The Day I Paid for My Brother's Crimes, He Came Back from the Dead

That year, I was ten. I begged my brother to come home for my birthday.

He died in a plane crash. Not a single trace of his body was ever found.

From that day on, I became a festering wound, a constant source of their agony in my parents' eyes.

They resented me, blamed me for Caleb’s death. Every year, on the anniversary of his passing, they’d drag me to the cemetery and force me to my knees before his empty grave, a grim ritual of repentance.

Eight years. Eight agonizing years.