All Chapters of My Heart Rots Inside My Brother's Chest: Chapter 1 - Chapter 8

I floated in mid-air, watching everything unfold below.The shadowless surgical lights cast a harsh, blinding glare onto my bloodless face. Erika Buckley calmly covered my face with a surgical drape.She turned to my father and said, "Marcus, hurry up. Don't keep Caleb waiting."Caleb Buckley was my brother. He lay on another operating table nearby, his chest cut wide open, waiting for my heart.Marcus Buckley nodded, his hands trembling slightly.He picked up a large black medical waste bag and expertly stuffed my body inside. The heavy plastic rustled softly against my cold skin.I was the adopted daughter of the Buckley family.When I was ten, Caleb fell down the stairs and split his head open. Without hesitation, Erika held me down while Marcus drew blood from my arm to save him.My vision went black, and I collapsed onto the floor. When I woke up, they were huddled around Caleb's bed, showering him with care while not a soul looked at me.From that day on, I became Caleb'

Erika gave Caleb some medicine and stayed by his side for a while longer before finally leaving the room.What she failed to notice was a small patch of rash that had developed on the arm Caleb had been scratching.The next morning, Caleb's blood-curdling scream shattered the peace of the estate. Marcus and Erika bolted up from their bed, sprinting straight into his room.Caleb was sitting on his bed in terror, pointing frantically at his body. "Mom! Dad! Look! What is this?"Large, purplish splotches covered his arms, his chest, and even his face. The rash had clustered together into horrific, sickening patches."It's itching so badly! It hurts!" He clawed at himself frantically, but the harder he scratched, the faster the dark blotches spread across his skin.Erika, as a top cardiothoracic surgeon, recognized what it was in an instant. Her face drained of all color."Hyperacute rejection... No way!" she muttered, her eyes wide with disbelief. "How is it possible? The match was

The scene before them filled everyone present with shock and disgust. A person, barely recognizable as human, covered in decaying flesh and oozing black blood, lay on the cold operating table.The evidence was irrefutable.The officers discovered a full surgical setup in the basement—bloody scalpels, gauze, and, carelessly tossed into a tray, Caleb's diseased, necrotic heart.Cold handcuffs clicked around my parents' wrists, but somehow, Erika calmed down.As the police dragged her up off the floor, she mumbled endlessly under her breath, "I was just trying to save my son. What did I do wrong? I was just making the optimal choice..."Her icy indifference and lack of remorse infuriated Eduardo. He shoved her toward the door. "Tell the judge what you did wrong!"Caleb was rushed into an ambulance, but it was far too late. On the way to the hospital, he stopped breathing from severe septic shock and multiple organ failure.The "new life" my parents had meticulously engineered las

Erika just sat blankly in the corner of her cell day after day, using her finger to draw the shape of a heart on the floor.Once drawn, she would scrub it out fiercely with her foot. She drew it again and scrubbed it out again.She began to experience hallucinations, constantly feeling that a shadow covered in decaying flesh and oozing black blood was standing in the corner. It was the shadow of her beloved son.The shadow stared intently at her, questioning her in a hoarse voice."Mom, why did you kill me?""My body hurts so badly. It smells so rotten..."...Terrified, she would curl up into a ball, letting out piercing screams of horror.The son she loved most had become a ghost that would haunt the rest of her life, a nightmare from which she would never wake.I simply watched her with quiet composure. This woman, who had once controlled my life, turned into a pathetic lunatic.But my hatred toward her seemed to fade away bit by bit with Caleb's death and her descent into