about whether the deep cut needed to be properly treated with antiseptic and bandaged or be left alone. He was always more capable than me, more confident than me and always there for me. I loved him, and I took for granted that he would always be running before me so that I could chase after him. With him, I would never be lost.

                                Be that as it may, I was wrong. A mere month later, he died in a car accident. Just like that, he was gone. My beacon of light faltered and disappeared without a trace. Brother had had so much in front of him, a vibrant future of possibilities. He would go to a good university, get a successful job and have a fulfilling life. He would get married, have many children and die with his wife at a ripe old age. Now, none of that was to ever come true. His dream of becoming a cardio-thoracic surgeon, of marrying the lady with chocolate-coloured hair like me were all gone, just like him. Nothing was spared.

Everything went down the drain on the 15th of August. It was a very normal Sunday. I was sprawled across the couch, procrastinating with my smart phone when I was supposed to be rushing out my homework. Mother was in the kitchen, with the ever-piling stacks of dishes, washing them up. My five-year-old sister, Alice, was with Godmother, wasting paper as usual. Brother was out with his friends, celebrating their high school graduation. When is Brother coming home? What will he bring for me? Those were my thoughts at that moment.

Somewhere along the way, I fell asleep. It was a dreamful sleep. Well, more specifically, a nightmarish one. In the nightmare, I was running. Running, and running non-stop. My breath came out in laboured pants, sweat coated my skin and my ruffled locks stuck to my head. I didn’t know why I was running, who I was running or how I had gotten to running. I wasn’t sure of my location or the time, either. All I knew was that I was scared, terrified beyond control and I needed to hurry. Brother. I screamed that one word in my brain, and his image flitted behind my eyelids. After hours and hours of racing down the uncomforting black road, my foot caught on a loose rock and I landed face first in mud. My teeth and lips throbbed and clumps of soil choked me. My eyesight blurred and couldn’t focus, no matter what I did.

Lilting laughter drifted past my ears and I perked up. It was Brother. He was here.

“Well, what do we have here? You have to be more careful, Devlin. I can’t always be here for you,” Brother shook his head.

I raised an eyebrow, “What are you saying, Brother? We’ll always be together.”

A sad smile painted Brother’s face as he offered a hand out to me, which I took.

“No, I can’t, Dev. I’ll be gone before you even realise it,” Brother whispered, almost as if talking to himself.

I frowned. What do you mean? Suddenly, the warmth in my hand evaporated and I was alone in the middle of that dark path. Startled, I whipped around, the biting cold slashing at my skin. The black of my surrounding seemed to creep ever closer to me.

“Brother? Where are you?” I called, not liking the feeling of terror chewing in to my body.

In an instant, the scene flipped around and I was tumbling, plummeting towards the city floor twenty stories below. Wind whistled past my face, throwing my jacket in to a thrashing fit and whisking away my tears. Brother, Brother, Brother. Where are you? Why aren’t you here? Agony rattled through my body when I crashed in to the ground. I winced as I heard my bones crack and break and the ache of my organs being punctured. It was as if I was a rag doll.

I lay there silently, too much in shock to even think that I was most likely… going to die. My battered shell listened blearily as cars whizzed by and city lights glimmered. With a feeling I can only put down as irony, salty water droplets started to fall. I puffed a resigned sigh. I just can’t fight any longer, without you by my side, Brother. Subsequently, I closed my eyes.

I awoke from this terrible dream at 11.23pm to the sobbing of Mother, the wide, confused eyes of Alice and the comforting murmuring of Godmother. I awoke from that unreal dream to find out that Brother was gone forever, taken from me by a car accident which also killed five of his friends. As I stared blankly at the cracked family photo across us on the wall, I finally registered the fact: Brother is dead.