KEREN

Quadrums.

It extended into the days. Hours. Millennia. Hazy memories danced between him, with Ethan hunched over veritable mountains of blurry books, a soft word as Mother soothed him with her love when his brother failed and left him for the bright screen of the tablepad. Brought with her gentle words of love, care, and freedom. "I hope you find happiness out there in the stars," she whispered, holding him tight. "Find people who care about you just as much as I do."

... I'll try, Miama... but I need to get out of here first...

Hands bandaged through the constant days, he kept distance from Ethan who helped Associates carry boxes from and to the warehouses. Another day of movement and hiding out of sight from the outside. Storage containers hid more effective means of weaponry. One part of the business treaded further into crime.

"Try and be careful with these boxes," Ethan instructed one man. "Some of the edevium still needs to be refined at the refinery and we don't need the extra hazard."

Keren reached forward to take one box off the transport, and he froze when Ethan abandoned one Associate to head for him, reaching his hands out to take the box from him. "Keren, your hands won't heal if you keep trying to—"

Palms flat against the sides, Keren shoved Ethan out of the way with his elbow. Confusion lit up the hatred he held for the person beside him as Ethan stood off to the side with yet another empty expression of playing pretend, a shaking vibration to his frame to accentuate the darkest shadows underneath his eyes. The person who wore his brother's face as a mask. Except it was in front of me all along. I'm still trapped, Miama... How am I going to find happiness and people who actually care about me now that you're gone? Keren opened the small container and set his carrier bag down as others worked around him to hide any illegal business practices.

"I don't need your help," Keren said and pushed the box into the next transport.

I have no escape but... death.

It was so easy to give up.

Keren sorted through the weapons crates and searched through the hidden compartments. He frowned at the bundle of chain charges in one of them, wrapped tightly and deactivated. Over his shoulder, Ethan called out to other Associates, where rollers moved heavier containers into other loaded transports. Fingers curled around the powerful explosives, Keren sighed and put them into the marked container, and retreated from the temptation to catch up with Ethan when they closed one of the giant warehouse doors.

"You sorted everything?" Ethan asked with his arms folded. Everyone else fell in line into the act.

"Yes," one Associate answered. "Next time the Sanctum does their regular check all they'll find is our edevium stores. They won't forget we supply them with it."

Ethan's nostrils flared and he shrugged. Keren shuffled past the Associate, who gave him a wide berth. Another killer. Quadrums - no, days - to come up with an escape plan. Ethan had made a choice and stole his chance away from him. But damn all the Celestials if I'm not going to get it back from him. If the only way is to die...

Keren checked on Ethan when he flicked through his datapad with an exhausted flutter of his eyes. Once, where he found safety, it broke apart in blood and forceful control. "What's going to happen after we clean out these warehouses?"

"Well, with the warehouses clean we don't have to worry about an accident in the refinery," Ethan said as he swiped through his datapad, his gaze full of weary steel when he faced Keren head on. "And they don't want the Sanctum to get any ideas, so... best we move all important stuff somewhere else where they can't find it."

Any other time he'd allow a question to escape, but he no longer knew who or what his brother was. If he had ever known him at all. If he had existed. Miama... why didn't my brother exist? Why isn't he here? Their life left her a victim of hate and people hungry for power and control. Pain licked across his bandaged knuckles on the edges of the cuts he inflicted upon himself.

"You're a terrible liar."

But if I don't try and act, I'm going to choke.

Keren glanced back at the warehouses, then the marked container where he left the chain charges. People left the warehouses, and his chance escaped out of his fingers.

"The longer you wait," Chalen revealed the truth. "The harder it gets."

"Keren?"

He turned around at the call of his name, Ethan stood there, shuffling in place with a quick dart around the immediate area before heading closer to him. Hesitation crawled through his face, and he said, "Look... I feel like I owe it to you to talk to you one last—"

"Wait. Wait." Keren waved his hands and Ethan fell silent. "Can this wait?"

Too little too late, Ethan. I don't want to talk to you anymore. I won't ever understand you. I won't ever understand what has taken over you. Whatever killed my brother right in front of me.

Ethan narrowed his eyes. "Why? For what?"

"I forgot my personal bag inside the warehouse from when I was dragging all those boxes out to the transports," he explained, only half of the truth, then forced a grin on his face. "It'd be a little strange if the Sanctum found that in the facility, wouldn't it?"

Ethan put down his duffel bag. "I'll go get it." He went to move past him, but Keren sidled in front of him, fighting to keep the smile on his face and to look his brother in the green eyes they both shared.

