I hear knocking.

"Yo, you okay Andy? You aren't mad about this news?"

No, no I'm not mad, not shocked either. But what I'm doing right now is I'm acting like a complete sissy. I should accept the fact that I won't always be there for him, that I won't be able to be there to witness him accomplish the greatest of milestones. I won't be there to cherish the day he gets his girlfriend.

I stand up from the toilet and opened the door.

"Yeah, yeah, I'm fine. I just...had... an unexpected urge to go to the bathroom. That's all."

"You sure? It sounded like you were sulking."

"Nah, that's just the faucet."

Then I did the ancient ritual that was used to show affection between two persons through intimate contact; hugging, then patted him on his back to assure him that it's no homo.

"Really happy for you, Zach."

"Thanks."

He's still my brother. No matter what.

Christmas, it's less than a week away. Zach went to the attic to go get last year's Christmas decorations. He comes back down from the retractable ladder located at the living room. He places down a dusty box filled with ornaments.

"I'm going back up to get the tree." He wipes the sweat from his forehead and heads back up. I open the box and began pulling out the decorations.I grabbed a wet cloth and began wiping off the collected dust.

"Oh fu-" I hear Zach silently curse, he probably would but refrained himself because he doesn't want to be a bad influence on his little brother. Oh, how sweet.

"What's up?"

"Nothing, just stubbed my toe."

He steps onto the ladder which creaks from the combined weight of himself and the meter-tall Christmas tree that his hands were wrapped around. The tree's spiky leaves were stabbing his face.

"Not really, I think I can do this on my own."

Zach takes another step down, carefully balancing his weight.

"You sure?"

"Hey, I'm the star of my football team, don't underest-"

He takes another step, but the severe weight of the Christmas tree has thrown off his balance. His foot had slipped and he came crashing down the wooden ladder. He lands hard on the floor and groans in pain.

I stifled a laugh.

"Ow."

My chest was heaving up and down, trying to stop myself from full on laughing. If I did laugh, it would hurt his pride too much.

"Hey, atleast you cushioned the fall for the tree.."

Zach rolls over on his back and sighs.

"The sacrifices I do for Christmas."

"More like torture."

He lifts up the Christmas tree on top of him and lays it beside him. He sits up and looks at me.

"It's all worth it though."

"What's the point in setting up decorations anyway? It's just the two of us who'll get to experience this."

"Exactly. We'll get to enjoy Christmas, just the two of us, together."

"But Santa Claus isn't real."

"Oh come on, shouldn't you at least have some fun? High school won't last forever. A wise man once said; you are confined only by the walls you build yourself."

"Oh yeah? Hasn't he heard of the guy who built the great wall of China? That guy went places."

Zach stands up and grabs the wet cloth I was holding and wipes his hands with it. Then tosses it back to me.

"You're crazy, Andy."

I was watching a montage burned into a DVD that Zach gave me earlier. It contained a compilation of his goals and passes throughout the was unclear what his intentions were, it's either he genuinely wants to educate me about football or just to show off. I honestly do not understand what the big deal is, put bluntly, it's just a sport of two groups of grown men fighting over an oblong shaped ball.

I didn't really want to watch it to begin with but Zach left to buy groceries, I would have done it myself but he happily insisted, and I was all alone with nothing to do. So I ended up watching this video to pass the time.

I observed Zach intently, trying to decipher what he was feeling at the moment. My brother and I looked fairly similar, the only significant differences I can point out is that he has a more athletic and pronounced body, a few centimeters taller than me, and hair that he would never allow to grow to such length.

Seeing him play, the wild look on his face when has the ball, nodding to his teammates, probably because they were about to commence a strategy they came up with, I could tell he was having the time of his life.

I have gone through subconsciously watching the middle of the film when I hear my phone vibrating on the wooden coffee table. I grabbed it and accepted the call before in the first ring.

"Zach?"

There was a pause before he replies, and I could've sworn I heard someone scoff in the background.

"Who's Zach?"

Is it who I think it is? I couldn't believe it, I refuse to believe it.

"Who's this?" I slowly reply.

"You didn't read the contact didn't you?"

Her voice rings in my ear, as if it's echoing around the living room, I'm getting goosebumps just thinking about it.

"W-what? Amy?"
"Yep, that's my name."

I take a deep breath. This is so unexpected, what does she want with me?

"Why'd you call?"

"I have a mission for you."

Right after she said those words, I knew I was done for, I immediately ended the call and placed my phone back on the table. I so badly wanted to shrug off the call and focus back on the film. But alas, my phone began to ring again two seconds after.

I wasn't sure if I should even answer the call, but I decided to just end this predicament that I was in once and for all.

"Don't hang up on me, I'm trying to tell you something."

"Not interested."

"You don't even know what it is yet."

"Then tell me."

"Okay, I need you to infiltrate this-"

"Nope, not a chance, absolutely not, ever."

