Watch Your Step

GREATER {5}

Distance doesn't seem to be a problem when you're half-dead. Soon enough, Philip and Mike were at their old school.

"It happens in places like these," Mike explained, "Curses tend to gather in places where many people have memories of hatred."

Philip followed his brother's footsteps.

"Schools, hospitals... people keep living in the past here and so negative emotions arise. As these emotions pent up, curses creep out wherever they wants to."

They climbed up to the highest rooftop as if they were being pulled there. But when they opened the door, two men were already talking, arguing. One in a long-sleeve flannel, with ruffled hair and dark skin, and one in a suit, with curly hair and lighter skin. They looked nothing alike.

Philip and Mike approached them until they could hear what they're saying.

"I promised myself I won't take my share in the inheritance," the man in a flannel said, "But my daughter's life is at stake."

"It's us," Philip said, "We're meeting at the time and place we set off."

"You always looked down on me," the older Philip accused, his eyes wide with greed and enmity, "You did not see all those accomplishments I had. You only saw all my failures. What I turned out to be. You know when we have things in common one, or the other will suffer."

"Here we go again," the older Mike said as he threw his hands.

"But it's mostly me, right? For enduring all those years, you owe me this one please."

"I owe you nothing."

"You know the pattern, if you have something that I have, it will be taken away from me."

"You only blamed your every misfortune on me."

Old Philip clenched his fist.

"Is this about us being opposite again," Mike asked, "Is this about that stupid curse again?"

Philip only wanted a new life perhaps, a new beginning, where no one expects too much from him.

"If one of us dies, the curse will break. That's what you're thinking right?"

"I get it you're jealous of what I achieved, you're angry that I've become the better son than you.

"Never!"

"You drove yourself into constant poverty, you chose that life. But for you to blame it on me? To take my right to have a child? I know you've always been crazy."

"I knew you're going to take her away from me. Just like everything I had. You stole it.

"You have nothing in the first place."

They were like cymbals exchanging symphonies only it sounded awful.

"You're pathetic! You and your whore of a wife!" Mike ensued.

"Take that back, Philip said with gritted teeth."

"Go home to your dying daughter and die in hunger together! Because you wanted that. Everything that happened to you and them is your fault. You only made their life more miserable."

"Take that back!"

"If only you'd never been born."

"If only I was born before you."

Thunder broke as their fists clashed. Punching and pushing each other around. Mike strikes a punch, and it hits Philip's jaw. After many punches, Mike's nose bled while Philip's lips tore open. Philip pulled Mike's collar and head-butted him. Then he punched him again and again. Mike bent over only to uppercut Philip. It was his turn to give a combo of punches. A kick in the gut as a finishing touch made Philip land on his butt on the floor and spat some bloody teeth. Philip roared and rushed to Mike chasing his breath. Advancing with rage, they both slipped on the edge and over the railings. Mike fell over the parapet and Philip came tumbling after.