Surgery went wrong.

Ava's POV

“Can I see him?” I choked out, the words ripped from the depths of my despair, a desperate need to lay eyes on him, to confirm he was still there, still breathing, no matter how tenuously.

The doctor nodded, his expression grave. “He’s in ICU. We’ve just moved him. I’ll take you.”

The walk there felt like a blur, a disorienting journey through a nightmare. The buzzing lights overhead seemed to strobe, intensifying the vertigo. The faint, rhythmic sound of machines in the distance, a haunting symphony of life and death, echoed in my ears. The pervasive antiseptic smell, once a symbol of sterile hope, now felt like the scent of cold, clinical despair. None of it felt real, none of it truly registered. I could barely keep my legs from collapsing beneath me, each step an agonizing act of will. My heart hammered against my ribs, a frantic bird desperate to escape its cage.

When we reached his room, the glass door seemed to shimmer, reflecting my own terrified face back at me. I almost didn’t go in. My feet rooted themselves to the spot, a primal fear seizing me.

Because the boy lying on that hospital bed wasn’t Eli.

Not the way I remembered him. Not the vibrant, albeit fragile, child who still held a spark of mischief in his eyes, who smiled so brightly.

He was pale. So incredibly, unnervingly pale, his skin almost translucent against the stark white sheets. Tubes covered him, an invasive network of plastic and wires, disappearing into his nose, his mouth, his arms. Machines surrounded him, monstrous contraptions with flashing lights and rhythmic beeps, breathing for him, pushing fluids into him, keeping him alive by artificial means. He was a lifeless shell that looked like my little brother, but devoid of his essence, his spirit.

I stepped closer, my legs trembling, each step a monumental effort. One shaking hand reached out, hovering for a moment, then gently, tentatively, closing around his. His fingers were cool, slack, unresponsive.

“Eli,” I whispered, the name barely leaving my lips, a ragged, broken sound. “It’s me. I’m here. Please, little bug, fight.”

He didn’t move. Not even a twitch. His chest rose and fell in unnervingly perfect rhythm with the ventilator, a mechanical life, not his own.

I sank down in the chair beside him, the cheap plastic digging into my thighs, oblivious to the discomfort. Both my hands clutched around his, pressing his lifeless fingers, willing warmth, willing life into him. My forehead pressed against the cool, hard edge of his bed, the sterile rails digging into my skin. “Please,” I whispered, as the tears, a fresh torrent, started falling, hot and stinging, blurring my vision further. “Please don’t leave me. Not now. Not after all this.”

My voice cracked, a strangled sob tearing from my chest.

“I did everything I could. Don't you understand? I gave up everything that mattered to me. I let that monster own me. I gave him the only thing I had left to give. My dignity, my freedom, my very self. Just… just so you could live. Just so you could have a chance.”

My sobs were silent and raw, shaking my entire body, a tremor that started in my core and rippled outward. My forehead pressed harder against the cold metal, knuckles white from clinging to him, as if my grip alone could pull him back from the precipice.

“I’m not strong enough to lose you,” I whispered brokenly, the words catching on a sob, tasting like ash and despair. “You’re all I have, Eli. You’re my family. My home. My reason for living. If you go… what’s left for me?”

The machine beeped slowly, steadily, a relentless, dispassionate rhythm that mocked my agony.

Too steady. Too calm.

Like it didn’t care that I was falling apart, that my world was crumbling around me.

Like it didn’t care I was bleeding inside, my soul shredded and laid bare.

“I need you to come back to me,” I said, my voice trembling, rising in a desperate plea. “Please, little bug. Just wake up. Just squeeze my hand. Just let me know you’re still in there. Just give me a sign.”

Silence. Heavy. Crushing. The only sounds were the soft whir of the machines, the rhythmic hiss of the ventilator, and my own ragged breaths. My heart was a frozen lump in my chest, suspended in a terrible, suffocating limbo.

Then a faint flicker—a small twitch in his fingers, barely perceptible, a ghost of a movement against my trembling hand. So fleeting, so minuscule, I almost convinced myself I had imagined it.

But it was there.

It was enough.

It was hope. A fragile, tenacious sprout pushing through the barren wasteland of my despair. And hope, despite everything, was the only thing keeping me alive. The only thing that made the sacrifice, the pain, the terror, even remotely bearable.