text: The blade missed my nape from a second and it pierced through my back. Its arrowhead couldn’t penetrate deep but it had thrust enough. I clenched my teeth and clutched to my hunting knife, even tighter to swing it back and slice the head of the cowardly back-stabber. I shove my feet into snow and spin my arm to make a far extended swing, but when my burning eyes met the back-stabber - my arm dropped. A thrusting blade never felt so awful then it did on that winder afternoon because my own blood, my own brother, stabbed it into my back. Of course, he was trembling; my quick gaze on his eyes spoke it clear. My arms all on sudden throbbed from exhaustion and my heart began pumping more blood. Gasping for air in the frozen day, I looked at him in all but pity. “Herman...why?” I said. My words were weak. His eyes didn’t match mine, maybe right then, I looked nothing but a monster to him, to my big brother. If that were the reason, I would satisfyingly accept and apologize. My hands were coated red from blood for four tall and sturdy people, whose bodies spread around us. My dear private dagger dripped blood; one leg had an arrow skewered through. Even my face, it probably didn’t look like the kind and gentle Henry of our village. The one he grew up with playing in woods and catching insects. Something more frightening, it would terrify him immediately. Herman drew a knife from his belt and aimed towards me, his hands - quivering. He finally looked at me but that glare; it wasn’t anything of my expectation. His eyes were not of regret but it burned from stimulation. His jaw - clenched tightly. That look was merely an impossible task for him ever since our parent’s gruesome death, I thought. “Speak to me, what’s the meaning of this?” I asked again. “There’s no meaning to this, other than the gold dagger,” he answered within heavy breathes. “What dagger?” I asked as nothing called to mind precisely. “The one that father gave YOU, dammit,” he shouted, thrusting his knife in air. He was certainly provoked but never have I seen him that way. The golden dagger housed in our hunting family for ages, our father said. He and I adoredit, placed at the highest shelf in our wooden house. Lastly, before we knew, it became the only belonging left to us by him. “Is this all for that puny blade?” I said. “It costs thousands you jerk, I could buy this whole village for seven lives, they said they would give me all of it,” he stated. His face held grinning greed and as for he mentioned ‘they’, I all but prayed that, he wouldn’t say that. “You mean those foreigners, did they tell you this?” “Unlike filth like you, they took me in as a soldier and made me recognize my place” he answered. His face held a blind shine those hypnotizers stuffed into him. It suddenly started coming clear to me - his frequent disappearance, his unusual uneasiness towards me for a while, and lastly a sudden ambush by four foreigners during our ordinary hunt. “Tell me, did YOU made these guys attack us here?” I asked. I hoped that the answer shouldn’t come the worst way I was deducting it. May all my insane thoughts prove wrong. “To take down a monster like you, yes” he shouted. His words pierced through the cold air and into my head. “Monster...you say,” I murmured under a breath. I had no idea what my face would look then, if any case, it would be terrifying. I extended my arm backwards and pulled out the arrow from my back followed by a gush of blood.The shoving in snow behind me became louder and louder. The grisly screamed escaped his mouth as I swung back letting my body loose and thrust the arrow into the tall person’s neck. His arms were at air holding a machete. It dropped from his grip as his eyes rolled back and he fell on his knees. I exhaled deeply but my mind was pitch-black and all on a sudden another scream filled the head. I could not respond as I immediately felt a blade piercing through my waist and warmth stretching throughout that area. Herman didn’t shed a tear doing it, or rather - he was scared. I dropped backwards on snow, grabbed his scrawny face and brought him down with me. I clenched my fist after falling and bashed his jaw. It shook his entire skull but I didn’t let go and bashed him repeatedly and again. Blood from his mouth flowed on my hand as he dropped on his face immediately after I let go. A bed of snow surely is soft, I thought while staring up at the flakes dropping from heaven. I moved my hand and found the knife sticking out of my waist. I pulled it out. Clearly that brat didn’t have enough strength to pierce through a heavy layered coat and reach beneath muscles. He is pathetic. I sat up digging my arms into the snow while my body aching, ready to collapse. “Why? Why are you so tough to deal with?” Herman cried out pulling his face together from blood dripping on snow. “Even though those guys killed our parents, you still went to them,” I said. “I do not care what we used to believe anymore, I only want that gold and they will take me in” he replied trying to balance his feet again. “Was it the same when you saw them both burned down with our house?” “Not at all, but time has changed Henry, and this time I am the stronger here” he said, stomping on my shoulder and my back hit to a tree trunk behind, “tell me where is it?” “Stronger huh, don’t make me laugh” I replied lifting my head towards that filthy face of his. His eyes widen as of from a string of shiver. Maybe if my body wasn’t exhausted, maybe if I wasn’t bleeding - I would definitely rip him down for those words he could say. Our father was a privileged hunter but ever since those long-faced wicked cigar-smoking foreigners arrived with sweet words and promise of coalition towards the hunting hills; everything changed. They were ruthless, dominating and depraved to the core. It became clearer when they set eyes over our dagger. Their endeavours to buy it failed drastically so they began trying of pocketing it but the villagers lured by their fancy never stood to believe us. Lastly, before we could realize, our house burnt to ashes with our parents inside. “Tell me where it is,” he asked again. “Do you really think they’ll take you in?” I said, countering his question. “Just tell me where it is”. “Did you forget how much we suffered on our own?” I suddenly heard his footsteps driving away from me. Perhaps, he started questioning himself, his motives. Either way, maybe I could spare him then. Of course I would, at last it was our trust that pulled us together after all the tragedies and sufferings. His dragging footsteps returned to its initial place and immediately a rifle’s muzzle hit my forehead. “Tell me where it is, Henry.” I raised my head aligning to the rifle he pointed at my head. He retrieved it from one of the deceased baldheads. “Did you really forget what happened to mum and dad?” It was the last question I had for him, the very last of our relationship. “Yes.” I revealed the dagger’s location. The rifle slipped from his hands and he stepped backwards, turned his back at me and made his escape from the place. I huffed, sitting miserably against a tree. The wounds wouldn’t definitely kill me but something else did. I lost my only family but I had no tears to spare, maybe the chill on these mountains dried me up that much. I let my brother go, he would probably sell off that dagger to those drunkenforeigner and they would take him in as comrade cum servant. Maybe I became a monster after all because the next time we meet, he wouldn’t see him any lesser than an enemy.