Here at the end, with all the facts before me, I write out our history– yours and mine. I hope to find that precise moment in time where I should have killed you, Joshua Rasgard.

I suspect with how things turned out, you may still wish for that too.

###

The sleepy little farming community of Einhurst was experiencing something of a crisis. A local traveler had gone missing in the night and was presumed dead. The townsfolk spoke of a “Man in Black” as the cause. This creature stalked the countryside, haunted the fog banks, and preyed upon the moors.

How it was a myth already after appearing for the first time only a week ago, Joshua Rasgard didn't know, but it was a mystery he was dead set on solving.

Joshua's brother Kael took that bet. Every little event in their life had to be a competition, and the search for a missing man and some spook had devolved into one as well.

Joshua realized that the best way to find the missing man was to find the Man in Black. Across town, Kael realized that too. Joshua figured that some mysterious entity wouldn't just march into town. Kael figured that out too. So when Joshua heard the tales of one farmer in particular raving about sightings of the Man in Black, he didn't wait around to find out if his brother heard that as well.

Joshua sprinted down the dusty street for a full two miles and knocked on the farmer's door. He would apply for a job. From there, he would have front-row seats the next time the Man in Black showed themselves. From there–

Joshua's winced as the door opened and his brother Kael came striding out, a cocksure smirk on his face.

“Getting a little slow there, Josh,” Kael said.

It didn't matter. The farmer needed all the help he could during planting season so Joshua was put to work as well.

That was one week ago.

Joshua's muscles tensed and his hands readjusted on the grip. Letting out a grunt, he brought the head of his spade downward in an arc, ripping the ground to shreds. Again and again, the farming tool struck the steaming dirt until a circular trench formed.

Joshua shot an annoyed glare at his brother Kael who sat on a dirt pile with a shovel over one shoulder. If Joshua refused to help with any work from here on out, it would serve his brother right.

Back to it.

There was probably a gentler way to prepare a field for planting, but Joshua was far too occupied keeping an eye on the horizon, on the white hills to the south. Plus, he wasn't much of a perfectionist anyway. He had left that out when applying for this job, just like he left out his true motivation. But the longer Joshua worked, the more he was skeptical if the aged, nearsighted pot-stirrer had seen anything at all.

At this point, Joshua did not.

However, Kael did. Joshua's brother could be as fanatical at times as Joshua was a sore loser. Joshua could give up, but he didn't have any other leads. If he was going to best his brother, he had to keep working the fields, at least for now.

Looking to the sky, Joshua gleaned that it would start snowing again. Great. As deep into winter and as far north as they were, the lightest dusting of snow would lead to no less than a full-blown storm. If the white blew down, he'd have trouble seeing anything five feet away, let alone someone stalking the hill sides.

Anywhere else in the hemisphere right now and planting would be impossible, but Taerose was famed for its thermal vents and subsurface heat that allowed for a winter crop. They weren't in Taerose, but the surrounding nations that used to be part of Taerose generally had the same geothermal activity, if only to a lesser extent. Here in eastern Sela, it was planting time.

Shaking the thin layer of mud off his boots, Joshua swung the spade over his shoulder and made for the next circle. That was the thing about winter planting, you couldn't just dig a straight line like in summer. Circles. You dug in circles and you planted in circles. Circles around those pockets of heat. All growing ferrow. Although Joshua wasn't quite sure who wanted to eat that stringy excuse for rice.

“He's going to deduct your pay if you keep digging ovals.” His brother's voice came from behind.

Joshua craned his neck to look. His brother Kael wasn't even paying attention; he was too focused on the hills.

“You're too preoccupied to even look down and see my work, but you're criticizing me?”

Kael lowered his gaze to the plots and plastered a smug “I-told-you-so” smirk on his face before looking back up to the nearest hill. It wasn't so much that Kael didn't like to work as he could only be bothered to focus on one thing at a time, and, at the moment, that one thing was finding the Man in Black. More accurately– Kael was fixated on one obsession at a time.

“Wouldn't hurt you to help,” Joshua said through heavy breath, taking another stab at the earth.

“Saving my energy.” Kael shrugged. “I am the one who's going to fight him.”

Joshua mock mouthed the words as Kael said them, nostrils slightly flared, eyebrows raised. In an ideal world, Kael would have been annoyed at the pantomime, but it was fine he didn't see. Joshua had spent a lifetime of figuring out how to get under his brother's skin. “I've been working all day and I could still catch the guy. Could probably do it before you.”

“You want a bet then?” Kael said, sitting up straighter.

“We're already betting.”

“No,” Kael protested. “That was to find the missing guy. I want to see who can wrestle some yokel folk creature to the ground.” His hand flexed as the air distorted around it; a tiny spark of orange energy dancing between his fingers.

Joshua grimaced knowing that like all competitions against Kael, he'd have to compete against that. But he couldn't back down. “Fine. I'll bet you I catch the Man in Black before you. Not only that, but I'll–”

“Excuse me.” A tiny voice piped from behind. “I brought you some. . . .”

Joshua and Kael looked over to see a small girl walking towards them from the farmhouse. She approached Kael and handed him a mug filled to the brim with a frothy orange liquid, steam billowing into the air like the ground he sat on. Kael twitched his lips into a quarter-smile, the best he was able to achieve, and reached out for the cup.

