The harsh overhead glare of the surgical lights flickered off, and once again, the doctor stepped out to hand down another critical condition notice for my younger brother. “His heart went into sudden arrest,” the surgeon said, his voice flat with routine gravity. “We need to secure a donor immediately.” A single sheet of paper was passed across the corridor. My entire family turned their heads in unison, their eyes heavy with expectant silence, locking onto me. I nodded. Without a word, I turned and followed the nurse down the tiled hallway to begin the tissue matching process. This was the third time. I was already used to it. The first time was three years ago, when my brother was diagnosed with a rare blood disorder. For months, I sat in cold clinical chairs, letting them drain my blood weekly just to keep him stable. The second time, post-operative complications led to acute renal failure. Out of the entire family, I was the only matching donor for his kidney transplant. And the third time was today. I climbed onto the narrow prep table with effortless composure, my movements devoid of the slightest hesitation. They thought I was blindly devoted. But they didn’t know that yesterday afternoon, right after my latest blood draw, I had stood outside the consultation room and overheard my father weeping behind the closed door. “You know Toby isn’t actually sick!” my father’s voice had cracked, raw and trembling. “Are you really going to let them harvest Jesse’s heart too? That will kill him! He’s my son, Morgan!” “We’ve spent years lying to Jesse—tricking him into giving his blood, coaxing him into giving up a kidney—and he never pushed back once. Look at him now! His hair is falling out in handfuls. He doesn’t have a speck of color left in his face!” My older sister, Morgan, had placed a steady hand on Dad’s shaking shoulders, her tone smooth, pragmatic, and chillingly composed. “Dad, calm down. The surgery is a setup. Toby was born fragile; even if he looks healthy now, who’s to say he won’t fall ill down the line?” “If we don’t test Jesse’s loyalty now—if we don’t prove how far he’s willing to go for his brother—who is going to look after Toby when we’re gone? As the elder brother, this is his responsibility. Tomorrow is the final test. If he passes, I’ll personally make sure he gets access to the best medical care and resources money can buy.” It was all a lie. Toby was perfectly healthy. What Morgan and Dad didn’t realize, however, was that years of forced, frequent blood extractions and losing a organ had driven my remaining systems into rapid, irreversible failure. I didn’t need a fake surgery to end me. I genuinely only had a few days left to live. … I took the donor consent form from the clipboard and breathed in slowly, the sterile scent of rubbing alcohol stinging the back of my throat. When I glanced back over my shoulder, Dad, Mom, and Morgan were standing in a tight cluster. Their faces were stretched tight with anxiety, their mouths opening slightly as if on the verge of speaking. I waited. I stood there on the linoleum floor, waiting for a single word of comfort, a hesitation, a plea for me to stay. Nothing came. Morgan’s thumb rested on her phone screen. The stopwatch app was open, the small digital numbers ticking upward. She was timing me. She was measuring how many seconds it would take for me to sign away my heart for Toby. “I’m ready, nurse,” I said softly, handing the signed document back. Behind me, an audible sigh of relief rippled through my family. Dad looked almost proud, leaning over to whisper to Morgan in a hushed, emotional voice, “I knew Jesse wouldn’t let Toby down. You can call off the experiment now, right?” Morgan’s brow furrowed in sharp disapproval. “No.” “Jesse is smart,” she insisted under her breath. “He knows a signature isn’t legally binding once he’s on the table. The heart is inside his body; if he refuses at the last minute, no one can force him.” “What more do you want?!” Dad whispered harshly. “Do you actually want to kill your brother?!” “Dad, I’m doing this for Toby’s future!” Morgan shot back, her tone clipped. “Jesse has always been quiet, secretive, and calculating. We’ve made it this far—he needs to go into the operating room and be put under anesthesia.” “Only when he’s lying unconscious on that table will I truly believe he’s doing this willingly.” In the end, Dad conceded. He