Two young children, brothers, looking so alike that they might be twins. Their hair is brown and wild and eyes blue like violets. Ruddy cheeks and smiles. Everyone who looks at them has a smile come to their lips, even if they feel weighted down by life troubles. (edited)
These two seem so innocent in their age and their care for each other is obvious.
"Steve, wait." One of the twins, Hero by sound of it, since he just called the other Steve and it doesn't sound like it's a prank - though these twins often pretend to be each other just to play pranks.
The boy looks with concern to the darkening sky outside, while the other looks at him with a question.
Without explaining, Hero pulls his brother's hoody over his head. Understanding the gesture, Steve grins, not thinking much of it. He came to expect such care from his brother.
Together, the two walk off into the approaching storm while the shop keeper follows them with kind, approving eyes.
They had come in to get groceries for their aunt and uncle and their older cousin, Notch. They came to stay there since they were babes. No mother or father.
...
It's dark and the two are walking through the woods. It's ominous, with trees towering all around like silent, stern guardians.
"It's two hours of walking..." Steve suggests. Hero's lips flatten.
He says nothing.
"We could take a short cut."
"No." Hero cuts off.
"Oh come on. It's just silly stories. You don't really believe that hill is haunted, right? We are not six anymore. Those stories are for babies..." Steve complains. Hero's blue eyes turn to him, his expression becoming less certain.
Seeing his words have effect, Steve rashly grins. "Are you scared?"
"I am not scared." Hero frowns.
"Then I double dare you!" Steve grins confidently.
...
The two are huddling very close as they make their way across the silent hill. Ruins of old, burned house reach their skeletal fingers from the fog that clings to the ground like a living, breathing thing. The air smells sweet, not with fragrance of flowers, but of something rotten and dead.
Steve's brash grin is gone. His blue eyes are wide open as he hovers behind his brother's back. Hero frowns, his face steady, but his posture just as uncertain as Steve's.
Both jump at a sound.
With relief, their eyes hold on a dirty, scrawny rat that makes its way past them. Steve grins again.
"I told you. Just scary stories." He claims with a slight shake in his voice. Hero nods and the two resume their way.
Behind them, the rat stops and looks. It's beady eyes appear to glow.
...
Steve screams his brother's name as he falls. Hero stops and looks back at him. His blue eyes look up to something behind Steve and open wide. Then, he takes off running to the side. Steve nearly cries. His brother has abandoned him!
Then he realizes that Hero is running sideways along the edge of the woods, drawing the things in the fog away from Steve. Then, Steve struggles to his feet and tries to run after his brother. His ankle hurts and he limps. Tears ran down his face.
"Hero!" He screams. The fog seems to be retreating away from him. And soon he is left standing in the woods, alone. Everything is quiet and empty, as if nothing had happened. His brother is gone.
"Hero?"
Only silence responds.
...
Steve wakes up in cold sweat, the sense of dread still heavy in his chest along with old pain.
He is all grown up now, a man in his twenties.
They had looked for his brother in days that passed. The entire population of all several villages in the area.
His uncle had even gone to the centurions, as much as he hated doing that. They didn't help. Instead, they questioned if their uncle had something to do with it. Who was he? Why was he not living in the city where it was safe? Was he a deserter?
Stubborn villagers, same as the rest of their race! The guards that came looked with disdain on the people living in the village.
They ignore the rightful law of the king and ignore them, until they need help! Guards condemn the natives with curled lips. Him, the citizen of their Empire, a former centurion, should have known better! Did he abandon his regiment? Was he a deserter who chose to marry one of the natives? His son certainly looked like a mix, his head shaven bald in honor of local heathen traditions.
The missing children were citizens and not of mixed blood? Well, that's a different matter. Why did he allow these kids to go all alone through woods at night when they knew how many dangers abounded there? The guards could not handle all such problems, when greater troubles had been on increase. Increased numbers of monsters, breaches to other realms, more powerful and devious monsters... Did they not hear the warning that had been proclaimed?
As sad as it was, it was their own fault for not keeping better caution. Most likely, the child was dead.
The guards did merely a token search and retreated to the safety of the city. Several months later, it was only Steve's uncle and his oldest son, Notch, who still went out to search.
Then came an attack on the village. Steve then froze still. He narrowed his eyes, looking into the fog. It was so eerily familiar. And he could swear that he saw a figure - his brother, silently standing with his face blank. His eyes glowed faint white.
Steve tried to tell his uncle, but his uncle merely dragged him away. There were monsters attacking and village houses burning.
And the next day, they looked at what remained of the village, and left. And Steve already doubted what he thought he saw.
They moved to live in the boundaries of a town. Many people from the county began to flee to safety of walls.
Steve's family was no exception.
And Notch did very well. They grew up.
...
"Steve, they are demanding that we give up the monster... It's been three months, Steve. Whatever that thing is... it isn't him."
Notch's quiet voice slices across Steve's heart.
"Why did he not attack, then? Why did he come and watch me?"
"Steve..." Notch's tone is patient and his eyes full of sympathy. But, meeting his warm, brown eyes, Steve desperately searches and his heart falls.
His brother is too committed to his duty. To his responsibilities.
And Hero's uncanny appearances during monster attacks has become an evil omen. People fear him as much as they do the usual kind of monsters that tear apart flesh with teeth and claws.
But Steve even went out looking. He could almost swear that he could feel his brother's watchful presence. It was strange, but it wasn't evil.
His brother never attacked anyone. He just appeared, ever ghostlike in that fog, only to vanish away on approach. Still, Steve hoped.
Until the day that they brought him in - the being that his brother had become.
