Basically, the plot is this: Set in pre-historical times near the Arctic Circle, a boy journeys out into the frozen landscape to find his elder brother who hasn't come back from a hunting party. The chapters flip back and forth between each boy's perspective. (The eldest is 17 while the youngest is about 15.) However, I want to spicen it up a bit, but not be predictable. Why is the elder brother out there? I had a thought that maybe the other hunters wounded him in an effort to shut him up so he didn't warn anyone of some nefarious plot that was to occur, but isn't that a bit cliched?
Only if you write it so that it becomes the cliche. Cogito will post soon enough his "there is nothing new under the sun" post, and in all instances of it appearing, it is 100% true. It's not the idea, but the story. Write the story and then ask yourself if you've seen that movie, too.
... I am quoting the SHIT out of this. ... 'k, done. In reply to the OP, I have to say that the most likely story is that the elder brother was attacked by an animal, possibly a wounded and angry stag, or maybe a bear. In his own anger, he turned to bloodlust to provide the answer he wanted, and he killed the stag/bear with his own bare hands. The violence of this unlocks some sort of supernatural power and he falls asleep on the corpse of his enemy, and the two bodies meld together. He then hunts down the hunting party he went with, and kills all of them, but is shot by the last one. The little brother tries to find him, and is constantly followed by a stag/bear and becomes kind of paranoid. It ends with the stag/bear not being his brother, because there is a wounded and dead stag/bear surrounded by the corpses of the rest of the hunting party. After a bout of vomiting, the little brother is charged by the stag/bear that had been following him. Somehow, a bunch of things happen, and for no apparent reason, the dead stag/bear is united with the live one, and the elder brother is kind of spat out of the body, naked and lonely and fatally wounded. The stag/bear wanders off, and the little brother has to try and get his brother back to town before he dies. He fails, and he dies of pneumonia two weeks later.
