Envy’s Requiem

Zion worries, one Friday night when in Café Isabel, where he frequently sips coffee, sees his girlfriend Bea with another guy. It occurs to him like a lightning strike in his thought, remembers the thousand excuses Bea makes. Bea, as Zion recalls, often declines his offer to go out on Friday nights. It is an unmistakable realization by now that Zion loses his mind amidst confusion and begins to wonder again. Zion now with conviction stands up, some Reggae Bob Marley singing overture on the walls where the speakers hang… “Stand up… stand up… stand up for your right!”

Zion clenched his fists, the words of the song wrapping around his chest like a vice. He had heard it before, many times, but tonight it felt different. Tonight, it felt like an omen.

The song, “Stand Up,” was always a part of his childhood, but it was James who had sung it the loudest. Their parents had adored it. James was the golden child—the prodigy. The moment his lips parted, their world lit up in praise. Zion, on the other hand, had made attempts to sing along, but his voice was drowned out by the clapping, the praise, the accolades for James.

Zion gritted his teeth. It’s the song again... He had always known "Stand Up" was James' favorite song. But tonight, it felt like something was off. Zion hadn’t thought about James in months—not since his brother’s death a year ago, which was still fresh in his memory. Bea and Zion had started dating only six months ago, and although he had learned to accept the loss, there was something unsettling about the way the song haunted him tonight. Zion couldn’t understand why he felt this overwhelming sense of James’ presence, like his brother’s shadow loomed over him even in death. It wasn’t just that he was still grieving James; it was as if something was wrong, like James hadn’t truly gone away. He remembered how Bea had been with him during those months of grief, and now, when he looked at her, he couldn’t shake the feeling that there was something lingering between them, something he couldn’t name.

Zion's head was spinning. James would always be her first ove, though he was gone, it was clear to Zion that something was still tethering them together in a way he couldn't fully explain. Zion couldn't explain it, even as he grew more confused as the song taunted him, wrapping its beat tightly around his chest, pulling him into something darker. He had always wondered if there was more to Bea’s feelings for James than just memories... something still between them, something he couldn’t quite grasp.

But tonight, Zion was certain something had changed. Something was wrong.

The man with Bea, the one sitting with her so calmly, he wasn’t a man at all. Zion’s stomach churned as he looked at the stranger across the café. The eyes—cold and empty, a twisted grin that stretched too far across his face—reminded him of someone. Someone from his past. James.

Zion stood up, the floor beneath him felt like it was moving, warping. It grew louder, every beat vibrated in his skull. "Stand up, stand up for your right…" The lyrics that once symbolized pride felt like a commandment, an order that he could not pass by. His legs trembled beneath him, his breath short, his mind racing with impossible thoughts. him, his breath short, the thought racing inside of his head impossible. Zion's heart pounded as the realization hit him. The figure wasn't James-not really-but the very personification of every fear, every unuttered regret, now standing before him. And as the song grew louder, his weighing words bludgeoned him, a relentless echo demanding justice.

Zion's heart was pounding. The last time he saw James, he was lying in his coffin, lifeless. Zion spent months after the funeral trying process the tragedy of his brother’s death. But now, here in this café, he faced an impossible sight. James, not alive, but also isn't living. The man sitting with Bea wasn't some guy for whom he should simply feel sorry. No, it was like the ghost of James came back, twisted and manipulating, creeping under the surface of the man standing before him. Zion's stomach churned for he realized that even in death, James wasn't letting go.

Zion's hands shivered as he looked back to the bartender, Joshua. But joshua did not seem like anything was wrong. He hummed to the song and presented his back while cleaning a glass. But Zion wasn’t crazy. This man—this thing—was here to make sure Bea would never be with him, not while he still had his grip on her.

The stranger—James—rose from the table, a slow, deliberate motion. He took a step toward Zion, his feet dragging like they didn’t quite touch the ground. Zion could feel the hair on the back of his neck stand up. This isn’t real. This can’t be happening.

