Silent Death

He follows me around the house.

He follows me wherever I go.

Desperate to live.

That'd be my brother, Kaushik.

He's dead now.

We should have known.

Ever since we found out my mother was pregnant with Kaushik, bad omens followed us. Mirrors were broken, my father lost his job and all my pets died. But we didn't know it was because of him. This tiny monster occupying my mother's womb.

My mother suffered extreme pains throughout her pregnancy that she wasn't supposed to get.

She bore great pains for him, claiming it would be worth it. It wasn't. It was a difficult birth. My mother was steps away from death.

When he was born, he didn't actually look too right. He looked unhuman.

A slimy reptilish sort of... monster? More like a it than a he.

The doctor stated he was premature. He was put in the incubator. But maybe he would have survived- if not the generator had stopped working. The city underwent a power down for an hour. That was one too many for the incubator.

My baby brother.... breathed one last time..and thumped down to a silent death.

I didn't even get to hold him in my arms. When I did, he was solid. And dead.

We mourned him with nothing but hurt and despair. My mother didn't have another child after that.

But something we didn't know was going on at his side.

Not having experienced a drip of life, he wasn't able to go to his resting place.

He waited patiently. For 16 years. Until he told me about himself. He'd been roaming around me all these years, and now he thought he could tell me what it was that he wanted.

Happiness.

To feel alive.

To take part.

To love..

That is what he asked me for.

I agreed out of fear. Fear of what a monstrous thing he is.

That's when I realised.

He cannot materialise. Nor can he do what I can.

But then HE realised.

He could share one's body, and then take control.

He glared at me, fascinated.

Then he smirked.

Seems like he knows how to fulfil his first and last desire.