There are two brothers in the wasteland. An older and a younger. One keeps death close to his chest, numbering notches on his gun. One views the act of sending a soul off to their afterlife without a goodbye as obscene, carrying his rosary with an old silver cross.
The older brother meets another mercenary who tells him, "you can do this for your entire life and not fill the gaping hole inside yourself." He drowns his sorrows that night, pretending the words do not echo in his ears.
The younger brother gets jumped by a raider on the road. He fires three rounds from his weathered pistol and loses his breakfast in a bush. "This is the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world. Happy are those who are called to his supper," he says in Spanish, mouth burning from a combination of self-disgust and stomach acid.
One steadies himself with his cane. Thinks of the role he's been playing for a decade and some change. Stay the course and maybe it will turn out all right this time. If he can be so lucky. He is not the praying type; too distrustful of what he cannot hold in his own two hands. Even more so of empty platitudes.
One resists the urge to crawl back into his grave and die for good. Everything hurts and the first few days after being shot are ghastly. Sometimes he forgets when he last ate or drank anything. He thinks about refusing to give up and meet God, though he has less than nice things to say. They motivate him to put one foot in front of the other.
The two brothers think of each other often in the time it takes them to cross paths again. They hear of the other's exploits while traveling and cannot help but think, what have you done?
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