Reflection

                Mother does not even hesitate before she backhands me across the face. 

                Ithaigo's POV 

                 I fall backwards, reeling from her blow, and slam into the dusty table.

               "Ithaigo! I cannot BELIEVE what you have done. STEALING bread? Have you no SHAME? What next? stealing the ring off of your dead Grandmother's finger?" Mother seethed. 

               "Ella was hungry." I forcibly kept my expression and voice flat and even. In truth, I am ashamed for taking the loaf of bread, but I must be resolute. Desperate times call for desperate action. " They are already dead, Mother, bread is nothing to the dead." I continued, earning myself another slap from my mother. Good. I deserved it. 

             A hiccup echoed through the silence as Ella sobbed from her curled position under the window. The dusty afternoon light glinted off the golden strands in her otherwise dark hair, and lit up her silhouette with a halo of light. 

              Father watched me and mother from his seat next to Ella and the window, he was furious, I can tell, but he is tongueless and unable to convey his anger. A courtesy of the king's dungeon guards. Father's eyes met mine, he looked away and angrily shook his head before leaving with a long, heaving sigh. His disappointment stung more than mother's palm. I took the suffering silently. I did wrong, but it was worth my pride to keep my family fed. 

             "Ithaigo, you must understand, in this desolate time, the only thing we have left is our pride." Mother's voice shook from her tears, and she paused to swipe at them with a grimy handkerchief. " But you gave up your pride for a single loaf of bread, Ithaigo, what have you done?"

            "I feel no remorse." The third time I have ever told a lie, and it was frighteningly easy.

              Mother lunged forward, her face twisted into a mask of fury. There are wrinkles on her ageless face now where there used to be smooth skin. Worry and grief had marred her beauty. 

            "GET OUT !" Mother screamed over Ella's sobs, "GET OUT OF MY SIGHT! YOU ARE NO SON OF MINE!"

             I clenched my teeth, but swallowed down the rising tears. I plastered a savage smirk on my features and forced my arm to move in the motion of a mock salute before I stepped out from the shack, keeping my steps jaunty and mocking, even as the tears ran down my face. 

...

               I used to be a wealthy merchants son. But that was a long time ago, before this kingdom went to hell. It's funny really, our kingdom used to be the trade center of the realm, our streets were once filled with travelers, revelers, and nobility from other lands. Our king loved his people, and we praised him in the manner akin to worship. But I suppose all things fall and crumple and dies, and so our kingdom did. As soon as the dastardly prince stepped onto the throne, the land had died. And since then, dust and the desert had slowly swallowed our once lush oasis of a kingdom as the newly crowned king watched from the leisure of his golden palace. 

              Mother was a lady of high breeding, born and raised in the beautiful garden's of Grandmama's orchards. Father was a trader of silks and jewels and the most sought after across the realm. They would never survive this harsh, fallen kingdom, having lounged, all their life, in pillows of silk and taffeta, with servants for everything. They still believe that everything will go back to the way they were before. They are naive. This world that i live in now is the harsh reality, where everyone is at everyone else's throats, where the strong prevails and the weak rot in the dust. But they prefer to dream of days long past and dead. 

               I sighed, lowering myself onto the rooftop's surface with a grunt. My back aches from manual labor in the king's docks and stables. 

               The stars overhead are coldly bright, and the moonlight is sallow, as if sick with fever. I stretched and closed my eyes. One day, I will personally flay the bastard who calls himself our king with his own teeth, but now, it is time for me to rest. I hope my family fares well tonight. It's the best for them not to see me anymore, not until I have killed the king.  

                They will never understand me. 

...

                 Damian's POV 

                 The swords met with a metallic ringing as me and my brother dueled. My shirts is bloody and gashed, while he is immaculate and grinning from ear to ear. I'm losing strength, and he sensed it like a hound after a hare. At the next strike, when our swords me again, he brought his foot up and kicked me in the throat. 

