One day they were called off to war. The battlefield was a gruesome experience for them as they were separated from their squad after an enemy ambush. They crept around the warzone for hours until they located a decrepit house that could serve as shelter.
They approached it but were shocked when they discovered young children hiding inside it. “What are you doing here kids?” Abel asked them. “We live here,” the oldest of them answered.
“We’re from an orphanage but it was burned down during the war so we decided to take refuge here.”
“Where are all the adults?” Cain asked. “There are no adults sir, just us,” the oldest child answered. As they spoke, they heard soldiers passing.
They were enemy soldiers who heard voices during their patrol. The scene quickly became violent as the soldiers scrambled to kill who they perceived as enemies regardless of the orphans. Abel and Josh rushed the kids into the building to escape the gunfire, but just seconds after they did, a grenade flew through the window and rolled into the room they were in.
Josh took to his heels, hoping to avoid the blast, but Abel dove towards the kids and covered them with his large body so that he took the brunt of the explosion. Abel and the kids survived the night, but Josh was nowhere to be found. Abel had to be treated for a long time, but he was awarded medals for his bravery when he recovered.
Back home, he told his parents that Josh abandoned him on the battlefield when he ran for his life. His parents were stunned by his words, but they held out hope that their son would return, so they decided to leave his room untouched. Josh did not return to the family, and just before their demise, the former owners of the house used bricks to block off his room in an attempt to keep it secure.
Abel inherited the place after their demise, and he also never checked out his brother’s room. He lived in the house, alone, until he perished. “And that’s why the house has spent so long on the market.
Nobody wanted to deal with such a place,” the real estate agent finished. Sam and Magra returned to the house with heavy hearts. They were sad about what happened, which is why they decided to clean out the room so they could move on.
As they cleaned, Magra noticed a book on the table. It looked old and worn with its yellowed pages. The book turned out to be a diary that held a confession from Abel.
Apparently, what people thought had happened on the night he and Josh found the orphanage was a lie. Josh was also not his real brother but a boy his parents adopted when they were having trouble giving birth. They had grown up side by side, but Abel was always jealous of the attention his parents showered on Josh.
That night they were set upon by soldiers, Josh had been the one to save them all by covering the grenade with his body, but Abel had lied to everyone because he didn’t want them to love his brother more than they did him. He later regretted his actions, and his guilt worked a number on him. So he wrote the diary to appease that guilt, and he left it in his brother’s old room.
“I hope heaven accepts me; I would very much like to see my brother again,” were the words Abel ended his account with. After much contemplation, Magra and Sam decided to turn the room into a museum to honor Josh, who died a hero. What did we learn from this story?
Source: amomama
