Watch Your Step

GREATER {2}

From the day they were born, Philip and his older brother, Michael, are two years apart but were born on the same day. August 13th, 1977. They were complete opposites even from their mother's delivery. Michael came out, as smooth as a lamb slipped with ease. Then exactly two years later on the same day, Philip was born. Their mother's delivery of Philip was that of a long agony before death. It was two nights filled with misery, no sleep, no food as if he didn't want to get out. For two days, their mother was in labor until she gave her last breath.

As they grew up, Philip was loud and abrasive as a child, a lot of times obnoxious and foolish. While Mike, the older one, was calm and self-controlled. Once they heard their father talk about them, "They're different," he said. But Philip knew he meant Mike was better.

Back to this very hospital where they alternately got sick. Now, where he felt the same lump in his nape, he hadn't felt for a long time.

"We need to get out of here, the kid said, we're going to visit someplace else."

"Where?"

"Do you feel your nape hurting?"

Philip thought for a moment and felt the pain in his neck spreading as if wings had sprouted on his back. But he knew this had all happened before.

On the hallways, their footfalls echoed. Everything after that argument on the rooftop was a blur. He was already in the hospital when he woke up this morning.

Again, as they trudged outside the hospital, Philip cracked his neck. This torment only goes away for a while when he cracks it. If he doesn't hear a crack, he won't stop turning his head. It comes back over and over until he develops a habit of rotating his head until he hears a crack. It's the pain that comes around and goes around.

He did not bother to ask the kid walking in front of him, hopping and skipping as if he had all the time in the world. It knocked the senses out of Philip's head.

"Wait," he panted, "tell me who you are."

The kid stopped and turned around, "Let me give you a clue."

Then he started walking again.

"Remember when we used to make those bracelets and necklaces?"

"We?"

"That's one thing that you're good at more than me."

Philip's eyebrow crossed.

"One day, the thread snapped and that's when it started hurting, right?"

The only one he did that with was his brother.

"Mike?"

But it can't be. His brother is a forty-five-year-old man, a candidate for mayor, and is now in critical condition inside the hospital they came from.

"Hey Phil, finally, you were always slow to catch up."

"What how did... are you a ghost?"

Young Mike eyed his hands and said, "To you, maybe."

"But you're not dead yet."

"To you, maybe," he repeated.

"Look, look at your reflection, all I know is that shadow is slowly eating your life."

Philip looked at a parked car's window. A black wisp of smoke was permeating out of his neck.

"Come on, we have to take it off, kill it if possible. You're the only one who can do it. But I'll help you."

"It isn't like you to help me," Philip retorted, "It's why we got in this mess in the first place."

"You were asking for too much."

"That's what I've only asked of you."

They turned a corner and kept walking fast. A cloud of smoke coming from a manhole came between them.

"Our circumstance now is we're both not alive and not dead."

"So that thing is after me?"

"Yes."

"So now you believe our curse is real."

"Maybe, what's nothing to believe about yet, Jesus?"

Mike laughed then his voice went cold, "Phil, remember that time when we made bracelets?"

"We promised each other, right?"

But Philip still couldn't believe it was him, or rather a younger brother than him. The boy from the picture holding a trophy.

"How is this possible?" he asked incredulously.

"You can take any form you want. I chose this because we have a lot to talk about at this age I guess. After all, this age was when it started."

"That's not what I'm talking about."

"Just try it."

Philip concentrated, closing his eyes firmly, and suddenly he was a toddler, crying and pawing in the air.

"Too young!" Mike interjected.

Philip changed again from an adolescent boy to a teenager.

"That's better. For once, I'm the little brother and you're the big brother," the boy snickered, "like you always wanted."

Philip sneered, "How do you know this?"

"I'd been away from my body before, remember?"

"When?"

"I'll remind you later," he said, "We're here."