Brax awoke in a sweat-cold shiver to a familiar tapping at his window. It was the rotten grey fingers of his dead brother creepily caressing the dirty pane with an incessant sound that just wouldn't stop.
Tap. Tap. Tap.
"I'm sorry… Aziel," Brax muttered quietly, restlessly shifting in bed. He begged, but the tapping wouldn't stop.
It kept tapping and tapping, all through the night, nevermore. The yellow fingernails of the phantom scraped at glass, screeching a silent scream only he could hear, and tormented his soul to its brink.
If not for his beloved wife resting soundly beside him and his young daughter in the next room over, he'd have ended his life long ago. Jumped in a river or off a cliff, far away from pain. But love, a beautiful, perplexing concept, was his cage. With those ties to the mortal world, all the middle-aged man could do was endure, just as he always had. Minute after minute, year after year, decade after decade.
It was sunrise, and Brax hadn't slept more than a few hours. He slovenly tore himself from his rigid sheets and stumbled his way to the musty kitchen, where his wife, Christa, was preparing a meal of bread toasted in leftover bacon grease from a prior week's supper.
"You were mumbling in your sleep again," Christa said, trying to soak up what was left of the pan's fat with stale bread. "Was it the nightmare with your brother again?"
"It ain't a nightmare," Brax said, taking a seat and picking up the news pamphlet on the table. His wife brought him a mug of watery black coffee. "It's more like… a memory."
The coffee was bitter. Like always.
"I know he meant a lot to you, but he's been gone for over twenty years," Christa said. "You have Nora to worry about now. Can't you let it go? For us?"
"I've tried," Brax argued. "But he won't leave me. It's like he took over part of my brain and became a part of me when I was a kid. If you met him, you'd understand."
"You're not the only one suffering, you know," she said. "You used to be so full of dreams, willing to stake everything on a gamble. What happened to that man?"
"I'm sorry," Brax said. "I haven't given up. I still want to take you and Nora to safety behind the walls, but I just…"
"It's not about those forsaken walls," his wife quietly interrupted. "I have never cared whether you succeeded or not. I was enamored by that version of you because you were alive. But we've got other problems to deal with now. Nora's not getting any better, you know. If not for Doc Faust, we'd never afford the medicine to keep her well. Tell me, what changed? What made you lose hope?"
"I grew up. Realized this world is terrible," Brax said as he stared at the doc's bottle of self-concocted meds. "I wish I could be an enthusiastic idiot like I used to be, but there ain't no place for dreamers. For folk like us, it's existence till we die."
His wife went silent. Brax knew she understood deep down. There was no kindness afforded for stargazers and woolgatherers in their inescapable world. The silent assassin of truth hurt him every day, stabbing at him and slowly bleeding out his years. He wished he could go back and ask Aziel how he held onto his childish dreams well into adulthood, and how he could gain back what he had lost long ago.
He wanted to know how. How to regain those lost dreams. How to stare up at the night sky and feel a childish wonder, full of possibility and fantastical colors and songs, once more. How to love so passionately again.
How to find a reason to smile.
Brax couldn't do it, nor could any of his other siblings, nor anyone else he knew. So, what made the eldest son so special? Brax always wondered, but would never know, for Aziel was dead. Along with him, Brax's soul. Perhaps that was the fate of those with dreams of grandeur. A death that leaves those behind to ponder upon the pieces.
Letting go of the argument he and Christa had every other morning, Brax picked up the newspaper and began to read. He always hated reading the news, yet he could never stop. It only ever contained miserable stories about how awful the world was and made him dread existence even more. Still, there was something about its addictive hopelessness that kept drawing him back. It was as if he took comfort in the misery. Knowing he wasn't alone in suffering made existence a little more bearable.
"Anything new?" Christa asked, placing the sole slice of toast on the table. She tried to smile at Brax and let their qualms be bygone, but the dread of the wretched news didn't help.
"Tensions with the Northlands on the rise. Murder rates on the rise. Prophets heralding the end of the world. Nothing's new… nothing at all," Brax trailed off. He took another sip of his grainy coffee when he noticed an odd headline to an article at the bottom of the paper. It read 'God Walking Amongst the Southlands?' Brax scoffed at it, thinking about how ridiculous it sounded. The media would do anything for attention after all. A god walking upon the earth was impossible. He figured it was likely some fresh new reporter trying to make a name for themself with shock value.
Brax crumpled the paper up and scarfed down the stale toast, almost choking from the bland dryness. It didn't necessarily taste foul, but it was the same breakfast he'd eaten for the past several weeks, and likely the same thing he'd eat for the rest of his miserable life. He couldn't complain, however, because it was all he could afford. Some didn't even get a third as much. He had to be grateful considering the volatility of merchant work.
Gathering his wares, which were mainly watered-down perfumes, colognes, towels, and multi-purpose toad creams, he threw them into his shaky wooden cart and mushed his garbage to start dragging it forward.
Brax looked up at the creature's bumbling head with contempt. Their long necks made them a nuisance to feed; they had fur stinking of wet muts, and they treaded upon slow, stubby legs, but they were so abundant that even a peasant like him could afford to have one. It'd be nice to have a steed or a bull, yet Brax was stuck with the least desirable heap of meat on the food chain that was so bony and foul, not even maggots feasted on their flesh when they died. At the very least, the garfung were reliable for transport, albeit slow.
As Brax slovenly made his way down the dusty trails, he passed the usual sights. His old town, one not far from the capital of the Westlands, wasn't much of a place for action. It saw strange folk coming in and out, seeing as how it was on a direct path to Wunderdum, but most people skipped over it. At most, travelers would stop at the tavern for a drink of weak grass ale and be on their way by morning. No one worthwhile stayed more than a moment.
Along the way, he saw his neighbor Daryl Kaga, who was much too old to be working, pulling shriveled carrots from a puny pasture. Each time the elderly man bent down, he winced in pain as his bones cracked and crumbled. His grandkids, Ren and Lin, tried to put on a strong front as they did the same, but their malnutrition gave them the same aches despite being in their youth. Once in a while, Brax would give them some spare slices of bread when trades went well, but that wasn't often. He'd love to help them out more, but he had his own family to care for. He didn't want Nora to have the same indented cheeks and ribbed chest, and he resented the fact that she would still likely never know what it was like to have a full stomach. To be honest, he wasn't familiar with the feeling himself, but he imagined it was the best feeling in the world.
At the edge of the town, the middle-aged peasant merchant was met with a young beggar lying on the ground, one whom he had never seen before. They wore a green cloak and reached out their bony hands for coin, shaking as they did. Brax reached into his pocket, searching around for anything. He found a circular piece of bronze he had forgotten about.
"Sorry, it's only enough to buy a couple of clams, but times are tough for all of us," Brax said as he handed the single copper coin to the desperate beggar, who made his way to his feet and graciously bowed, thanking him for his generosity. Then, without a second glance, Brax was on his way to sell his wares. That's when he heard two village passersby talking.
"Didja hear?" one said.
"Hear what?" the other asked.
"That ol' Doc Faust kicked the chair over n' died."