shifted his weight, half-stepping forward as if to reach out to me, but forcibly checked his own movement and stayed put. The nurse led me down to the prep room for a pre-op blood draw, telling me it was a mandatory check for cardiac cross-matching. I reached out, gently tugging at the edge of her scrubs, and pulled a crumpled piece of paper from my coat pocket. “Can we skip the draw?” My voice was barely a raspy murmur, trembling slightly at the edges. “I have my lab results from last week. Will this do?” The paper was from an evaluation I had done at another clinic after giving blood for Toby last Tuesday. Severe chronic anemia had left my vital organs starved of oxygen, my immune system had utterly collapsed, and my hemoglobin levels had plummeted far past the critical line. Simply put, my body was giving up. The nurse paused, finally taking a proper look at me. I was twenty-two years old, but I weighed less than eighty pounds. My shoulders caved inward, hunched over because I no longer possessed the back strength to stand up straight. She reached out, pulling my hand toward her to roll up my sleeve. Beneath the cotton fabric, my skin was a mottled canvas of deep violet bruises and dense, overlapping needle puncture marks. It looked horrifying. “Oh my god…” she gasped, her eyes wide with shock. “In this condition? And your parents are letting you go through with a heart transplant?!” “No, this is wrong. I’m going to get the attending physician right now.” I wanted to tell her not to waste her breath. If Morgan had the power to fabricate medical records and orchestrate fake surgical prep teams inside this private wing, she clearly had people on the inside. Before I could speak, a grip clamped down on my forearm like a steel vice. Morgan had rushed over, her fingers digging so violently into my bruised tissue that I felt the bone beneath ache. I caught my breath, wincing as a sharp spike of pain shot up my shoulder. “Dad, look! See what I mean?” Morgan yelled, turning back toward the hallway. “He doesn’t want to save Toby at all!” “Now he’s trying to convince the nurse to help him orchestrate an escape! Jesse, I can’t believe you!” The flicker of sympathy in Dad’s eyes instantly withered, replaced by a dark, heavy disappointment. “Jesse… I never thought you could be so heartless toward your own brother,” Dad said, his voice dropping into a hollow register. “If you weren’t willing to donate, why didn’t you just say so from the beginning?” “You gave Toby hope, only to snatch it away at the last second. How could you be so cruel?” In my state, I didn’t even have the physical leverage to twist out of Morgan’s grip. It was Nurse Rachel who stepped between us, physically pushing Morgan back. “Let go of him! Look at his clinical markers—he is in no physical condition to enter an operating room, let alone survive a major procedure!” Morgan didn’t hear a word. In her mind, I had already been tried, convicted, and branded a coward and a liar. Anything coming out of my mouth—or the nurse’s—was just a pathetic excuse. “Morgan, please… let go of Jesse!” A small, raspy voice called out from the end of the corridor. Toby stood there in oversized hospital pajamas, looking impossibly small and frail. He shuffled toward us, clutching his chest, coughing with every few steps. He reached us and gently tried to pry Morgan’s fingers off my arm, his eyes brimming with unshed tears. “It’s okay, Jesse,” Toby sobbed quietly, looking up at me with profound innocence. “If you don’t want to donate, you don’t have to. Nobody should force you.” “I don’t have much time left anyway. I just want our family to be together, peacefully, to walk me through my final days.” His tone was soft, sweet, and entirely protective of me on the surface. But a cold, sickening shiver ran down my spine. Toby knew. He knew the whole time. He wasn’t just a beneficiary of this sick test; he was an active participant. Toby was only a year younger than me. Because he was born prematurely, he spent his infancy sick, crying in dark rooms. Our parents were constantly working to build their business, and Morgan was away at prep school, so I was the one who raised him. I changed his diapers. I warmed his bottles, measuring the formula more meticulously than any hired nanny. When he couldn’t sleep, I strapped him to my chest and paced the floor for hours. The first word he ever uttered wasn’t “Mama” or “Dada”—it was my name. When he went to preschool, he’d save half of his candy, wrap it in a napkin, and shove it into his tiny pocket to bring home to me. He used to take the blame when I broke a glass; he used to sit beside me when I was grounded. I genuinely believed I had the sweetest, most loving younger brother in the world. That was why, when they told me he had a terminal condition, I offered up my body without a second thought. I was his older brother. I wanted to bear the weight for him. …… Perhaps my gaze was too raw, too transparent, because Toby flinched slightly and leaned back into Morgan’s side. “You don’t need to glare at your brother like that,” Morgan sneered, pulling Toby close. “Testing your match was my idea. You’re full biological brothers—you were the only viable option.” “Toby has suffered his entire life. He’s lived in and out of hospitals, and now he has three months left. His only chance at a future is sitting right inside your chest. As his brother, can you really stand there and feel nothing?” “Jesse, he is younger than you. He actually has a life ahead of him.” “A one-year difference.” Did a one-year difference mean my life had no value? And besides—who was actually dying here? Despite his exaggerated wheezing, Toby’s skin was supple, his cheeks carried a healthy flushed undertone, and his voice, though pitched to sound faint, lacked the dry, rattling resonance of true pulmonary distress. He didn’t look like someone on the brink of death at all. I raised my eyes and surveyed the three of them. Dad looked broken and disgusted, as if staring at a stranger he regretted raising. Morgan stood like an impenetrable shield in front of Toby, her sharp eyes cutting through me with cold fury. And Mom stood a few paces back, her arms crossed over her chest, watching the drama unfold with detached indifference. Me. Jesse Mitchell. I had given my blood for nearly two years. I had given up a kidney. Half an hour ago, I had signed away my own heart. And now, I was the villain of the family. “Morgan,” I whispered, my voice sounding like rusted metal dragging across pavement. “If I told you that I only have a few days left to live… would you still push me onto that table?” Nurse Rachel couldn’t hold back anymore. She stepped forward, her voice echoing down the hall. “I don’t understand what is wrong with you people! He is your son! He is your brother!” “You’re asking to trade one life for another!” With a quick, decisive movement, Nurse Rachel unzipped my oversized winter coat and pulled it off my shoulders, exposing the truth to the hallway. A heavy silence fell over the corridor. I was nothing more than a cage of bones draped in pale, translucent skin. But worse than the emaciation were my arms: from my wrists to my inner elbows, the skin was a jagged map of dark purple hematomas, scarred vein tracks, and fresh needle marks. Dad gasped, the color draining from his face. “Jesse… my God, what happened to you?” “Tell Dad… does it hurt?” His lips trembled. He reached out and struck Morgan’s back with a frustrated, heavy hand, but he couldn’t bring himself to say the words to stop everything. The test wasn’t over. I hadn’t passed the final hurdle yet. I didn’t answer him. I just quietly took my coat back from the nurse and pulled it back on, zipping it up to my chin. Morgan stared at my covered frame, stunned into a long, suffocating silence. How could this be? It was just routine blood draws—once a week. And didn’t the doctors say a person could function completely fine with just one kidney? “I… I’m sorry,” Morgan stammered, her composure cracking for the very first time. “I didn’t realize… You should have told me.” “But—but even so, you can’t just throw a fit and make up absurd lies! “‘A few days left to live’”? That’s ridiculous, Jesse.” “You’ve become so comfortable lying to our faces. How are you supposed to set an example for Toby when you act like this?” She spoke faster and faster, her voice rising as she anchored herself back to her righteous indignation. I cut her off. “It doesn’t matter. I’m not backing out.” “Let’s go, Nurse Rachel.” I took the nurse’s hand. My thin, frail shadow flickered under the fluorescent lights as we turned the corner, fading like a gust of wind that no one could hold onto. “A family of absolute bloodsuckers! What the hell is wrong with them?!” Nurse Rachel fumed as she walked