Joshua scowled. He was the cold one. He didn't have money for a better coat, and the home-knit scarf that hung a couple inches off his neck was far too loose to provide any meaningful warmth. He could pull it tighter, but he could also wear a noose. And where was the logic in that?

While Kael might have looked three minutes out from catching hypothermia, he couldn't even get cold. Then again, Joshua couldn't expect the farmer or the girl to know what Kael could do– what he was.

“You can tell the old man that I'm not going to catch a cold,” Kael said. The little girl's lip quivered and she began to turn. “But thank you anyway,” Kael added, at least able to see his mistake. “Would you like to join me? We can share?” He shrugged off his outer layer and left the light jacket on the wet dirt mound, making a nifty seat.

She eyed him hesitantly but then plopped down. “Papa says that anyone else would have got new-monia by now.”

“That so?” Kael mused, tossing his tool aside and squatting down to her eye level.

Joshua sauntered over and took the cup from him, downing half in a single, roof of the mouth burning gulp. Turning his attention to the small child and raising an eyebrow, Joshua said, “You want to know what I heard? I heard that old farmer isn't your dad.”

“That's a mean thing to say,” the girl said, lip quivering.

Kael met his brothers eye line and shook his head “no”, but Joshua continued.

“That's what everyone in town is saying. They say you've barely been here longer than we have.” It was the one thing of note Joshua had discovered when looking into the rumors. The appearance of the so-called Man in Black and the girl seemed to coincide if you put the townspeople and farmer's stories together. That had to mean something.

The girl's eyes glossed over and grew large. She stared at Joshua and then screamed.

He winced and tried to shush her. He could try and talk to her, but a child screaming? He had no idea what to do with that. What had he done anyway? But then he noticed where her gaze truly lay. Neither she nor Kael were looking at Joshua. They were looking behind him.

His head whipped around and his eyes zeroed in on the nearest hill. Through the low, steamy mists and puffy snowflakes falling from the sky, Joshua spied what he came here for, and it was more terrible than he ever expected. A large figure dressed head to toe in black was saddled on top of a coal-black gelding.

Joshua jumped as Kael walked up behind him.

“Ready for a fight?” Kael asked, almost knocking Joshua down with one strong pat to his back.

The rider kicked the horse and it carefully stepped down the mushy hill. They were actually coming towards them. Joshua grew wide-eyed and looked around, and then ran. Back to the farmhouse. In the opposite direction.

###

Kael watched Joshua's retreat incredulously for a moment but then snapped his attention back to his quarry; he wouldn't miss this one chance. His eyes stayed locked as the girl sprinted wildly following Joshua, arms flailing in the air, a scream pitched high enough to prick the ears.

As the horse found solid purchase at the base of the hill, Kael heard some odd noise towards the farmhouse, but it was some distraction he didn't need. He was hunting now. Slowly, menacingly, the horse and its rider reached the bottom of the hill and stepped out onto the dirt road. Kael winced one last time as the girl's soprano scream faded into the house.

Kael kicked up his shovel and felt energy rushing through his body. Maybe he would have a chance to let loose this once. The wood on the handle around his fingers sizzled, cracked, and orange sparks danced between the widening wood grains. After all this waiting, he was beyond restraint.

The rider's heels dug into the horse's ribs and sent it into a trot across the dirt road. Did this man, or otherwise, think Kael would run? This is what he lived for.

Kael gave a devilish grin and marched forward. Who would surprise who? Who would be the first to balk? The energy flared around Kael's fingers. Who would burn?

Kael and the Man in Black stayed true to their path, destined to meet in mere seconds. The black rider cleared the road– mere feet away now.

And then an old pickup truck swung around the bend, the electric engine as silent as could be but its horn blaring to life. The clanging mess of metal swerved from the road and slammed into the rider's gelding. The force of the impact caved the front of the truck in. Kael could swear he heard the horse scream as its hooves left the ground, careening into the bank.

The sizzle of his shovel still expelling smoke, Kael crept forwards to see the Man in Black and his steed resting deathly still in the ditch.

As Kael's shoulders fell, so too did the orange glow emanating out of the cracks on the shovel's handle. Kael threw his weapon aside lazily and then approached the car, the headlights dimming, the telltale click of the motor shutting down. From the driver's side, Joshua slid from his seat and sauntered to Kael with his the back of his hand raised high.

Kael looked at the raised fist warily before giving in and meeting it with the back of his own hand, giving it a bump. “Good work Josh,” Kael said, his words dripping with disappointment. He bit his lip knowing that he had specifically asked for this competition, but wanting to headbutt his brother all the same.

Needing an outlet for that energy, Kael spun on their downed adversary.

The Man in Black sat sprawled in a misshapen clump in the bank– a paltry joke compared to the farmer's stories of some mysterious, perhaps even supernatural, entity. The Man in Black was no man at all but a child, no older than Joshua or Kael. He lay moaning, a ski mask halfway removed from his face, his clothes nothing more than what anyone could find at the local department store.

“This is what we worked a week for?” Kael asked, his arms naturally crossing, his fingers pinching like a vice.

“I won the bet,” Joshua said, cocking his head looking over the scene. “I think we're past the point where you pretend you did any work.”

“Focus J,” Kael said as he looked over the unconscious boy. “Someone is screwing with us.”