Brother Against Brother
[A/N: This is another lil' character monologue. I'm actually thinking about making this into a series, so give me your opinions! And yes, I'm sure it's a lil' overdone, but hey, I was feeling depressed!]
My name is Jake.
I'm the so called "fearless leader".
Yeah, right.
Fearless leader.
I feel plenty of fear, every day. I wish I could be fearless.
But I'm not.
This war has made me grow quickly. Made me learn how to make hard decisions, decisions that can spell the difference between life and death for my friends. Teammates. For the people I love and care about.
I love my mom. My dad. My cousin Rachel. I care about Marco. Cassie. And yes, even Tom.
Tom.
I've had to face my brother on the battlefield too many times.
During the Civil War, men had to fight their brothers. Had to carry muskets and bayonets; rifles and cartridges, and shoot bullets at other people. Maybe even ride on a horse, waving a sword or a saber, or whatever they called it, trying to chop off someone's head.
Some even killed their brothers.
But as terrible as that is, having to kill your brother, at least you and your brother are both fighting for what you believe in. Dying for your cause.
But Tom . . . . Tom's an innocent bystander.
He doesn't believe in the Yeerks. He doesn't believe in the United Yeerks, or the Confederate Yeerks. He's not fighting because he believes that the Yeerks are right or wrong.
No.
If he were, I could at least accept that. Sure, I'd be sad. Upset. I'd fear every moment that I went into battle, for fear of killing him, but if he got killed, I'd be able to accept that. Because it was his choice to fight on the other side because he believed in the Yeerks or whatever. Because he made that choice, out of his own free will, to fight. And I could accept that, if he made that type of choice.
But he's not.
He's trapped in this war, an innocent bystander, because of the Yeerk in his head. The slug that dictates every move he makes, from the way that he brushes his teeth, to the way that he puts me down for being his little brother.
That's what makes me sick.
The way that every day, we sit down together, at the same table, and eat breakfast.
The way that I pour milk into my cereal, and he grabs a slice of toast, the way that I dump a spoonful of sugar into my cereal and he puts a gigantic slab of jam onto his toast.
The way that he nags me to join The Sharing.
I try to make myself feel better by telling myself it's not him. By telling myself it's just the slug in his head, telling his mouth to tell me to join The Sharing so that they can shove another slug into my head.
But it doesn't help.
It scares me.
When my parents and I went up to see Grandpa G's funeral, I came so close to killing him.
And ever since, I've wondered.
What if I had been a little faster? What if I hadn't been so paralyzed with fear, and had been a few minutes faster?
What if Marco and the others hadn't been there for me?
What if Cassie had gotten grounded on the shore; hadn't been able to make it in time to ram the dock?
What if my brother had stabbed my father, leaving him with a fatal wound?
No, not my brother. The Yeerk inside of him.
Could I have killed him?
Would I have?
Every night, we go through the same ritual again.
My parents asking us what we did that day.
Tom saying he went to The Sharing. Me supposedly "hanging out" with Marco.
Hah. I wish.
Then Tom asks me about joining The Sharing, and I turn him down.
Two of us, bitter enemies in the same war.
Both trying to pretend desperately; trying to keep our covers, even though we knew each other's covers.
Every night in my dreams, I morph to tiger and face him. And I lunge.
I wake up, and shiver, and tell myself that the final conflict hasn't come yet.
And I know in my heart that someday, sometime, the final conflict will come.
Brother against brother.
Jake and Tom.
Two people against each other.
Yes, brothers against each other.
And only one of us will walk away alive.
[A/N: Well? Liked it, loved it, hated it? Send any and all replies to me at anifuture@hotmail.com. And take a look at my webpage, at http://anifuture.hypermart.net.]