My Dead Brother's Return

I killed my brother, stole his identity, and enjoyed everything he had worked for.

Just when I thought life would always be this good...

One day after we got married, I came home for dinner.

My eyes locked onto the other side of the dining table.

A little boy in ragged clothes, covered in mud.

His face looked exactly like mine from ten years ago.

[Chapter 1]

He was wearing a worn-out, rough cotton shirt, the collar and cuffs frayed to threads.

That face looked exactly like mine from ten years ago.

Not just similar. Identical.

It was clearly me at fifteen.

"Eat slowly. Don't choke."

Susan Blake, sitting next to him, finally spoke.

Her eyes were full of motherly tenderness.

In seven years of marriage, that was a look she almost never showed anyone — except stray cats and dogs.

After wiping the corner of the boy's mouth, Susan heard me come in. She looked up toward where I stood at the dining room entrance.

She stared at me coldly, then spoke in a tone like she was interrogating a suspect.

"Aiden Jenkins," she said, calling my name. "Tell me the truth. Do you have a long-lost younger brother?"

Those words sent cold sweat crawling down my spine.

Brother.

Younger brother.

The words echoed and grew louder in my head.

My name is Camden Jenkins.

Ten years ago, on a rainy evening, in the overgrown rose garden behind our old house in the countryside.

I was the one who raised that heavy iron shovel and brought it down on the back of my twin brother Aiden's head.

I still remember the feeling. I remember the warmth of blood and muddy water splashing across my face.

I remember how I dug like a madman and shoved his still-warm body into the dark earth.

I remember washing my hands clean, putting on his favorite clothes, and copying the way he talked.

And from that day on, I lived as him for ten full years.

I have no younger brother.

Because I am the younger brother — the one who was always looked down on, always forgotten, who finally killed his older brother and took everything.

So who was this boy?

How could he possibly have my face from ten years ago?

My throat tightened as I swallowed hard.

"What are you talking about? I don't have a brother. Where did you pick this dirty kid up — some orphanage? Off the street? Get him out of here before he tracks mud all over the place."

The moment I finished speaking, the boy who had been quietly working through his crackers suddenly went still.

Slowly, inch by inch, he raised his head.

He looked at me. His lips parted slightly.

"Were you thinking about killing me?"

His voice — clear but with that rough, cracking edge of a boy going through puberty — sounded exactly like mine when I was young.

My hand hung in the air, shaking badly.

I stared at him hard.

Then something strange happened to his expression.

The dead, hollow look in his eyes collapsed all at once, like an avalanche. He scrunched up his face and started to cry.

He let out a small smile, showing a chipped tooth. The hardness and darkness in his eyes vanished instantly, replaced by something heartbreaking — pure, wounded hurt.

His eyes went red. Fat tears rolled down his face one after another, cutting two clean streaks through the mud on his cheeks.

"Aiden..."

He sobbed. The sound was miserable.

"So you've been living like this all along... A house this big, a wife this beautiful, more food on the table than you can eat... Then why didn't you ever come back for me? I was waiting for you in the countryside. I waited ten whole years."

Ten years.

The countryside.

Those two words hit like precision bombs going off inside my head.

What was he hinting at?

Who was he?

The moment Susan saw him cry, whatever was left of her maternal instinct completely gave way.

Her own eyes turned red. She pulled the filthy boy into her arms without a second thought, not caring at all that the mud was ruining her expensive silk dress.

She gently patted his back and murmured softly to comfort him. Then she turned and looked at me like she wanted to cut me open.

The disgust and contempt in her eyes had reached their peak.

"Aiden, you're unbelievable."

Susan spat the words through clenched teeth. "I always thought you were selfish and cold. I never knew it went this deep."

"The things this child is carrying, the way he looks — it's written all over him that he's connected to you. And you just left him behind in the countryside for ten years so you could live your comfortable city life?"

"You just tried to deny him. You even tried to scare him. I can't believe I married someone like you."

Her words hit like a whip, but I had no room to care about her anger right now.

Because that strange boy was sitting in Susan's arms, angled just enough that only I could see his face.

The tears were still falling. But his mouth had stretched into a smile that didn't look human.

"I don't care who he is or what he's carrying. No strangers stay in this house. He's gone tonight."

I didn't wait for Susan's response. I turned and walked down the hallway toward the study at the far end.

It was only a few dozen feet. It felt like wading through a swamp.

The cold sweat had soaked completely through my shirt, pressing cold and sticky against my skin.

I stepped into the study, shut the heavy oak door behind me, twisted the lock, and pressed my back flat against it until my legs gave out.

The room was dark. Only pale moonlight came through the window.

My chest heaved.

How is this possible? How is any of this possible?

That face. That voice. "Waiting in the countryside for ten years."

In this dark, sealed room, I was the only one who knew the real truth.

I was never the older brother.

I was Camden — the younger one — the one who had clawed through the mud, eaten alive by jealousy.

The one who died in that rose garden ten years ago, buried in cold earth until there was nothing left, was the real Aiden. The one our parents had always loved more.

If I were the younger brother, then who was that boy on the other side of the door?

A ghost?

Had Aiden crawled out of the rose garden, crossed ten years of time, and come back for revenge?

I was hunched over with my hands pressed to my head, teetering on the edge of a breakdown, trying to find some crack in this impossible reality.

Then the oak door was knocked.

Three times. Slow. Even. Quiet.

The sound wasn't loud. But it landed directly on my heart.

A thin line of light crept in under the door. And through the wood came the boy's soft, young voice — a voice meant only for the two of us.

"Aiden. What are you hiding from?"

He let out a quiet laugh. It passed straight through the thick door and into my ears.

"Are you scared that I might tell someone... exactly what you did in that rose garden ten years ago?"