"Can you hear me....brother..?"
Thunderlane asked the tombstone before him this question many times already in the last two hours he'd been sitting in front of it. The lack of a response never seemed to deter the pegasus from continuing on with his thoughts.
"I can never say it enough..." He mumbled, his eyes darting over the ground. "I could say it a million times...a trillion even...and it would never be enough times. Not for me...not for mom...and especially not for you, little brother..."
Thunderlane blinked a little as he felt his eyes begin to sting a little. A little turned into a lot, and before the normally tough and stallion-y pony knew it, the increasingly familiar sensation of wet tears racing down his muzzle struck him.
Internally, he cursed himself. Not because of his crying like a foal, but because of the reason he had to do so. Everypony told him it would all be okay, and that these things happen sometimes without warning.
But he knew they were wrong; things like this didn't 'just happen.' If it hadn't been for the thick headed stallion's short-sightedness and stupidity, it wouldn't have happened at all.
"I..." He started to choke out. "I...."
__________________________________________________________
"Yo, Thunderlane!" called out the brown pegasus rapidly flying over to him. "You goin' to the Nightmare Night attraction tonight?"
Thunderlane looked up from his timesheet from work, and gave an apologetic smile to his friend.
"Sorry, Dumbell..." He said. "I can't. I gotta watch my little brother, Rumble, tonight. You know how it is..."
Dumbell groaned, obviously annoyed by this response. "C'mon, man, you always have to watch your crybaby brother!"
"Hey, now. He isn't a crybaby. He's just young is all."
"Thunderlane, Rumble is almost thirteen years old!" Dumbell pointed out, emphasizing the age. "Thirteen, bro! I'd say he's way past the excuse of being young when he starts crying over something like a leaf touching his butt."
Thunderlane had to admit; it was pretty disconcerting that his little brother was still pretty quick to a scare. In fact, just last week, Rumble had nearly had a heart attack when Thunderlane shut the door too hard carrying in groceries for their parents. And the week before that when he'd jumped almost clean out of his skin when Thunderlane had merely said hello from behind him.
"Yeah..." He finally admitted aloud. "I guess he is a bit too old for that kinda thing...but still, man, don't go insulting him, ok? He's my brother, and scaredy-cat or not, that isn't changing."
Dumbell rolled his eyes and began to hover off from the weather factory. He had hardly gotten more than three feet away from Thunderlane when his face lit up with an idea.
He turned around and waved a hoof promptly to signal his friend's attention again.
"Hey, I just had a great idea." He said, a little too eagerly. "Since you can't come with me to the Nightmare Night attraction, howsabout we bring Nightmare Night to your place?"
"What do you mean?"
"I mean, I come to your place and we have ourselves a scarefest of our own!"
Thunderlane scratched his neck in thought; his eyes scrunching up in concern as he looked away.
"I..don't know..." He said. "Something like that might scare Rumble too much...and it's hard enough to get him to bed as it is..."
"That's the point, man!" Dumbell spat.
Thunderlane did a double-take. "What?"
"Listen, man," The brown pegasus started, leaning in. "that kid brother of yours is way too easy to scare. Think of it this way, if we put him through enough of a living Tartarus tonight, anything afterwards will be like Filly's Play to him! No more scaredy-cat Rumble!"
Thunderlane blinked, still very unsure, and his gut instinct telling him to say no to the idea immediately. Still, maybe it would do Rumble some good to have large scare; something to help him get those pent up screams out of his system.
He remembered back whenhe'd been a foal; his father had taken him to the highest point the clouds were at and dropped him saying that if he didn't fly, he would die. Thunderlane had never forgotten how to fly after that. He supposed that, while not as extreme, this was a similar experience, and just might be a good experience for his little brother. Besides, if he screamed his lungs out enough, he might even tire himself out and get to bed early.
Uneasily, Thunderlane smiled to Dumbell. "Alright, I guess we can give it a try. But on one condition."
"Name it!" Dumbell exclaimed, obviously excited to put on a show tonight.
"After we get done scaring Rumble, we need to tell him it was us the whole time. I don't want him thinking monsters and stuff are real, ok?"
Dumbell absent-mindedly gave a 'yeah, yeah' gesture with his hoof and pulled Thunderlane along with him out of the weather factory. Something in the back of the black pegasus stallion's mind told him he'd made a mistake.
