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"Please step away from the doors.” The voice in the speaker says as the doors screech shut.

The metro picks up speed as it leaves the station. I check my watch. 10 minutes to my stop. It’s late. I look around the compartment. It’s dark and dirty with many flickering lights. Not many people are left. No one sane enough uses the metro at this hour.

The ones left are the kind of people who live in the shadows. The kind of people, we were taught to maintain a distance from. The kind of people we will never understand.

One of them catches my attention. A man. He's leaning on a pole. His clothes are filthy and loose. He has his back turned to me. I can’t get a good look of his face even though his head is tilted towards me. I continue to stare at him.

The train crosses a brightly lit billboard. The light falls on his face for an instant.

I hear a scream.

I’m there. Helpless as his hand comes down on my mother’s face. I watch as my father runs in, catches him by his neck and pushes him down.

It’s been 15 years since. He was my past. My brother was my past.

I had always shrugged away his thought. Not because it made me angry or because I disgusted him. It was because I didn’t care. I stopped caring a long time ago. I became numb.

Now here he is a few feet away from me. I know it is him.

My heart is beating a hundred miles an hour. My throat feels as dry as cotton. My brain fills with mixed feelings of fear curiosity regret and guilt. I clutch the edge of my seat and don’t take my eyes of him.

I sit there, tight in my seat praying that he shouldn't turn around.

I wasn’t sure if I wanted to talk to him

Sometimes I used to scan the faces of the crowd even though I wasn’t sure if I remembered his face properly. I have always wondered what I would do if I ever met him. The train starts slowing down and I see the platform approaching. I brace myself and suck in a deep breath. I push myself forward to the edge of my seat. I don’t know what to say or even where to begin. My mind is blank. My eyesight becomes blurry as I heave myself up. I take a step towards him as sweat trickles down my forehead. I gulp and raise my hand to touch his shoulder. The tip of my tongue ready with his name, when I hear a familiar hissing sound. The train has arrived.

I stare at my pale hand just a few inches away from him. I drop it and walk out, wondering if i'll regret this for the rest of my life.