An Emergency Room on a Silent Night
"Beep... beep... beep..." The sound of the heart monitor continued to ring, filling the narrow room with the smell of antiseptic and blood.
The pale neon lights cast long shadows on the tired faces of the doctors and nurses.
In the midst of the suppressed commotion, a man lay helpless. His body was covered in IV tubes, an oxygen tube, and EKG cables attached to his chest. Blood was still seeping from the bandage on his stomach, staining the white sheets a dull red.
A doctor with a haggard face sighed deeply, his eyes fixed on the monitor showing a progressively weaker heartbeat. "We've done everything we can..." he said softly, his voice hoarse. A nurse beside him nodded wearily, her hands still clenched tightly.
"The internal bleeding is too severe... Almost all of his vital organs are damaged. We can't..." The sentence trailed off. They all knew what it meant.
But in the middle of it all—
"Big brother... Big brother, please... don't go...!"
The voice echoed, breaking the silence of the room. A high school girl knelt beside the bed, her hands clutching her brother's tightly.
Her school uniform was stained with blood—either her own or her brother's, which she had tried to stop with her small, trembling hands.
"....!!!" Her tears fell uncontrollably, soaking her brother's pale arm.
"I don't want to be alone... Big brother, you promised, right? You promised we'd go see the sea together after I graduated? You remember, right?!" The girl said to her older brother.
Her voice broke, like a scared child. It brought back a suffocating wave of nostalgia for the past.
As his condition became truly unsalvageable, in his memories, the man saw fragments of their life together. Their parents who had died in an accident several years ago, a tragic memory after their happiness had faded.
On the day of their parents' funeral, the boy and his sister stared at the coffin before them.
"Don't cry... I'm here..." said the older brother, comforting his younger sister.
During the funeral, they had to suppress their grief over the death of both their parents. He and his sister had become orphans who had lost the meaning of their happiness.
The days that followed turned into a time when they had to sleep on a cold floor with rumbling stomachs because they had little money. Until, eventually, they could only live in an orphanage.
As they grew into adulthood, the brother had to start working to make ends meet. After a long, hard day's work, as usual, he would always give his younger sister good food.
"I'm not hungry, I've already eaten." When his sister offered to eat with him, he always refused the offer. He would lie and say he had eaten earlier, but he did it to give his sister more.
The little girl always smiled even though she knew her brother had to work so hard to buy food every day.
After leaving the orphanage, the brother had to become the family's backbone to support them. He also paid for his sister's schooling and hoped she wouldn't end up like him.
"I'm strong, big brother! When I grow up, I'll be the one to buy you delicious food!" Amidst their dinner, the sister promised her brother that she would buy him good food when she was older.
"I promise... I'll make you happy..." The brother also promised to make his sister happy. It was a promise they had to fulfill someday.
But now? Nothing was going according to their wishes.
That promise was now just a promise, one that would never be fulfilled.
[Last Moments]
"Ha... ha..." His breath grew shorter. His eyes were blurred, but he could still see his sister's face, wet with tears.
He wanted to scream, he wanted to hug his sister, and he wanted to say that
"everything would be okay."
But all that came from his mouth was—
"I'm sorry..." a word filled with profound regret.
I'm sorry I couldn't keep my promise.
I'm sorry for leaving you alone.
I'm sorry... that our lives had to end like this.
In his heart, the brother kept apologizing with deep regret. The accident had suddenly happened, not according to their hopes. The vehicle accident was so severe that it destroyed some of his organs.
"Beeeeep———" The heart monitor began to emit a sound of silence. The screen turned into a flat line with no sign of change.
"BIG BROTHER!!!" His sister screamed loudly, her voice tearing through the room. She squeezed her brother's hand, shaking him, hoping this was just a nightmare.
"Big brother, please wake up! Please listen to me... I'm scared to be alone...! ...I'm scared to be alone!" The sister continued to groan, hoping her brother would wake up.
"..." But there was no answer from her brother at all. He just lay still, his body growing colder.
The doctor slowly took a breath, his eyes closed for a moment.
"11:17 PM... The patient is declared deceased."
After hearing the doctor's statement, the girl's gaze became empty.
She just kept crying, hugging her brother's body, which was getting colder.
"Don't... Don't go... I don't want to be alone... I'm scared to be alone, big brother."
Her voice was just a whisper, but everyone in the room could feel the unspeakable pain. A nurse approached, trying to gently pull her away.
"We understand how you feel... But he's gone peacefully. We're sorry... We couldn't save your brother's life," the nurse said to the girl.
The girl then began to hold her brother's hand even tighter. As if she couldn't accept the reality of what was happening.
"No... No... Big brother, you remember, right? You said... as long as we were together, everything would be okay... So why... why now...?"
Before her eyes, her brother, her only remaining family member, had now left her all alone. The girl's world seemed to have collapsed; she had truly lost her family.
— To Be Continued —