⚠️ Content warning: This story mentions depression, and child negligence.
I have lived on this street for more than thirty years.
The houses here all look the same—two floors, peeling paint, fences half-fallen with age.
But if there is one thing I have learned about neighborhoods, it is this: walls hide storms.
The storm in the Simon household started quietly.
I knew the parents well. Mr. Simon was a man of pride, often boasting about his first son, Martin.
He was sharp, cute, the type of child who always had his uniform neatly ironed and his books stacked with care.
Mr Simon would say, "That son will carry this family to greatness."
And he believed it. We all did.
But there was also Kain. The second son.
Kain was quiet, clumsy with his steps, always a little late for school.
Where Martin's handwriting was clean and precise, Kain's notebooks looked like war zones—ink spilled, letters crooked.
And whenever guests came, the parents only brought Martin forward.
"Come, Martin, read for Uncle."
"Sing for us, Martin."
"Show your grades, Martin."
Kain sat in the corner, invisible.
I used to watch from my veranda as the boys grew.
When Martin walked home from school, the parents would rush out, take his bag, ask about his day.
But when Kain trudged in, they barely looked up.
Some evenings, I'd see him waiting by the gate while his brother was welcomed first.
Small things, yes, but small things are the soil in which resentment grows.
And oh, how it grew.
__________
Kain never complained aloud, but children have their ways of showing pain.
Sometimes I'd hear him mutter,
"If only I was Martin "
Sometimes he tore up his own homework, as if to punish himself for not being good enough.
When Martin received a scholarship at sixteen, the house held a party.
Neighbors gathered, music filled the street, plates of food were passed around.
And in the middle of it all, Kain washed dishes in silence.
I remember leaning toward my husband and whispering, "Why don't they celebrate both boys?"
But people rarely listen to neighbors.
By the time Martin was in university, he was the pride of the street.
The parents spoke of nothing else.
Meanwhile, Kain dropped out of school at seventeen.
"he was never serious," the father said.
But i wanted to tell him—no, he was serious.
He only wanted you to look at him the way you looked at his brother.
___________
When Martin came home on holidays, the contrast deepened.
He returned with English words heavy on his tongue, stylish clothes, and stories of professors who adored him.
Kain, who stayed behind to help with house chores, shrank further.
Neighbors whispered.
Some said Kain was lazy, others that he was cursed.
But i only saw a boy aching to be loved.
Jealousy is not sudden; it is a slow poison.
I once saw Kain staring at his brother's university certificates pinned to the living room wall.
His eyes glistened, not with admiration, but with a hunger I could not name.
"Why only his picture there?" he asked his mother one day, loud enough for me to hear across the fence.
"Because he earned it," the mother snapped.
"And I never earned your love?" i heard Kain ask.
The slap that followed echoed in my chest.
__________
The parents failed to see what was happening.
Kain was slipping through their fingers.
Neglect hardened into bitterness, and bitterness turned into hatred.
Sometimes he locked himself in his room for days.
Other times he wandered the street at night, whispering to himself.
Once, I tried to stop him and said, "Kain, come, let me talk to you. You're not alone, please."
But he only smiled and replied, "Aunty, loneliness is all I have ever been given since i was born"
The worst part? Martin never mocked him.
He tried, in his own way, to bridge the distance—sharing clothes, helping with chores, offering gentle words.
But kindness from a sibling favored by parents can feel like pity.
And pity can sting worse than insult.
_______
It was a Sunday evening, the air heavy with the smell of rain.
I was fixing the gate with my husband when I heard shouting from the Simon's house.
Not the usual quarrels—this was sharp, frantic, desperate.
I ran to the fence.
Through the window, I saw the two brothers.
Martin stood in the living room, clutching his books, pleading.
Kain held a kitchen knife, his eyes swollen with tears.
"You think you're the only son they have?!" Kain screamed.
"That's not true, Kain, I've never thought that—"
"They don't see me. They only see you. Always you. Always perfect, Martin!"
Martin stepped closer. "Put the knife down. We can talk—"
But the storm had long since broken.
Kain lunged.
And the scream that followed still haunts me when the nights are quiet.
By the time the parents arrived, Martin was on the floor, blood blooming across his chest.
Kain dropped the knife as if waking from a dream. "I didn't mean—" he kept saying. "I just wanted them to see me."
But it was too late.
___________
The neighborhood fell into silence.
No music, no laughter. Only whispers.
Martin was buried within the week.
Kain was taken away by the police, his face blank, almost relieved.
And the parents—oh, they aged ten years in one night.
The pride they once wore like armor shattered.
I often think: the tragedy was not born the night Kain struck.
It was born years earlier, in the small acts of neglect, in the words unsaid, in the love unevenly given.