                 My sword dropped to the ground with a clang as I flew backwards, landing on a blasted golden column. My spine snapped in half with a sickening crack against the gilded floors. I could feel bone protruding from the skin of my back as I lay, moaning and bleeding on the palace's pretty floors. 

                 Brown boots stepped into my field of view, and cloth rustled as my brother bent down and took my severed spine with his hands. Another crack echoed in the silent room as he set the bones straight, and I laughed in my pain as my body slowly knit itself back into my wretched self.

               "Had enough yet? Damian?" I didn't have to look up to know that he is still grinning.

               "Never." I growled. "Come here, you son of a bitch, kill me if you dare, coward." I spat. "Come on," I mocked, "if you kill me, you can get this wretched throne. The people love you anyways." I laughed mirthlessly. "They would love to have their Silver Prince as king, wouldn't they? They pray for my death every night. You can hear it, you know, if you listen closely. " I hacked up a lungful of blood but continued with my teeth bloody and broken, "all that hatred, for me, their bastard king, but little did they know," I wagged my finger at him, "little did they know that their beloved Silver Prince is the one behind it all!" I  roared with hysterical laughter. "Imagine their faces when you finally murder me and step on the throne! Oh how I would howl with mirth from the heavens!" I was crying with my insane laughter. 

                  My brother just shook his pretty silver haired head and sprawled out besides me, in the pile of my blood and bone shards. It doesn't seem to bother him much. We used to lie like this upon the castle roofs, and count all the stars in the sky. But those were the good and happy moments of days long past, we are no longer brothers in my eyes, a

and after what he has done to my kingdom and my people. He rolled his head around and peered at me through silver lashed eyes. "Are you done yet?" He asked after a moment, calm and unmoved by my insanity. 

                    "Done? Why, my dear brother! I've just started! If you want to finish it, why don't you do it yourself?" It's dangerous to goad him on, but his pretty blue eyes are just too pretty and perfect. I want to pluck them out like grapes with my bare hands. " Go on, do tear out my heart, see if I'll die. If I don't, well then, lucky you! I'll come back to kill you again tomorrow ! Isn't that fun?"

                      His gaze darkened. And he bared his teeth menacingly.

                      I erupted into another bought of hysterical laughter. 

                      His hand plunged deep into my chest and poked through my rib cage like I had bones of butter. He gripped my still beating heart and ripped the steaming organ out of my body with a savage smile. I stretched my lips into an imitation of his expression, just to mock him. I had sworn, to never, ever, let him see my cry out in pain, and so I complied to my oath, even as my lungs struggled to knit together. He pried open my mouth and shoved a still pulsating hunk of my own heart into my mouth. I gagged and spat, but he held my nose until I swallowed, then fed me another piece.

                         I hate him, I hate him so much. There's not enough ways in the world to torture him to satisfy my hate. But I hate myself more. This body that I have that never dies, this hunger in my belly that is never sated until I taste blood and flesh. He knows how much I loath myself. That's why he feeds my my own heart to keep me alive. 

                         He forced me to swallow the last piece before he left, with an order to the sentries to bring him another wrench to entertain his bed and torture devices tonight. No doubt I will find another mangled body of an innocent girl in the morning. He has taken to putting those bodies outside my chamber door to greet me every morning. As if he is being kind by offering me a meal of freshly slaughtered virgin. 

                       I wiped my own blood off my lips and my tongue. One day, I'll defeat this bastard, and I'll follow him to hell. But until then, I live and wallow in my hate.

                        Me and him, we are the last two of an ancient breed that feeds on all things living. Our mother passed this cursed blood that runs through our veins, and when father realized that we weren't human enough to be his heirs, he had us murdered in the middle of the night. He was very surprised to see us again in the following morning, and even more surprised at the time of his demise. I would know, I slaughtered him as I would a pig. 

                         I hate him.

                         I hate mother and brother too. 

                         But I hate myself the most.

                         The people hate me too, but they adore the true monster. 

                         They will never, ever, understand me.