The next few days went… Unproblematic enough, at least on my new found standards.
I could still see those silver beasts out of the corner of my eyes every now and then, but they never bothered me, so I was slowly getting used to them—not that I felt comfortable, of course, having creepy wolves as stalkers was nothing short of terrifying, but I started to learn how to ignore them and continue with my day.
My brother, however, was a completely different story.
He tried to hide it, but I could see that he was way more on edge, and it didn't have anything to do with our parents this time.
I could see his "perfect" face slowly getting ruined with dark eyebags, and his nervous habit of picking at his nails was starting to cause injuries.
My parents' "perfect" son was progressively ruining himself with something I didn't know about, and it was starting to worry our mother.
Wow. That would be a dream to me. My mum? Concerned? Not even in my wildest dreams.
But when it came to 'Liam, it wasn't surprising. If anything, it was disappointing. And it made the familiar poison of envy swirl in my chest and threaten to burst out.
I stopped my thoughts in that instant. That description was too close to my dream for comfort, close enough that it made me shiver—and not from the cold thoughts of jealousy freezing my brain.
The phantom pain of that nightmare threatened to bring me to tears once again as I had many nights since that event.
Except that time 'Liam comforted me.
'Liam…
William…
My brother…
How selfish could I be?
He was the perfect brother, and yet here I was, scowling and pouting because of my own jealousy.
He was the one who comforted me time and time again. Cooked me meals after school. He had always been here, standing next to me, helping me live on.
And yet I couldn't ignore how the sun always shone in his direction, making his shadow cast over me. He always stood tall, taller than myself. I was just an insignificant ant compared to his greatness.
I was jealous. Selfish.
I hated him. But the thought of him being torn away from me made my heart clench painfully in my chest, writhing and twisting, threatening to make the loneliness consume me entirely and leave me as a small, empty shell. Broken to pieces like thin paper scraps.
But I was pulled away from the deep pits of my mind when I heard the front door closing. The sound was soft, as if the person was trying not to make a sound, their footsteps were silent yet quick, both things indicating that it clearly wasn't my dad coming home drunk. Not yet anyway, it was still too early for that.
My brother was home.
A wave of guilt crashed onto me, thinking back on the toxic envy that had tainted my mind not too long ago. I felt bad for wishing bad onto the kind soul that was my brother, as I always did each and every time. But my body refused to move from my spot on the edge of the bed. Invisible chains weighted my mind and limbs down.
I just could not manage the energy to stand up, my hands grabbing tightly at my forearms and my nails creating angry red crescent shaped indents on my skin. The soft, warm amber light from my night light casting over me yet still leaving the darker spots of the shadows following my wimpy figure with a mocking glare.
I bit my lip, shaking my head twice before pulling myself together and finally gathering the strength to lift myself up and stand up, slowly and hesitantly making my way towards my door and standing in front of it. My hands shook harder the longer I hesitated, so I tried to shake it off and just open the door in one harsh pull.
The sounds of hushed arguing was the first thing I could recognise. The second, the overwhelming stench of cigarette smoke—even more than usual.
My footsteps were as quiet as I could make them as I walked down the hallway, the words soon reaching my ears.
"I'm not going to deal with that- that thing!" I heard my mum exclaim.
"He's not a thing! He didn't choose to be like this!" That was my brother's voice. I've never heard him argue with mum over anything.
"That creature is coming for it- for him! He's already showing signs! The wolves, the snakes!... Can't you see it, William?! That boy will be our doom!"
I flinched at the harshness of my mum's voice, but I still snuck closer, my previous guilt now switching to an unretainable, morbid curiosity.
"We can stop it! Ethan's a good kid!" Ah, so they were talking about me… Wait, why did mum say I'd be their doom? "We can keep him on right path! I've done a good job until now, haven't I?"
"He's already showing signs, William! How much longer are you gonna ignore them?!- "
"As long as it takes!" William cut her off, it was the first time I heard him get mad at her. "He's still my brother! My baby brother! I practically raised him!"