He still looked nearly exactly the same as he did when he disappeared years ago. But he was no longer a child. Both Steve and Notch ran to the cell where the creature had been confined.
He was a mirror image of Steve, down to his unkept stubble of a beard and cyan shirt and jeans that Steve was wearing. A mirror image. Only his eyes were eerily, milky white.
He didn't react or respond despite the wounds that covered his body.
And he gave no reaction of any sort to indicate that he recognized Steve.
Thanks to Notch and his high position, Notch managed to gain a delay so the being was not executed like the other monsters.
Steve had forsaken all his other affairs, so he could come and try to talk to Hero, hoping to evoke recognition - anything to tell him that his brother was still in that silent being.
Notch hoped as well, but with each day that hope dwindled.
The people in the city murmured.
Monsters were seen in heavy numbers around the city and the fog no longer lifted at all.
"It's because of him. Because of that monster, Herobrine. He is drawing all these evil things to us. You must take care of this matter, Notch!"
"Test and see. That thing is not even human. It is not your brother!"
Notch gave in.
He didn't tell Steve what he was asked to do. He distracted him away for a couple of days. Steve needed to eat and drink more. He had been forgetting to do that. Steve listened and tried to relax.
When he learned from Notch that several "experts" on monsters had come to take a look at his "brother", he didn't even bother to listen to the rest of what Notch was trying to tell him. He ran to the cell where they kept his brother imprisoned.
Notch hurried behind Steve. He gestured to the guards barring Steve's way to let him pass.
Steve ran into the cell. There, chained against the wall with his head hanging low and hair in filthy strings, was his twin. His arms pulled up high in manacles. Steve's heart panged at the sight. He had convinced that they should keep their brother as comfortable as possible, to remind him of human comforts. That no longer appeared to be the case.
Seeing Steve's heart-broken expression, Notch sighed.
"It's not him, Steve. That's not Hero."
Steve didn't listen. He approached his brother's still form and tried to get the manacles to open around bruised wrists.
He huffed in frustration, refusing to even look in Notch's direction. After a moment, Notch came to his side and helped.
They lowered the limp form to the ground, where Steve held on to his brother, almost rocking in an attempt to comfort him. It was more to comfort himself than his twin, who remained unresponsive. His eerie white eyes were closed.
"He is not... Hero..."
"Oh yeah? Then why does he look like him?"
"Maybe it's the kind of monster that takes on the form of those he touches... A drop of... blood would be enough to grant it form. But he has no feelings... No mind of his own... It's not him, Steve."
Steve said nothing to that, stubbornly refusing to look at his brother's direction. He continued to cradle his brother's head. After a while, Notch frowned.
"Say your goodbyes, Steve. Everything you did not get to say to your brother, tell it to... him. He has a bit of your brother in him. You can at least pay respect to his memory."
This time Steve nodded, not trusting himself to speak.
Notch quietly left.
Steve continued to cradle his brother's head. A tear made its way down his cheek.
"I am so sorry, Hero... I should have never... talked you into going to that haunted hill... It should have been me taken, not you. You didn't deserve it!"
"... If I could undo everything, I would..."
"You should not have led them away!"
Angry tones entered Steve's voice as he glared into space.
A soft stir made him startle. His brother's scarred, pale hand lifted and rested on his own, all in continued silence.
"Hero? Can you hear me?"
Steve looked at his brother's face, where white eyes, nearly seeming to glow, gazed emptily, hooded.
"Hero? If you can hear me, nod your head! Or do something!"
Steve waited, his heart falling within him as no response followed. The hand, resting on his own, fell away.
Steve gritted his teeth.
"Doesn't matter. I am not giving up on you. Even if the whole world turns against you, I won't abandon you. Do you hear, Hero?"
No response. "I will find a way... I will get you out of here. I will..." Steve nearly cries, but his jaw is jutted out stubbornly and his eyebrows press together in a grim, determined line. (edited)
"I will get you out..." Steve mutters. (edited)
The next day, early in the morning, fog spreads across the streets as it had been doing in the past two months.
People cautiously prowl. A few gather in the city square. They are there for the spectacle, curious about how the Monster is to be destroyed.
"The gates to the city are open!" A voice yells. A city wide panic follows as merchants and ordinary citizens slam their doors shut and merely peek from barred windows, while the guards sent by Notch police the city of stray monsters that appear here.
"Sir, the Monster is gone!" The hurried captain of the Guard barges into Notch's office. Calm brown eyes darken, but do not appear surprised.
"Sir? Your brother is also missing. He..."
"The Monster took him captive and carried him off." Notch says sternly and the guard blinks.
"Sir?"
"He proved stronger than we thought. He was able to break free." Notch's voice hardened.
This time the captain of the guard jumped.
"Yes-yes, sir! The Monster escaped. Do we send a team after them? Him?" The man hastily corrected himself under Notch's pointed glare.
"After you finish policing the city. There are monsters afoot."
"Yes, sir!" The guard readily complies and vanished.
Notch stands there staring darkly into space. Then, letting out a heavy sigh, he heavily sank into his chair.
Rubbing the bridge of his nose, he muttered to himself.
"I hope you didn't make a mistake, Steve..."
...
In the cool freshness of the woods, Steve is walking.
He does not know where he is going. Only, he is compelled to leave away from the populated areas. Somewhere in the wilderness sounded good.
There, it would be safe.
There is no fog, but continued watchful presence encourages him. His brother is nearby, though he cannot see him.
Unwillingly, Steve smiles, his heart lighter by a mile, lighter than he had felt in many years.
"It's all right, Hero. It will be all right..." Steve promises, his blue eyes looking into the shadows of the forest and searching for tale-telling glow.
"I will keep you safe. And I won't leave you. I promise."