me down the hall to the prep room. “That little brother of yours looks healthier than I do! Are they all completely blind?!” She cursed under her breath the entire way. I looked at her, finding a strange, quiet sense of warmth in the middle of it all. This was the first time in years anyone had ever taken my side. Ever since Toby fell “sick,” my family went from visiting once a month to moving back into the family house permanently. Back then, I was thrilled. I thought we were finally going to be a real family again. I remember proudly leading Toby out to the living room to show them how well I had been taking care of him while they were gone. But Morgan hadn’t even looked at me. She had immediately snatched Toby’s wrist, her face tight with distress. “Why is Toby so thin? Jesse, have you even been feeding him properly?” “Forget it, I knew I couldn’t rely on you to do anything right. From now on, Toby comes with me. Toby, sweetie, do you want to come live with big sister?” Toby had looked up at her with bright, curious eyes, slowly slipping his small hand out of mine. Looking back, I suppose that was where everything truly broke. Dad had noticed my silence back then and tried to smooth things over later that night. “Don’t be mad at your sister, Jesse. Toby’s always been delicate, and we were away for so long. Morgan just feels guilty for not being around.” Dad had stared at Toby’s bedroom door, his eyes misty. I had wanted so badly to ask him: “What about me? Don’t you feel guilty about leaving me behind too? I’m only one year older than him…” After Toby was admitted to the hospital, he claimed he couldn’t stomach the hospital food and would only eat meals I cooked. So I spent my days sprinting between high school classes and the hospital ward. I had no friends, no hobbies, no life of my own. It wasn’t until I blindly passed Morgan’s first two “loyalty tests” that my family finally started seeing me again. After every major blood donation, Dad would make chicken soup for me. Morgan would bring me little gifts—sometimes a cute hair clip, sometimes a stuffed animal. Desperate to keep that warmth, I tried to copy the way Toby talked to them. I softened my voice, trying to act sweet and dependent. “Thank you, Dad. Thank you, Morgan. I love it so much.” Morgan’s smile had instantly frozen. Dad’s hand, holding the soup ladle, hovered in mid-air. “Jesse, that doesn’t suit you,” Morgan had said flatly. “Stop trying to compete with Toby for attention. You’re the older brother. Act like it.” “Your sister is right,” Dad added quietly. “Toby is a child. You’re practically an adult now. Be composed.” Standing near the staircase, Toby had watched the whole interaction. I stood frozen in the center of the living room, feeling like a pathetic, embarrassment of a person trying to perform a script I hadn’t been cast in. I was quiet because they told me I was too loud; I tried to open up, only to be pushed back into the dark. Late that night, Toby had knocked on my bedroom door, stepping inside and looking at me with a cool, unnerving clarity. “Jesse, why are you always trying to copy me?” “When Morgan buys me toys, you ask for them too. When I cuddle with Dad, you start talking in that weird voice. My teacher says that kind of behavior is called envy.” He spoke with matter-of-fact precision, yet he placed his favorite stuffed bear gently on my pillow before leaving the room. I hadn’t understood him at all. A burning shame had crawled up my skin, consuming me from head to toe. Toby was wrong. It wasn’t envy. It was desperation. But no matter how desperate I was, Jesse Mitchell was never going to be Toby Mitchell. The cold sting of iodine on my inner arm pulled me out of the memory. Nurse Rachel looked down at me, her hands hovering over the IV tray, her eyes filled with deep hesitation. “Sweetheart… I really shouldn’t take any more blood. If I do, your body is going to give out before you even reach an operating table.” “And honestly, with your vitals, you aren’t even qualified to be on a donor match list.” It didn’t matter whether I was qualified. Morgan’s rules were simple: she wanted absolute, unquestioning submission. She wanted me to sacrifice myself willingly for Toby, because I had been born healthy and he hadn’t. In her mind, my health was an offense I owed the family for. “It’s fine,” I murmured gently. “Draw it. I’m at the end of the line