I ended the call and turned off my phone, after taking a few seconds to recollect my thoughts and contemplate on what just happened, I decided to resume watching the film, although my thoughts are in disarray.

After a few minutes I began to relax again and I just want to shrug off the whole event like it didn't even happen. But alas, my phone began a series of buzzes, which I recognized to be text messages. At first I didn't gave it much attention but I gave it a peek and found out it was from Zach after all.

"Hey Andrew, turns out the paper bag wasn't as sturdy as I thought. I need help with carrying the groceries, I'm at the side of the road just around the street."

"Come now ASAP."

Realizing the dire situation he was in, I made haste and left the house after grabbing my jacket.

I exited our neighborhood's small pathway leading to the side of the road, I looked around but I couldn't find Zach anywhere, so I brought out my phone to call him.

Just as the first ring had ended, I heard a continuous honking from a nearby vehicle. I didn't pay much attention to it but when the sound didn't sound I began to feel annoyed. I inspected the vicinity, searching for the source of the noise, but the streets were clear except for a lone Toyota van on the other side of the road.

What the hell is this guy's problem? Who are you honking at? Should I call the police? Questions raced through my mind but were silenced when the noise from the van stopped, and out of the corner of my eye the passenger seat window rolls down, revealing a figure barely illuminated by a fluorescent streetlight.

My phone stops ringing as the call was answered from the other end. I place it against my ear and immediately heard a voice that I very well knew didn't belong to my brother.

"Hi, Andrew."

Sometimes in life, you have to ask yourself ; how the hell did I end up here?

How did I end up in a vehicle being driven by a minor without a license, next to the very person that got you killed not too long ago?

Well, if you're a normal person, you wouldn't have to be answering these questions.

"Okay, okay, how did you manage to steal my brother's phone?" I asked Amy, who was sitting on the other side of the van.

She shrugs, "I don't know how Houston did it. Basically, he entered his phone number into his computer and the rest is magic."

I glance over to the driver, Houston, who was focusing on the road, and the machinery beside him. Upon closer inspection was a PC Monitor on top of a CPU, fastened in the seatbelt.

"But how did you get his number?" I asked. "And more importantly, why are you driving this vehicle?!" I asked Houston, who was casually looking at me for a second before focusing on the road again.

"It's easy," he begins, "I entered in the phone number into my computer and ran this program-"

"No, I want to know how you got his phone number in the first place."

"Oh that," he chuckles, looking at me again.

"Keep your eyes on the road!"

He reverts his eyes to the road. "Relax, I know how to drive this thing, I watched a lot of tutorials online."

That's it, we're all going to die.

"I saw your brother leaving your house, and I got this nagging feeling that I've seen him from somewhere. So when Amy left to go grab some lunch, I approached him and realized he was Zach Auston, the rookie american football player. I got an autograph and asked for his phone number."

Amy elbows me. "Didn't know you were the sibling of a celebrity."

I'm surprised he even knows him, he appears on late night TV in an obscure channel no one knows about. But what pushed me over the edge is how he saw Zach leave te house.

"Wait, you were spying on my house?"

"We were spying on your house." Amy corrected.

"What the hell?"

"I was tasked to monitor activity to your household for the past couple of days." Houston replies.

It suddenly dawned on me, this guy, Houston, he was like me. He's on a job for Amy to accomplish god knows what she wants to accomplish.

I turn to Amy, who was casually looking out the window.

"What do you want me to do this time?"

"Oh, it's just a simple task, surely nothing that you can't do." She replies, still looking out the window.

"Then can you tell me what it is?"

She squinted, looking at some passing cars as we enter the freeway.

"I need you to sneak into this party."

From here on out I shall be known as the Grim Reaper, because he doesn't want to kill but does it anyway because it's his job. And also because I'm dead inside.

Our van stops on the side of the road a good distance from the subject's house party. Amy and I exit the vehicle while Houston remains to keep the engine warm just in case we need a quick getaway. Mind you this is some James Bond action going on. I follow Amy as she walks up to the building. It was a fairly big structure, which should probably be called a mansion rather than a house.

We walk past the tall steel gates that separate it from the rest of the suburban neighborhood, for the time being it was open to let guests inside. Inside the steel gates was a clearing, filled with gardens and fountains and a concrete pathway that separates two curves but reunite at the front of the house. Houston gave me a pen with a built-in camera, they probably decided that a big fat GoPro was way too suspicious.

Amy abruptly stops in front of me, forcing myself to immediately stand on the tip of my toes to avoid crashing into her.

"Why'd you stop walking?"

"Look." She says, pointing at a window on the side of the house.

"Look where?"

"That window isn't lit up, like the others."

I realized it a moment after she pointed it out. The rest of the windows on the second floor of the building were lit up, having a comforting glow in the background.

"So what?"

"That must be where her room is. Come, we'll go to the back entrance." She said, walking through the garden on the side of the building.

"Who's room? And how do you know there's a back entrance anyway."

She looks over her shoulder, looking at me.

"That is her room,we're about to enter the culprit's house."