Mum started saying something, but 'Liam wasn't taking it. "I was the one who cradled him as a baby! Who fed him changed his dirty diapers, took him to the park and took him shopping for baby clothes! You never even bothered! The only thing you and dad did was holding grudges for something he didn't do and provide the bare. Fucking. Minimum!"
He waited a few moments to let his words sink in and regain his breath.
"So, excuse me if I'm not willing to throw away the kid I raised as my own as easily as that!"
'Liam stormed out of the kitchen, and he would've bumped into me had he not had such good reflexes. I could see how heavy his breathing was from the arguing, clearly all those years of holding his tongue had burst out in the moment, but I didn't get much more time to go over the shocking fact that 'Liam— my big brother and number one role model— had just screamt at our own mum before I saw his expression drop.
His ocean blue eyes softened with sadness, the rowdy tide that had previously been agitating him completely fading into a saddened flow. His dark eyebrows pinched, the stresslines on his forehead making their appearance in the face far too young to have them.
"How..." he hesitated as he spoke, surely my expression was giving him the answer to whatever question he was about to ask. "Wanna go for a car ride, bud? Just you, me, and gas station ice cream?"
'Liam's lip was trembling, so he bit it to stop the movement and put on a forced smile, but I knew better. This was also a way to calm himself too, so I agreed with a soft nod and went back to my room to get changed into street clothes.
We were in the car, the streetlights passing us like bright stars in the darkness of the night as my brother drove quietly. His face was set in an expression I couldn't read, and his hands were white knuckled around the steering wheel.
I was worried, of course. This may sound repetitive, but I've never seen his like this before, he was usually so bright, like the north star, an ever-present comfort guiding me through the darkest of nights. And now, seeing him like this: dim, small, quiet... I didn't know what to think. My head was overwhelmed with thoughts to which I couldn't tell heads from tails, my mum's words were still racing through my head in a speed that was threatening me to bring me to tears, she's never liked me. Not really. And I knew that. But she's never been so...
Cruel.
It was unnerving how she had spoken about me, as if I were a pest to get rid of.
"Hey... Ethan?"
My brother's words snapped me out of my thoughts, and I looked up to him with a quiet hum in response.
"Those creatures you said you were seeing, wolves, right?" I nodded. "How long have you been seeing them?"
"For... A while." I mumbled, shifting my gaze away from him.
"I'll need you to be a tad bit more specific, lad. How long?" He was trying not to be pushy, that much I could tell, but there was the undeniable tension in his voice that had my heart in a tight grip and forced the words out of my throat.
I fumbled with my words as I tried recalling the day, but I had always been bad with time. "I... I don't know, a few weeks ago, I think? Remember the day I had that nightmare that you had to sleep in my room? That day."
'Liam let out a string of curses under his breath that he surely hoped I couldn't hear, but I could, and I knew that if I had repeated them he'd tell at me to take them back. But I didn't mind when he yelled at me, it wasn't like our mother's screams nor our father's drunken slurring, his came out of a place of genuine care and he always apologized if he thought he'd gone too far.
"Look... Ethan, how much do you know about mythology?"
That threw me off guard. It was the last thing I had expected, yet the tone in his voice made me take it seriously.
"Those are the stories about gods, right? Like Greek, Norse..." I trailed off.
"Yes. Exactly," My brother nodded, taking a deep breath as his grip on the steering wheel tightened, and I could hear the leather complaining under his fists. "You see. I, uh, I don't know how to say this."
He turned to me, the lights of passing cars illuminating his worried blue eyes every now and again. "Those "stories". They're-" he faltered with a shaky breath. "They're real. All of them. Well, technically... Y'know what? I'm not going to get into technicalities."
I was just plainly confused. Excuse me, but I had been raised all my life knowing that God didn't exist, and now he told me that mythology did? I was obviously skeptical, and he could see it.
"It's complicated. And confusing." He ran his hand over his face, and the headlights of the car in front of us only served to remark the inner conflict in his features.
Wait. Headlights?