"Wake up, big brother."
Emil put his small hand onto his brother's shoulder and shook it lightly. Lukas had been in bed all day; he hadn't even gotten up to eat. Emil was starting to worry. It wasn't like Lukas to stay all locked up in his bedroom for so many hours. Especially since big brother Mathias wasn't home at the moment.
But now Emil was really worried. Even as he shook Lukas's shoulder and asked for him to wake up, he didn't. He just laid there, blank expression on his face, eyes shut tightly. Emil shook him harder.
"Big brother, please wake up," he quietly begged, climbing onto the bed beside his big brother. Lukas still didn't stir. Emil pouted. "I want to talk to you…"
. . .
"I had a bad dream just now… Do you want to hear it?"
. . .
"OK, I'll just tell you…
I dreamed that I was in a forest.
You and Big Brother Mathias were there too, and so were Uncle Tino and Uncle Berwald. We were all walking somewhere. I forget where…
But then a big bird came out of the trees. It said we needed to fight it in order to keep going, so Big Brother Mathias took out his sword and tried to attack it, but the bird swallowed him up. Uncle Tino tried to kill it too, and the bird tried to eat him, but Uncle Berwald got in front of him and saved him, so Uncle Tino cried until he dried up like a prune.
Then only you and me were left, big brother. You told me to sneak under the bird's legs while you distracted it and to run far, far away. So, I did, and you were gobbled up by the bird. And I was all alone… And I cried and I ran until I found a house.
I went inside the house and sat down at a little table that was inside and waited. I don't remember what I was waiting for, but it was taking forever. I got bored, so I got up and walked to the other side of the house.
There was a door there, so I opened it. Inside was the stomach of a bird and you, Mathias, and Berwald were all decayed inside it, and it made me sad, so I closed the door. I opened the door next to it. Tino was there, sobbing, and his broken heart was on the floor, bleeding salty tears instead of blood. I didn't like it, so I closed the door. There was one last door, a third door. But it wouldn't open, so I went back to the little table.
On the table was a silver plate. There was nothing on the plate, it was just a plate, and I walked over to it. When I looked at my reflection, I saw Tino, Berwald, Mathias, and you, big brother, standing around me and crying. I turned around to ask why you all were sad, but you weren't there. When I turned back around, the bird was there. It smiled at me. I asked it to give my family back.
It said no.
And so I cried until my heart burst out of my chest and landed on the silver plate. The bird took the plate with its wings and it ate my heart. Once it did that, I couldn't feel sadness anymore. Only loneliness."
"Isn't that an interesting dream, big brother?"
Emil curled up at Lukas's back, burying his face in Lukas's fair hair. He reached up a tiny hand to touch the cross hairpin that Lukas used to partially hold back his bangs, and Emil took it out. The younger boy held the silvery pin in front of his face and peered into the reflection. He didn't see his family crying behind him. That made him happy, and he stuck the pin into his own hair, all while smiling. Fat tears rolled down his cheeks as he cuddled next to his brother.
"I just wish you had been awake to hear it…" he whispered. And he fell asleep there.
When he woke up in the morning, the bed would be empty. He would seek out the warmth of his big brother, but not find it. So, he would open his eyes and get out of bed. Lukas would be downstairs, making breakfast for him. Big Brother Mathias would be hanging around him, talking excitedly about things no one cared about. Uncle Tino would be trying to converse with Uncle Berwald at the kitchen table, only occasionally getting responses. Emil would take his seat and say good morning to his family, and they would say good morning back, petting him on the head and smiling. Emil would smile back because they loved him. He loved them too.
But none of that would really happen,
Lukas wouldn't be there to tell him stories about fairies when he couldn't sleep. Mathias wouldn't be there to have pretend sword fights and always lose on purpose. Tino wouldn't be there to sneak him candies and treats before dinner when Lukas wasn't looking. Berwald wouldn't be there to offer him a comforting shoulder to cry on whenever Emil needed to cry but didn't want anyone else to see or know.
None of them would be there.
Because they were all dead. And the painful truth is that Emil is utterly and completely alone.
A/N:Hey y'all! I've been dead lately and I'm super sorry! I have been at a creativity standstill with my writing and all I've managed to do is write a few poems and, well, what you just read (plus two other stories like it). I've also been roleplaying a lot on Discord to try and get my writing ability back but I don't know if it's working. Everything I write just comes out wrong and bland and I end up deleting it all. I'm so sorry that I've been gone so long if you're some of those people that enjoy the stories I haven't updated in FOREVER. I'll try to update them as soon as I figure out how to write again. For now, I might post my poems just to prove I'm not dead, and leave a comment if you want to see the other two stories that mainly involve death.
CYa!