Midnight

Ill at Ease

His scream permeated through the beeping of the machines and the static in his mind. His shoulder sizzled as agony, sharp and hot, raced through him. His eyes were open wide, staring sightlessly at the wooden wall of the workroom, committing the grain to detail as the excruciation overwhelmed him.

As soon as it had started, it was over. He slumped forward and hit the ground, laying on his side. His chest heaved for air as he tried to breathe through the pain. His whole face was contorted with the feeling, his eyes screwed shut and his jaw clenched. He vaguely processed his brother's voice but didn't hear the regret or concern in it. As far as he knew, the man in the room with him didn't even want him to be here, even after an entire decade apart.

This knowledge pushed him upwards, his fist perfectly arching and landing straight in the other man's face. He staggered back, and Stan got back on his feet, watching his twin as he continued backward, tripping over (and consequently flipping) a lever. He clutched at his wounded shoulder, gritting his teeth through the pain radiating from the burn. He stalked over to him, the words leaving his mouth harsh in tone. The gateway behind Ford sparked dangerously.

"Some brother you turned out to be. You care more about your dumb mysteries more than your family? Then you can have them," he bellowed. His hands, still holding the journal numbered '1', shoved against his brother's chest, sending him backward. The lighting of the room shifted, giving everything a purplish, then vermillion hue. The other grabbed at the journal, shocked, as he tilted, awaiting the harsh impact of the ground.

It never came.

Stan watched, horrified, as his brother began to float slowly toward the portal, which flared a deep crimson behind him. His brother's eyes were wide, and he swore that he saw a distinctive flash of horror in those blue eyes as he drifted further and further away from him. Ford let out a sharp gasp, his limbs struggling to grasp something, anything to hold on to.

Stan was helpless- he knew in his soul that there was nothing he could possibly do to help his twin, who grew more and more frantic by the second.

"Stanley! Stanley, help me!"

"What do I do?" What could he do?

"Do somethi-"

The rest of Ford's command was cut short by a deep, guttural scream that tore from the elder's chest. His body was beginning to shift and distort, minuscule pieces breaking off of him and getting sucked into the hole punched in reality. The hand holding the journal grew slack from the shock of it all, and the next swing of his arm launched the book in Stan's general direction. It hit the ground about two meters from his feet, bouncing and landing spine down. Journal 1 opened, and the pages fluttered under the otherworldly wind that whistled around the basement.

Ford's screams began to distort and bend in pitch, becoming rawer and more visceral as the seconds passed by. Tears were streaming down the other's face from the pain. Stanley couldn't move, paralyzed by the inhuman noise his brother emitted. He could do nothing but watch. Stanford writhed in the air helplessly, the wind whipping his trench coat around him as if he were stuck in the middle of a hurricane. His wail grew higher in pitch before his voice completely gave out, leaving him silently screaming for someone, something, to help him.

Stan's heart stopped when his brother completely broke apart- a harshly luminescent crack spread from his chest outward, spiderwebbing out to the rest of his body before the shards separated. There was no blood, no viscera, nothing but clean fractals. The primal, pleading, tortured expression of his brother pierced through his mind, his brain committing it to memory before it, too, splintered easily. The shards were immediately sucked into the portal, ridding the world of the last vestiges of his brother, who he might as well have killed.