“You remember me, don’t you, Zion?” The voice rasped, low and venomous. It slithered through the air like a whisper in a dream, too close, too real. "I've been waiting for you… waiting for you to come back. Waiting for you to face the truth." He smiled full into Zion's face, his eyes grinning in a pathetically unnatural expression. "You're not alone here, Zion. You never were. I'll be always here hiding in your shadow"

Zion’s chest tightened as the words hit him like a slap in the face. “No,” he whispered, his voice breaking. “It can't be... you’re not real." He said confusedly. "You’re just... just a trick. This is all a trick.” Zion shouts as he panicked

But the man only grinned wider. “The song, Zion,” he said, the words twisting in the air like smoke, “You’ll sing it all the way through, won’t you? You’ll join me. You’ll sing with me.”

Zion turned to Bea, pleading for help. But Bea’s eyes were glazed, empty. She didn’t see the man who had once been her first lover. She didn’t see James. She only saw... nothing.

“The weight of the song grew heavier. Zion’s lungs burned, his heart thudding in his chest, each beat a reminder of the suffocating tension around him. He couldn’t breathe. The music was all around him, smothering him. Then, in the midst of the chaos, it hit him: the stranger wasn’t just some random man. He was James, or at least, what once was James. The brother's ghost, twisted by jealousy, forever entwined with Bea in a way Zion could not escape from, and now, James seemed not to let anyone else take what was his.

The man—James—didn’t move his lips as the song’s rhythm swirled around Zion, drawing him in. Zion felt it first in his chest: a thrum, like a pulse that belonged to something other than him. The music. It was beckoning him, coaxing him, his lips trembling in response. “You remember how it felt to sing it, don’t you?” James whispered, with a cold breeze that brushed against Zion’s ear. “It's our song after all"

Zion clenched his jaw, his hands balled into fists. I won’t sing. I won’t. But the words of the song crawled from his throat of their own accord. Stand up... stand up for your right… It felt like molten iron, searing his vocal cords. Zion winced as a sharp pain shot through his neck, but he kept singing, forcing his breath to stay steady.

James grinned wider, an almost grotesque smile, and his form shimmered, his edges blurring like a mirage. “That’s it, Zion. Let it out. Let the song fill you.” He stepped closer, his presence suffocating, the air around him growing thick and humid. Zion’s lungs burned, each breath like trying to inhale fire. His eyes blurred, and he felt his skin tighten, itching with a strange heat. The song—its melody—twisted deeper into his mind, binding him with each note. His body was betraying him, each breath of the song like a chainsaw cutting into his soul.

Zion doubled over, clutching his chest, feeling as if his heart was about to rupture. No, no, not this again... But his lips moved involuntarily, the words spilling out despite his resistance. “Stand up for your right...”

A voice, a chorus in the distance, seemed to grow louder with every word. But then, the world around him slowly shifts as the music gets louder. "GET UP, STAND UP. DONT GIVE UP THE FIGHT". Tables rattled, the floor beneath his feet warbled like liquid. The walls pulsed to the beat, bending and stretching, closing in on him, his sorrounding moves with the beat of the song. Zion gasped for air, but it was like breathing under water—choking, suffocating, drowning. Every note cut into his body like glass, slicing his skin open, causing his veins to burn with the heat of a thousand suns.

James’s figure swirled again, laughing softly. “See how it feels, Zion? You can’t stop. The song owns you now. It always has.”

Zion's legs folded up, his mind is getting close to losing its sanity, and his hands shaking as he holds the table to keep his balance. His head throbbed with the rhythm, his ears ringing with the chorus that wouldn’t let him escape. The strain was unbearable. He could feel his bones shifting, his muscles tightening and cramping, as though his very body was being contorted against its will. Yet still, he sang. “Stand up... stand up for your right…”

Pain exploded through his chest, like his ribs were cracking under the weight of the song’s power. Zion gasped for air, struggling to focus as his vision blurred and black spots danced in the edges of his sight. The song filled his lungs with shards of glass as his voice cracked, hoarse and straining. The café around him dissolved into shadows, stretching and contorting to such a point that the only thing he could see was the twisted, ever-grinning face of James.