"It's okay. I can go get it." Keren waved his bandaged hands between them. "I'll be right back! Just..." You need to think of something, dammit. Something to keep him away. "Look, what happened—" One breath into passive calmness. "You've been smothering me since, Ethan, and I need some space."

Ethan hesitated. "I can send someone..."

"Ethan." Keren held onto his forearms, and he stopped. His expression fell into examination, but he refused to give in to the truth, and to prove once and for all the liar Ethan taught him to be. "Please? I just need to think. It's why I agreed to help with this move. It gives me something to do, you know? Get my mind off of... things."

Deliberation folded the greens. "I'm giving you five minutes, Keren. If you take any longer I'm coming in after you."

My only escape is to die.

"I don't even need five minutes." Relief spread through his body, and Keren fought the shakes. "Thanks, Ethan, I do appreciate it." Unable to stomach his cold features, Keren nodded at the other transports. "Besides, you need to get the other warehouses finished. I'll check the one I left my bag in just in case we missed something." As Ethan started to hand him his datapad full of information, Keren slammed it back against his chest with his hand. "Don't worry, I'll notice if something's out of place." He pressed the datapad closer, and Ethan stepped back from the force, still holding onto the edges. "And, you can get some sleep when you're home. I noticed you were doing nothing but yawning the whole day today."

"I've been busy."

I figured.

"Then I'll be right back, and then... we'll talk." Keren released himself from Ethan and bolted around the transports, and when he peeked around, Ethan headed for Urto, attention on his datapad with a weary frown on his face. But you lost your chance, Ethan. If you wanted to talk, you should've done that sooner instead of waiting. Keren ducked between the containers, then reached the one with the chain charges. And I am going to take back my life.

He slipped them into his hands and hid them in his jacket and ran through the warehouse district, allowing Associates to spot him walk into Warehouse Nine, with the attached refinery ready for use. The warmth which used to comfort him disappeared in the hand of cards and bleeding hearts.

Chalen was right.

Keren found the bag he shoved into one of the corners, unable to piece together when he had shoved all his model ships inside. His memory failed him in the aftershock of his stolen demise, and he shook it off. I must have done it... afterwards. I'm not staying here. He checked on the flight manual and the little scout he built with his brother tucked beside it. Keren hauled it over his shoulders and wandered around the facility, throwing the chain charges into the supports, attaching them on the sides of walls, avoiding the refinery doors to place the last one on another metal foundation.

Up the stairs to the catwalk, he listened to the birds in the trees chirp out their songs of flight. On his knees, he cupped the scout in both hands.

He remembered sitting there beside Ethan, who helped him with the smaller pieces to make the scout ship whole and complete. Knives lodged deeper into his hearts at the faded, false memories. He released a soft sob, and brought it close to nuzzle the remains of his dead family. "You hurt me," he whispered to it, the carrier of his message to Ethan. "I loved you, trusted you, and you hurt me. You promised me that you'd be there and you lied to me. I gave you so many opportunities that you never took, because you turned into something separate from who made that promise." He drove his teeth into his lower lips and rubbed his fingers across the wings. "He told me I would be the death of you, but as it turned out... you were long gone, weren't you? I didn't just lose Mom at North Park, I lost you too. You told me the dead don't talk..." He sucked in a breath, and tasted his own tears on his tongue. "So who was talking to me if not you?"

Five minutes.

He hugged the scout against his chest and leaned into the memory of grief, all alone. "For what it's worth, Kellzoro, for what I'm worth..." He squeezed the wings into his ribcage. "I really do hope that you get some sleep... For the person I thought you were. For the person that made me that promise. For the family that I used to have..." Keren let out a quiet sob. "For the person who I called my brother, who promised to build a ship with me, who chased me around the cottage and threw me off the pier only after asking if I could swim after I pushed him off." The rest of his hesitation died with the detonator to open his way to freedom right beside him. "Who jumped right up when I was scared when I thought I was hearing a monster, who went to go check a stupid child's fear, who pointed out the truth to me, but still let me stay nearby because it was the only place I felt safe even if it meant you got no sleep at all."

He sniffed, then held out the scout.

"What happened to you?" he said to its nose. "But this life? This life that killed my family?"

He breathed once, then threw it over the railing, where it clattered onto the ground below with no ability to fly him away. Keren scooped up the detonator, his back to the open window and the sky above. In the hands of the weak link in a chain, he opened up the last connection, and unraveled the pieces of that same chain to tick into a fiery tempest. On his feet when the detonator snapped the alert, the chain charges all around him trembled on their timers when he stepped closer to the open air. You can't steal this from me now... if no one escapes alive, then... maybe this life needs to believe that I died.

Goodbye, Ethan.