“Your going to fail, you know,” my guide tells me as he turns to leave. “You are going to end up dead, like all the others.” We had just cleared the thick wall of jungle; slashing vines, bushes, and branches with our machetes. It had taken two full days to clear, stopping often from exhaustion. Once our water ran out, Javier and I began slashing with an extra boost of desperation, and that saved us. But we were far from out of danger. We could see the faint foot path up ahead, and that’s when a new wall hits us. Not made of nature this time; not natural at all. It’s fear. So palpable, I’m currently second-guessing my previous assertion that it’s not physical. When I step forward, my mouth goes dry and I immediately have a headache. My skin boils over with goosebumps and my hands shake. I step back and it all fades away. “This is a mistake. Come back with me.You go that way, you will die,” Javier says. “Everyone’s already dying,” I say, starring forward at the path. “That’s why I’m here.” Javier begins walking back the way we came. Without water, this far from civilization, he’ll never make it. And the thing is, I know he knows that. But he’d rather die in the jungle alone than face what’s ahead. I hear him stop walking. I feel him looking at me, probably waiting to see me move forward, which I haven’t done. “That way,” he says, “that is where evil lives.” No. I know who lives there. I’m going to find him. I’m going to stop him. I’m going to help him. I’m going to die trying. Walking into the invisible force field of fear, all the pain immediately returns. I grip my machete with two hands. My steps are slow. There is a path, but the brush is still quite thick. I can’t see passed five feet any direction. The trees overhead begin to meld together, blocking the sun, swaying in the darkness. I begin to notice that I haven’t heard any animal noises for a while. No birdsong, no bug sounds; the background orchestra of the jungle has gone quiet here. *cRuNCH!* I look down to see what I stepped on to create such an odd sound. It’s a bird. I’ve crushed a bird. I look ahead and around and now I notice them. The dead ones: birds, insects, monkeys, all lifeless. It’s not surprising. Animals of all kinds have been dropping dead without cause for months. It was a world-wide phenomenon that no one could decipher. Of course there was concern and investigations were undertaken, but looking back, those feel like the salad days compared to what was next. Because what came next was the people. It didn’t matter what country, ethnicity, health state, or religion. Everyone started dying. They weren’t slow deaths like a virus or a cancer. It was more like the stories we heard as kids about spontaneous combustion. People were just dying where the stood (or cooked, swam, slept, whatever they were in the middle of). And as the world searched fruitlessly for an answer, I began to realize I had it. I knew what was doing this. I knew who was doing it. And as I cleared the final layers of jungle brush, I saw him. He was sitting in the middle of a tiny village. Small earth and straw huts circled around him at a distance. He sat cross-legged with his back to me, in the middle of the road. “Sam,” I say, jumping right into it as if we haven’t gone a day without talking, just ignoring the last twenty years of separation, “You’ve got to stop.” “I knew you’d come,” Sam says, not turning around. “Charlie, my big brother, to the rescue!” “Sam, please,” I say, exhausted. I spent all I had to get to him, and now I’m afraid I have nothing left to give. “Except, you’ve never been there for me when I really needed it,” Sam says. “Not when they sent me away with the crazies, strapping me to a bed every night, not when Sherry left me, not when I was expelled from school, not when Dad and Mom split up, and not when..not when…”. I know what he can’t say. And I can’t say it either. Things done to innocent kids, preyed on by adults, family members even…it’s unspeakable. I see Sam’s shoulders shake and recognize that he’s crying. My brother, sitting in the dirt, in a remote village at the end of the world, overcome by the unfair amount of pain in his life. “Sam, I’m sorry I haven’t been there for you,” I say, slowly moving closer to him. “I’m sorry so many people let you down. I’m so sorry.” “They all deserve it. Everyone of them,” Sam says. “To die? Sam, come on. You can’t believe that. You can’t do that!” I say, taking another step. “Oh, I can, you know I can. You are the only one on the planet who knows I have the power to kill by a thought and a word. You remember that day when we were kids with the frog? We never talked about it.” We had cornered a small frog who had jumped his way into our backyard. Utterly fascinated, we watched it and prodded it for a long time. Maybe we were feeling that small dose of power for