“Sing, Zion,” James taunted, his voice now a part of the melody. “Sing it and set yourself free.”

But Zion knew better now. He wasn’t singing for freedom. He was singing for something darker. I won’t— he tried to tell himself. I won’t let it happen again.

But as if on cue, Zion’s voice broke through the walls of his mind. “Stand up...” His body shook violently as the ground beneath him cracked open, the café splintering apart. His eyes widened in terror as the world warped, and he realized that, somehow, the act of singing—the act of surrendering—was tearing apart his very reality.

The music rumbled, louder now, like an earthquake. Zion’s body seized as the pain in his chest grew unbearable, the physical toll of singing sending electric jolts of agony through every part of him. His vision went black. And still, he sang. “...for your right.”

Zion went down on his knees as the world around him crumble down on him. The café around him twisted as people dizzied into dark silhouettes. Walls in the room shuddered as if all reality he knew crumbled under the blow of the song. The air grew thick, lights flickering, and Zion felt everything slip from under him. Thumping rhythm pounded in his skull: heavy, suffocating presence. With each thud, the coffeehouse imploded within itself, breaking apart into nothingness. Zion stood up and began moving forward again, shallow breathing, his hands shaking in his efforts to make sense of it all.

The song, once a rallying cry for resistance, now felt like a curse. The words reverberated in his mind, twisting and contorting into something darker. He saw the scene in his mind’s eye: the night he had plotted against James, the jealousy, the envy that had consumed him. He had never intended for it to go this far. At first, it was just a thought—a fleeting idea to destroy the bond James and Bea had. A plan to kill James, to end the ghost of his brother’s shadow over him. He never meant for it to spiral out of control.

But then, the plan had gone wrong. The bomb he set, timed to blow when James reached the voltage switch hadn't worked quite as intended. Too slow. Bigger than he'd planned, the explosion ripped through the whole damn café, burning up everything in reach. Bea, Joshua, innocent victims of his anger were dead along with James; they were all consumed by the flames. It was the flaming fire of Zion's anger and bitterness about James who took all that he had, and so this fire was born of envy.

Zion had sought to finish James off once and for all. however, in the end, it was not just James who died from the explosion. It was everyone matters to him the most—Bea her girlfriend, Joshua his bestfriend, and Zion himself, for his jealousy ultimately turned against him. The flames he had let spread beyond his control, and now, in the ashes of the café, Zion faced the full weight of his own wickedness. For it was the envy that fueled him, the negative emotions that he kept nursing in himself, that led to his own destruction. He killed whom he loved, just because he could not accept how he felt, simply due to the anger accumulated in his heart.

He had thought he could rid himself of James, but in trying to eliminate his brother’s shadow, Zion had only brought ruin upon himself and the people he cared about. The faces of those he had killed, distorted and burned, appeared before him. They were twisted in agony, their eyes hollow and their faces charred, yet they weren’t really there. They couldn’t be. It was all a nightmare. But it was a nightmare of his own making. The envy, the wrath, the bitterness- all had consumed him totally. And now, amidst the wreckage of his life, Zion comes to understand that his own destructive emotions have been his downfall.

It had been the same song that haunted him all his life, reminding of the self-perpetuated torture. No forgiveness was met, no reprieve. Hateful and jealous--and this cycle could turn back and back again as the refrain of the song would never fail to end.

He clasped his ears. The thumping became louder, louder,and louder until it overrode him. Zion's open-mouth scream was drowned back into silence as the music filled the vacuum and strangled him with a relentless beat. There is no salvation. There is no escape. But suffering for eternity.

The end?