* * *
Rumble sat lazily on his cloud covered bed in his room, happily occupying himself with a stress ball he'd found at school that day. He'd seen his brother was hanging out with Dumbell again today, and at first was excited at having someone else to play with the two of them.
But, to the young gray pegasi's dismay, Thunderlane and Dumbell had pretty much kept to themselves since the trio got home, and even refused to come up and play some video games or something with him. It had surprised him; Thunderlane never ever missed out on a chance to try and beat him at Wonderbolts2K16. It was both their favorite game.
He figured his big brother had a reason though. He always did, and he always made it up to him as well, so Rumble wasn't too terribly upset with it. He knew everything would work itself out.
Of course, as was his luck according to him; as soon as he thought this, the lights in his room started flickering, and eventually died, leaving him in the near pitch black of his room with only the slight illumination from the moon outside to let him see.
Instantly, his heart started to thump a little faster in his chest.
"Brother...? I think mom forgot to pay the lightning bill again...brother...?
When no response came, Rumble's ears flattened to his skull and he crept slowly towards the stairs leading down to the living room of their cloud home. The only noise he could hear was the soft wind blowing through the night sky. It was an eerie feeling, and it made poor Rumble's fur ripple like waves in a lake.
"Brother..? Are you and Dumbell still there?" He called down, hoping desperately for some kind of response.
Again, he was met with nothing but silence.
"Oh..." He groaned as he started his way down the staircase.
As the young colt made is way into the darkened living quarters, he heard the faint sound of thunder in the distance. Just the thing he wanted to hear, he sarcastically thought to himself.
All sarcasm aside, however, he was legitimately terrified. Thunderlane was no where to be seen or heard, and Dumbell seemed to have vanished as well. He himself had no way idea how to flip the breakers, as his big brother had not yet shown him how. This is mind, he had no way of restoring power if indeed something had tripped, and if it really was a forgotten bill by their mother, than that was even worse.
He rounded the corner of the home into the dark kitchen. Out of the corner of his eye, Rumble thought he saw movement. Gasping and swiftly turning his head, his pinprick eyes met nothing, but his heartbeat did not slow down. The fact that nothing was there almost scared him more than if something had been there, no matter how terrifying.
"Thunderlane...where are you...?" He whimpered.
Suddenly, a loud scream startled the poor colt into jumping four feet straight up off the cloud floor. It sounded a lot like Dumbell, and it was coming form the bedroom. Why was Dumbell in the bedroom? Was Thunderlane in there too? Why had Dumbell screamed like that? Was he hurt? Was Thunderlane hurt?!
His curiosity momentarily overtook his terror, and he quickly dashed to the bedroom door to find out his answers. He nearly lost his nerve as he approached the actual door; it's cloud molded frame slightly ajar.
Gulping hard and trying not to cry in fright of what he might see, Rumble slowly opened the door. He gasped and just about screamed himself when he saw what was laying on the bed of his mother's room.
Dumbell was lying motionless, his eyes shut and his mouth agape in a frozen expression of terror. It looked like he was covered in thin ketchup as it dripped down his side from his chest. Rumble's eyes followed the drizzle of red liquid and saw what looked to be a large steak knife embedded into Dumbell's torso. That was not ketchup...
Rumble quickly backed away, and bumped into something hard yet warm. It felt like a pony, and as he looked behind him to find out, he finally did scream.
The pony in question wore a hooded robe that dragged behind it and it's eyes glowed red underneath the shadow obscuring it's face. It took a step towards him, and Rumble didn't take just one, but several galloping steps in the opposite direction. When the grim pony followed swiftly, he rolled under the bed, and covered his eyes with his hooves; shaking tremendously.
"What...what was that..?!" He asked himself, perhaps a little too loudly.
It had been too loud; for the next instant, he felt something grab his rear leg and drag him screaming from under the bed. It held him upside down in front of it, looking menacingly at him.
Rumble kicked and screamed, tears falling freely from his face. One of his wild kicks connected, earning a grunt of pain from the monster. Rumble didn't stick around to keep kicking though. Like a cat knocked off it's perch, he landed on all fours and hit the clouds running.
He got about halfway to the stairs, but the monster was faster, and flew over him, landing heavily in front of his path. He tried the other direction, but the same result happened. Twice more, and finally, Rumble started to crawl backwards into a corner of the room. The monster in the robe slowly moved closer to him.
