This is mine.

Brutality.

What better way to describe the treatment life throws at the most unexpected, cruelly exciting times?

It happened 5 years ago, but the scars of memory run deep enough to haunt me.

The crash...

The knife through the window...

My brother's lifeless body...

The hit-and-run (more like hit-and-throw) murderer was slapped with 30 years inside, but even a lifetime sentence wouldn't have healed the gap in my being, let alone my heart.

We had just been leaving a party celebrating my sibling's promotion at work, when his friend/rival for the job fatally did him dirty. Ironically, the knife got him in the back and severed most of his spine, so I guess that makes him a backstabber literally and figuratively.

It hurts even now, trying to adjust without his constant lightheartedness while coping with the painful memory. To be honest, I've considered joining him up there but he would probably not forgive me. I could try describing the change, the obvious emptiness he left behind, but I can't. It's too great for words. Simply brutality that cannot be shared with anyone else.

He was my brother, so this pain is mine to bear alone.