Terminus Part I: The Journey There (Draft)

Chapter 26: Brothers

He returned home, only to find that there was no trace of Gospello, the posters, or even the townspeople. That is, until the townspeople came out of the shadows.

"Oh, hello there, fisherman," said a woman.

"Fisherman? It's me, Brandon Black."

"Should we know you? Because I don't remember you," said a man.

They don't remember me, Brandon thought. He then saw their faces. They were extremely sad, as if they had seen death itself. Well, no matter, I can try to gain their trust.

"If you're looking for a place to stay, don't bother. There's no point. We're all going to die anyway," said a woman.

"May I stay with you?" he asked Norman.

"There's no reason for me to object," he said, defeated.

Brandon followed Norman to his house, where Norman shuffled to close the door. Then he closed the windows. Brandon was confused.

Norman's eyes darted around the house, as if it were possible that someone may be watching.

"Brandon Black, my boy! It is good to see you!"

"Wait, so you're not affected like they are?"

"Gospello came and made everything miserable. But I... well, that's really only my business, but let's just say that some dumb spell isn't going to work on me."

"You're a lot smarter than I remember."

"Hm? Oh, yes, well, I only acted stupid for the benefit of the town. No point in being the centre of attention in a town that will hardly appreciate you for it anyway."

A look of dread then came across Brandon's face. He asked if Norman had just said Gospello had done this.

"Yes. Now, you can stay here with the mopey villagers or leave town, like I am."

"Wait, you're leaving?"

"Yes, I have an appointment on the third moon of Jupiter."

"There's the village idiot I know."

"I don't expect you to understand, everyone on this planet is a victim of circumstance."

"What do you mean by that?"

"It's not my place to say. Now if you'll excuse me, I will be going now." Norman pulled from his rucksack a device resembling a metal hourglass. He pressed a button on the top of this device, and a sharp screeching noise was emitted. The device emitted an electromagnetic pulse, and he vanished.

Brandon decided that he would not freak out, considering everything he had witnessed that day.

The years went by, Brandon tried desperately to get his fellow townsfolk to care about his missing brother, but to no avail. In the year 795, the dark wizards were defeated by an unknown entity, and the government came into various territories to claim control. That included Notably Small Town.

An amateur mage that had been captured by the government was forced to undo any dark magic that he could. The town returned to their uptight ways, but the curse that affected Brandon and Boris, and the town's memory of the two, those were beyond the skills of the mage, and so remained.

Three years later, the invasion happened. Everything was bleak. Brandon Black had been wounded by fires and was dying. A government official promised to call for backup. He closed his eyes and felt himself slip away.

He woke up without a trace of the pain from his death. Medics expressed their shock.

"How did you survive?" asked one.

"I... survived?" asked Brandon. "I thought I died..."

"It's alright. You can return to the life you were living."

What life am I returning to, though? he thought.

It would be many years before he began to discover what life that was. He celebrated his one-hundredth birthday looking no older than when he had been cursed. He decided then to fake his death and pretend to be someone else. He did everything he could to disguise himself, but there were two things he could not rid himself of. One being the fisherman's coat that he was either to wear or keep in his possession. The other was his real name, Brandon Black. No-one knew or cared about who he was, but his name was Brandon Black.

Eventually he learned how to make it seem as if he had passed on his name and legacy to a son. For generations, he kept this up, and one day, in 1642, he visited his brother again.

"I have spent so many years trying to understand what happened to us," he told his brother.

Boris let out an inhuman sound, but Brandon heard his brother's mind say We were cursed, brother. And I know why you're here. You want to kill me, so that you can die. But I'm going to kill you first. After all, why should it matter who dies first? One of us has to die for this curse to lift.

It was then that their rivalry began, and Brandon Black, in all 'incarnations' became known as the Angler, while Boris became infamous as the monster of the Phobos, the Kraken.

Both were treated as minor threats by the government, and bounties were placed on both of their heads. While the Kraken's grew as it terrorised the sailors that tried to attack it or invade its territory, Brandon's infamy reset with each new 'generation'. The years passed, and the world continued to change. Most of it seemed like a blur to these brothers, who had been alive for centuries.

Sometimes, for a change, they would co-operate, and learn from each other, growing stronger and more resilient. Things seemed like they would repeat forever, even as Notably Small Town became the Town of No Peers. Even as he found out about the secret underground chamber. Even as he learned that the invaders would return one day. It seemed like nothing could surprise him.

That was, until the day that James and his crew of six other people helped him to fight off the invasion – one that only he and the organic androids saw coming.

He had finished telling his tale according to the details he knew about, and James affirmed that it was hard to believe.

"All those years, and you never left the Phobos?" he asked.

"Wait, that's what you don't believe?" asked Cameron.

"You had the opportunity to see the world, and yet you pre-occupied your mind with death? Surely you did not expect you would find the answers you seek on the only sea you've ever known. They could very well be somewhere else."

"If that is all that troubles you, I have an easy remedy," began Brandon. "Allow me to join you."

James nodded in approval, and Cameron, Patricia, Karnilla, and Persimmon expressed their shock. Crock and Milangelo started laughing.

"I am the 'Angler', Brandon Black. I am three-thousand, three-hundred and thirty years old. My most recent bounty was that of twenty-seven million onits. Happy to be of service, captain."