"Marco... Marco."
A hand landed on my shoulder, shaking me awake and back to consciousness. My hands were out in front of me, grappling at the air. I sat up, a sudden gasp of life, a single jolt. My heart was battering in my chest. I shuddered and trembled. A sweat had crept over me, just like it always had after nights like these - when the nightmares were this bad.
My brother, Tom, frightened, had fallen on the ground backwards and got up just as quickly, straightening himself out and surrendering his hands out in front of him.
"Hey!" He began with a hushed and shaky voice. "Calm down. It's just me."
My wings had settled and folded themselves back behind me and I wiped the moisture collecting from my forehead.
"It's getting worse. This time, you were yelling in your sleep." When he spoke in a whisper, there was an emotion I couldn't quite grasp.
Uneasiness? Exasperation? Exhaustion?
He rubbed his tired beetroot colored demon eyes.
"It was the same nightmare again. The one with that girl..." I mumbled once my breath steadied.
Tom sighed, holding his face with his hands and plummeted onto the edge of my bed, sitting there. A curse was evident in his exhale.
"Why do I keep messing it all up?" He muttered to himself, a little shaky.
I could finally identify it now. His voice was a tired, broken thing - distress - hopelessness.
The room fell silent. I wasn't quite sure what to say.
"Marco?" His voice pierced through the silence.
"Yeah?"
"What's the earliest thing you can remember?"
"What?" I began to chortle, but Tom didn't. He took his hands away from his face to turn to me. His eyes were hard and stern. "Are you serious?" I asked, judging by the look on his face, I knew he was.
"What is the earliest thing in your life that you remember?" His eyes faltered momentarily, dropping to stare at the ground before meeting with mine again.
I thought for a bit, leaving Tom and the bedroom that we shared in a stillness. "Oh, I know." I finally spoke up. I chuckled a bit when I talked, the memory, a funny one. "We were younger and you were so mad that I beat you in ping pong, you nailed my wings to the wall."
Tom stared out in front of the dark void of our bedroom. A beat of silence. Then he let out a small, breathy laugh.
It wasn't anything worthy of a real, true laugh yet just one that was only a mimic, a chortle that exhaled through his nose.
"I must have been stuck there for a whole hour before you came back to get me." I went on.
"That's cruel." Tom chortled.
"You're the one that did it!" I exclaimed, making me erupt in a full, heavy laughter, resulting in my brother to join in. Something of the atmosphere had lifted, yet when our laughs had died, so did my brother's temporary smile.
"Look, I, uh... gotta tell you something." He began, his tone descending back to a low, solemn volume.
He must have been expecting me to answer due to a long pause.
When I didn't say anything, he continued. "It's actually - well, it's... complicated."
"Dude, just say it already." I teased, nudging his shoulder. He let out one final snicker before rubbing his arm. And again, his smile faded.
"Nevermind, it's nothing. It's... not important, I guess." With that, he avoided eye contact with me and headed straight back to his own bed on the other side of the room.
"Okay..." I muttered with a slight smirk and eye roll, knowing my brother had a tendency to be weird. I laid back down on my bed, letting the rest of the sweat dry off my body before tucking my wings around me to use as a cocoon.
Still, I couldn't help but wonder...
What are you hiding from me, Tom?