Damilola Ajayi, 22. Ayobanji Ajayi, 20. Two brothers serving side by side in combat. Two brothers, two friends.
They fought grizzly battles together.
And battled snipers together.
They hated wars, because they bore witness to its tragedies and horrors. So they became soldiers and they vowed to fight for their country — to save their Fatherland from its ugly clutches.
Their world was fire and gunpowder. Explosions rattled the earth like an angry god taking revenge on mortals. Smoky air engulfed Damilola as he ran, feet sinking into the sinking mud. The battlefield was heated, the battle sore, strewn with contorted bodies and scattered rifles.
Only one thought feverishly possessed his mind: find his unit, find his brother.
A faint sound filtered into his ears at first, almost lost in the cacophony. A voice: a groan. Familiar.
“Dami…”
He stopped dead on his tracks. He could recognize that voice as surely as he could recognized his own heartbeat. When he turned his gaze to the scorched field, his stomach dropped.
Ayobanji.
His younger brother lay sprawled out in the mud. His uniform was torn wide open, and his stomach was glistening red-gold in the light of the burning grass. He had been hit that even the act of gasping for breath, seemed to rip apart his lungs.
"No, no, no..." murmured Damilola, rushing to his side. He fell on his knees, hands pressed desperately against the wound, hot blood seeping between his fingers.
Ayo's lips trembled, trying to smile. "You always said you'd cover my back."
"Save your strength," Damilola's voice cracked as he tugged off his scarf and pressed it down harder. But the bleeding did not cease.
Ayo winced, eyelids rolling back for a moment. "It's no use. I can feel it in me... life is quickly ebbing away."
"Shut up!" Damilola snapped, hands shaking. "I'll get you out, I'll carry you. We'll find the medics, they would attend to you and you'd be fine."
Ayo coughed blood, a spatter on his lips and he gripped his brother's wrist tightly. "I won't make it, and you know it. Look around you. No one else is here. It's just us. You and me."
The words sunk deeper than the wound. Damilola looked around. The fields were eerily empty now, the gunfire further away, but enemy patrols would be back soon. fallen soldiers littered the floor, some were young soldiers who had belonged to his unit. They would both die if he carried his brother and If he left him, Ayo would die slowly, screaming in the dirt.
Ayo's eyes were filled with pain. "Dami... Please don't let me die like this."
Damilola's chest heaved. "Don't you dare ask me that."
"You think I don't know?" Ayo whispered. "I'm done for. I can't walk, I can't fight. You'll carry me a hundred steps, and we'll both be riddled with bullets in no time. You know it."
"I can't..do....this.... please." Damilola's voice broke. "You're my brother."
Ayo's lips twitched.
Damilola’s mind reeled back to their childhood—the two of them racing barefoot through cassava fields, playing football in the school compound and swimming in the river, with their mother yelling after them to stay out of trouble. Nights spent under the stars, by the fireside, listening to folklores, chasing fireflies and whispering promises. No matter what, we stick together.
He looked down now, at the boy he had sworn to protect with his own life, now a man broken by war. This would be the toughest choice he had ever had to make.
Ayo’s breathing grew ragged. His eyes pleaded, not with fear, but with trust. “Do it, Dami. Let me go. Let me die a brave soldier.”
The rifle in Damilola’s hand felt impossibly heavy. His finger hovered over the trigger. His body trembled with every heartbeat.
“Forgive me,” he whispered, his tears falling onto Ayo’s bloodied uniform.
“I already do,” Ayo breathed.
The shot was quick, swallowed by the chaos of distant gunfire.
For a moment, time froze. Damilola’s hands refused to release his brother’s body. He pressed his forehead to Ayo’s still chest, sobbing silently.
Then, slowly, he stood, leaving behind half his soul in the mud.
As he vanished into the night, he knew that one thought would haunt him for the rest of his life: in a war where men killed men, the cruelest wound was being forced to kill the one you loved most.
Image is AI generated.
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