We love to speak of children as blessings, yet we forget that blessings must be nurtured equally.
When one child is lifted and the other is left behind, we are planting weeds in the same soil.
Kain was not a monster.
He was a mirror of our society's failure—how favoritism, negligence, and comparison can turn siblings into rivals, love into poison, and family into a battlefield.
I sometimes imagine a different ending.
One where the parents had celebrated both boys.
One where Kain was told, "We are proud of you too." Perhaps then, Martin would still be alive.
But life does not grant rewinds.
Only lessons.
_________
If you are a parent, hear me well:
love your children equally.
Do not weigh them on scales of intelligence or beauty or success.
The invisible child you ignore today may carry invisible wounds that bleed tomorrow.
If you are a sibling, do not let jealousy fester.
Speak your pain, seek your worth beyond the shadow of comparison.
Because, truly, the saddest words I have ever heard were Kain's final ones as they led her away:
"I just wanted them to see me."
And now, they will never forget him.
Not for the reason he desired, but for the tragedy he became.
That is why, whenever I walk past the Simon house, I still whisper to myself:
Oops, brother died.
That phrase might sound strange.
But am i wrong?
He did- no.
They both.....died, but in different ways.
Really—it was not an accident, not madness, not even hatred alone.
It was the slow death of love in a family that forgot how to share it.
Stream Commentary; Tape #31. "Oops Brother Died"
[Kai returns]
(Kai sits back in his shadowed chair, the hood hiding most of his silver hair, the black goggle glowing faintly with static. His voice cuts through the silence like a blade)
"Oops, brother died… heh, what a title.
But now you understand, don't you?
It wasn't a careless joke.
It was a scream disguised as irony.
That narrator's 'oops' wasn't laughter—it was a bitter cough from a throat choked by tragedy."
[@Enchomay: This society… it praises sibling love on paper, yet breeds inferiority in its homes. Parents crown one child while starving another of attention, pretending it's love equally shared. That boy… he was a casualty of negligence. And they wonder why jealousy takes root]
[@Jaija:It's a game, isn't it? 'Who's the better child? Who makes Mama and daddy smile the most?' And if you lose… you're invisible. Forgotten. That's it. That's the prize]
[@642:Ha! Families don't need knives. Words do the cutting. Comparison does the stabbing. He was bleeding. Bleeding in silence while everyone clapped for the golden sibling]
[@Enchomay: neighbor's voice carried grief, but beneath it was accusation. She asked us to see ourselves in it, and she's right.
This isn't a ghost story. It's a reflection. How many children live in prisons built from parental blindness? How many die quietly because society says, 'That's normal—siblings fight'?]
[@Ovesix:What hurts most is how ordinary it was. No monsters, no curses—just us. Humans. Neighbors who hear but don't intervene. Parents who love but only one sided]
(Tapping a finger on the desk) "Yes, That's it.
That's the disgust rotting inside me too.
Don't you see, viewers?
We crave to blame curses, demons, spirits… but this was just society at its rawest, ugliest form.
Humans doing what humans do best—breaking each other while pretending it's love.
(He leans closer, the static crackling louder)
That narrator said 'oops' because the world treated Martin's death as a lost to the world, but for Kain's loneliness and negligence?
They see it as "good", deserved.
But it wasn't.
It was a verdict.
Years of negligence carved into a single moment.
And you—yes, you watching right now—don't you dare say this is just a story.
Some of you live this.
Some of you cause this."
(Sighs)
"Here's the cursed meaning of this story;
Families are supposed to be shields, but too often, they are the blade.
If you are a parent, love isn't measured by gifts or grades—it's measured by listening, by seeing the quiet child in the corner before jealousy rots them hollow.
If you are a sibling, you are not rivals in an arena—you are supposed to be each other's defense against the world.
And if you are the forgotten one—hear me:
your pain is not your fault.
Do not let their blindness turn into your end.
Fight.
Even if the world calls it 'oops' when you are gone, your story deserves more than a shrug and pointed fingers.
Take back your breath before silence steals it.
And here's my warning… The world doesn't change overnight.
Families won't suddenly grow kind.
Negligence hides under smiles.
Hatred festers under dinner tables.
You think your neighbor's family is fine?
Watch closer.
Sometimes, the monster next door is a smiling parent who loves one child while slowly killing another with neglect.
And sometimes, that monster is you."
(Kai sits back, his voice lowering to a whisper)
"Oops, brother died" was not talking about Martin but Kain, and how the society barely blinked.
But here, in this stream, he will not be forgotten. Both of them wouldn't.
His story is etched into us now, a scar you carry whether you want to or not.
(smirking faintly)
"And next… ah, the next tale will gnaw at you even worse….or maybe it would give us relief.
"It Taught Me in the Hardest Way."
STREAM ENDED