The absolutely mortified young colt curled into a sobbing ball and began to wail loudly, calls for his big brother coming out in between. After a few seconds of this, he heard a familiar voice.
"HEy, Rumble, calm down...it's me."
Rumble opened his eyes in surprise, and when he turned to the monster, it had removed it's hood and mask to show none other than Thunderlane underneath.
"It's just me, brother..." He offered, smiling nervously.
Rumble stared at him, dumbstruck. Why had his big brother, the stallion who knew he was deathly afraid of things like this pull a horrible prank like this on him? It didn't make any sense.
After a tense few seconds, Dumbell came trotting in, holding the fake knife in his hoof. "Wow, you really are a giant crybaby, kid."
Thunderlane turned to look at Dumbell with a warning look, but Rumble didn't see it, and he began to run away from the duo.
The black pegasus blinked quickly, and then started after his little brother. "Rumble! Where are you going? Come back!"
"How could you?!" Was all Thunderlane got in response as his young brother galloped out of the house at full speed.
The thunder from before was much closer now, and lightning was starting to become visible in the clouds. Thunderlane gave chase, calling out to Rumble to stop, and that it was dangerous to be out in this storm.
Dumbell was hoping on the thunderclouds nearby as they gave chase.
"Hey, Thunderlane, watch this!" He laughed, stomping a cloud and causing lighting to strike outwards with a loud crack of thunder.
The bolt of super-heated electricity struck very close to poor Rumble, who fell over and screamed in shock and surprise before getting up and galloping even faster away from the two, crying loudly as he did so.
Thunderlane gave a non-distinct shout of anger at Dumbell's actions before shouting out, "STOP IT!"
Dumbell laughed. "Aw, c'mon man! This is just getting good!"
He stomped another thunder cloud, striking out a couple bolts that came far too close to the fleeing colt for Thunderlane's patience. Gritting his teeth, the black pegasus gave a shout, changing his direction towards the howling bully rapidly.
"I said that's enough!!" He yelled, pushing Dumbell off his cloud perch and into another large thunderhead.
The impact caused several bolts to lash out in all directions faster than one could blink. As Thunderlane opened his eyes, he gasped loudly and started to mumble out several words that sounded a lot like "no."
There, in the center of the cluster was Rumble's limp form, blackened and smoking from the lightning that had exploded out of the cloud Dumbell had landed in...the cloud Thunderlane had pushed him into.
Dumbell put on a very shocked face as well at this sight, and looked nervously over at Thunderlane.
"Oh my...I..I'm sorry, I didn't...."
Thunderlane ignored him, and as fast as his wings could, he rushed down to his little brother's unmoving, burnt body. So much static was coursing through the tiny colt, but Thunderlane forced himself to grab and hold close the limp form.
"Rumble! RUMBLE!" He cried out, trying to shake him awake. "BROTHER, WAKE UP!"
No response. Rumble put his ear to the little pegasi's chest, and heard...nothing. Noting except for the popping of electricity as the static bridged itself on their fur at close proximity. No breathing, no movement...no heartbeat.
Not even thinking, Thunderlane blasted off below the clouds headed straight for Ponyville. The town looked to be in the full swing of it's Nightmare Night celebration, but it didn't matter to him. He landed hard, still cradling Rumble's charred body to his chest.
Several startled ponies backed away and gasped as he let out one long, loud shout.
"HELP!"
The next few hours seemed to blur together for poor Thunderlane; the nurses rushed Rumble into the ER, and Doctor Stable had immediately been on the scene, prepping the small gray colt for resuscitation. They did not allow Thunderlane back there until hours later when they cantered out to the waiting room; somber looks on each of their faces.
Thunderlane couldn't remember a time he'd cried so hard before that day nor since. He poured his soul out, hugging his now cold little brother in his forelegs on the hospital bed.
"Oh, Celestia! Celestia, why? WHY? WHY ME?!?!" He cried out hoarsely, tearing up his throat without care as he screamed. "I'm....I can't say this enough...I'll never be able to say it enough...brother..I'm sorry! I'm sorry!!!"
The weeping stallion continued to repeat those heavy words over and over as the nurses finally unhooked the heart-monitor, and nothing but silence, save for the sound of Thunderlane's laments, filled the halls.
Author's Note
Inspired by the song "Dear Brother" by DA Games ft. Dawko