the first time. This tiny life was in our hands and we had the power to take it. We were just boys, experimenting with cruelty. Sam was getting rougher with the frightened frog. I told him not to hurt it. Sam began pretending that he could kill it with his mind. He gazed at the animal, copying the look we’ve seen in movies and comics of people with mind powers. Then he said “Die!” and the little frog dies so suddenly that neither of us missed the connection. In total shock, we stared at the dead frog for several minutes. It stayed dead. And when Sam looked at me, I guess he must have seen the fear in my face. He ran off and we never talked about it. Never brought it up. We went on with our lives. Drifted apart. I hadn’t thought about that moment in so long, I practically forgot it. After the dying had been happening for a couple months, I found myself online watching footage of people keeling over and their faces looked just like that frog. Somehow I knew it was Sam. It wasn’t logical, it was some dreadful feeling that crept up the back of my neck. “I remember,” I say. “Come any closer and your dead too,” Sam says to me. I stop. “I was in denial about it for a long time. This ability of mine; just thought it was a coincidence when Jimmy Freedmen’s heart stopped while he was pounding on me on the playground. I didn’t think it was me. But after a while, it became clear.” Sam then finally stands up and faces me. His face… it’s not how I remembered it. It’s worn. It’s old, older than it should be. It’s currently dirty, the tears drawing long streaks down to his neck. “I tried to stop. That’s why I came here. I thought I’d I run away from society, no one could hurt me anymore. Then I could stop wishing people dead.” “But you brought your pain with you,” I say. “Turns out, out here, there was nothing else to look at. There was nothing to numb it. It all came out,” Sam says. “The people of this village…” I say glancing around. “Dead,” Sam says. “I just finishing burying them. But at least now it’s finally over. No one left to hurt.” “Oh, Sam,” I say, “You don’t know?” “What?” Sam asks. “The world…it’s…their dying, Sam. People everywhere, all the time.You cursed the world,” I say, tears now leaking from my eyes. Sam slowly drops his head and stares at the dirt. “How many?” He says. “It’s easier for them to count how many are left. They think there’s only 2 million people left, world wide,” I inform him. Sam stares at the dirt. He slowly nods. “It’s going slower than usual, maybe because of the volume,” he says. “Maybe,” I say. “Maybe it’s because of me.” “You?” Sam says, looking up at me. I swallow and step towards my broken brother. “That day, with the frog,” I say, my heart pounding, “After you ran off, I stayed.” Sam looks me in the eye for the first time as I continue. “I spoke to the frog, too. I said the opposite word. I said, ‘Live!’ And he did! He came back to life and hopped off.” I watch Sam’s face as a gust blows up the dirt around us. He shakes his head, but then he stops denying it. He knows I’m not lying. This connection we have; he knows me and I know him. “I went back to look for the frog and when I didn’t find it, I thought maybe I had imagined it all,” Sam says. “Charlie, how could you? How could you not tell me and leave me to this alone?” “I’m so sorry, Sam. I was scared too,” I say, closing my eyes, ashamed to look at his. “I wanted to forget as well.” Silence, like the silence of the last twenty years, returns between us. We stand there, the wind howling now, the sky morphing to something stormy and crimson. Sam slowly sits back down, cross-legged. He stares hard at the dirt, moving it around with his fingers. He finally looks up at me and what I see drains all hope from me. Any shred of warmth is gone. Any brotherly connection has been severed in his heart. He’s gone cold and hard and I know I’ll never get through to him. “So your going to try and stop me?” He says. “We don’t have to be enemies!” I plead. “I believe we can fix this together! We can fix each other together!” “I’ve tried before. I only bring death,” Sam says. “I don’t believe that! There’s a reason this happened to us and it’s not so that you can destroy the world! Let’s figure this out together! Please, Sam!” I say, hearing thunder crack across the sky. “No,” He says. “It’s way to late for that. Everyone will die, and I’ll finally find peace.” I see now that Sam’s lost his mind, lost in a jungle thick with pain and rage. “I can’t let that happen, Sam,” I say. “Well, I don’t think I can kill you,” Sam says, “I don’t think my power will work against you, and also I really don’t want to. But your not going to stop me.” “We’ll see,” I say. Sam gives me a crazed smile. My heart breaks. This is not what I wanted. But like it or not, this is now my mission. And so the battle begins. *James 3:8-10*