"Marco. Marco."
A hand landed on my shoulder, shaking me awake and yanking me out of my deep consciousness. My claws were way out in front of me, scratching at the air as I sat up suddenly. My gasp for more and more oxygen had made my heart beat to no limit. I had been sweating and my darkly red, slick wings had stood out, stretching themselves as far as they could go.
My brother, Tom, frightened by my actions, had fallen on the ground backwards and got up as quickly as he fell, straightening himself out and holding up his hands 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 attempted to wipe the pouring sweat dripping from my forehead.
"It's getting worse. This time you were yelling in your sleep." When he spoke in a whisper, his voice held nervousness and fear. 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 and quit heaving in and out.
Tom sighed, holding his face with his hands and plummeting onto the edge of my bed, sitting there. "Marco?"
"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 and turned to me with a surprisingly serious look. His eyes were hard and stern. "Are you serious?" I asked, though I knew he was.
"What is the earliest thing in your life that you remember?" He questioned me once more.
I thought for a bit, leaving Tom and the bedroom that we share in silence. "Oh, I know." I finally spoke up. I laughed 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 stapled my wings to the wall."
Tom stared out in front of the dark void of our bedroom and let out a small, breathy laugh.
"I must have been stuck there for a whole hour before you came back to get me."
"That's cruel." Tom chortled.
"You're the one that did it!" I exclaimed, making Tom and I laugh harder. When our laughs had died, so did my brother's smile.
"Look, I, uh... gotta tell you something." He began. 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, punching his shoulder, resulting in him letting out one final snicker and rubbing his shoulder.
"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. Slowly, I started to wonder off into sleep.
