"Don't just stand there! Please!" I begged, feeling my heart ache. "Tom, please!"
"I can't." He said, a quivering frown forming on his face when he removed his hand from his mouth. "She's gone…"
"No. No! I-I can't just let her die!" I cried out into the Earth's forest and trees. "This is all my fault." I continued, unable to stop myself from talking. "I did this." My anger had skyrocketed and I began to sob more.
I thought it was the end, but it had only just begun. It all felt too real. The feeling of new bones forming and breaking through my skin and growing out beyond my back. The noise it made when they were growing, transforming. The wings, the horns, my fangs. I fell forward in excruciating pain. I swore I even heard crunching and cracking.
Then, I woke up screaming. Tom was up again, as always. He had been watching from his own bed, many feet away. "Marco…"
"Shut it." I snarled, my temper high already. "I don't need your sympathy." With that, I never heard another peep out of Tom that night.
. . .
Not acknowledging Tom when I got to the kitchen, I passed by him and straight to the food pantry. I stormed in, looking for at least something decent to eat instead of any meat or a jar of cockroaches. I clenched up my face in disgust, not understanding how Tom could eat them. Surely they must taste better in his mind than mine.
I snatched a bag of potato chips from the shelf and tore it open with my claws, plummeting to the ground and sitting up against a wall. It wasn't until I began grabbing as much as I could put in my mouth that Tom followed me into the pantry. In his hand, he casually held a red cup of bubbling punch.
"What are you doing?" He asked, inviting himself in and sitting down next to me even though he probably knew I didn't want him near me.
"What do you care?" I grumbled, filling my face with chips and crunching down on them aggressively.
"You're wolfing down a bag of chips. Something is obviously wrong."
"I'm fine. Just leave me alone." I scooted a few inches away from him, but he followed, like a baby duck not wanting to leave its mother.
"Was it about that nightmare again?" He asked, testing my patience.
"No, it's just a dream. Besides, if I wasn't a demon, I wouldn't be able to do this." I took my hand out of the potato chip bag and felt the tingle of my nerves touch my fingertips. The power of a green spark ignited into full flames, created a ball of vividly green fire that sat in my hand. I closed my hand tight, the fire going out.
"Yeah," Tom exhaled. "I guess you're right."
"Now leave me alone. I didn't plan on talking to you today." As if to be deaf to my wish, Tom stayed. He squinted his three eyes at me, observing me. "Don't you hear anything I say?" I groaned through the half-chewed food in my mouth.
"Marco, your face."
"What?" I said, curiosity pushing aside the feeling of annoyance towards my brother. "What about it?"