anyway.” “Nurse Rachel… could you bring me a different form instead? The whole-body and organ donation consent form?” “I’d like to give what’s left of me to people who actually need it. I heard that after you die, they carve your name onto a memorial wall, and volunteers come to leave flowers. That sounds really nice.” My lighthearted tone made Nurse Rachel force a watery smile, though her eyes glinted with tears. Maybe it was true. Maybe the dead version of Jesse Mitchell would be much easier to love than the living one. …… They wheeled me into the surgical suite under a fog of sedative haze. According to Morgan’s script, as soon as the anesthesia took hold, the procedure would be halted, and I’d be wheeled right back out unharmed. The three tests would be complete. Afterward, she planned to hire top specialists to rehabilitate my health, hand over my share of the family trust, and grant me a ten percent stake in the family business. The things I had to strip my own flesh and blood away to earn were things Toby had been given at birth. The day our parents returned home, they took sixteen-year-old Toby straight to a lawyer to finalize his trust fund. Morgan had already assigned the dividends of a subsidiary company directly to his account. To this day, I had nothing. Just this absurd, degrading obstacle course designed to prove my worth. In the end, Morgan was going to be disappointed. My body was a engine running on fumes. The moment the general anesthetic entered my bloodstream, my vessels dilated violently, and my blood pressure plummeted off a cliff. A healthy heart could adapt and fight back. But my heart had been stretched paper-thin over years of abuse. It simply stopped beating. …… Outside the surgical suite. Dad stood by the waiting room chairs, a sudden, suffocating panic gripping his chest. He reached out, grabbing Morgan’s arm. “Morgan… you’re sure Jesse will be fine, right? I can’t get the image of his arm out of my head. He was so thin… those needle marks…” Dad’s eyes began to fill with tears again. Morgan tapped her fingers against her thigh, using her free arm to lightly pat Toby’s shoulder. “Dad, stop it, you’re scaring Toby,” she snapped quietly. “What could possibly go wrong? It’s just mild anesthesia. They’ll push him out in a few minutes.” “He barely passed these three tests, but at least it’s over. I’ll make it up to him afterward.” “You see how many siblings turn on each other for money these days? Jesse is smart—if I didn’t test him now, how could I trust him to take care of Toby when we’re gone?” She paused, the image of my hollow face briefly flashing through her mind, softening her voice slightly. “Toby, promise me something. When Jesse comes out, treat him well. He’s gone through a lot for you.” Toby nodded dutifully. Yet, deep down, an uncharacteristic dread was clawing at his throat, mimicking the panic in Dad’s chest. The quiet, hollow look in my eyes earlier had unsettled him far more than he cared to admit. Initially, Morgan had presented this to him as a simple family game. But as the game escalated, Toby had considered telling me the truth. The terrible reality was that Toby had wanted to know the answer too. He had wanted to see just how much Jesse Mitchell would break himself to keep his little brother alive. Over the past few weeks, seeing everything I had endured for him, it was impossible not to feel moved. Toby had already made up his mind: the moment I woke up, he would hand over every cent of the property and trust funds Dad and Morgan had set aside for him. He trusted me completely now. Less than thirty minutes later, the red light above the operating room doors went dark. Morgan released a long breath, a triumphant smirk touching her lips as she turned to Dad. “See? I told you. Everything is fine. Now we just wait for him to wake up so we can tell him the truth.” “Jesse Mitchell, congratulations. You finally passed.” “Waiting for you out here is a real future, full family support, and more money than you can ever spend.” Dad and Toby stepped forward, relief washing over their faces. Then the double doors swung open, and the medical team pushed the gurney out. The three of them froze in their tracks. A thick white sheet was pulled completely over my head. My hand hung limply off the side of the metal frame, pale, waxen, and utterly lifeless. The lead surgeon pulled off his mask, his face heavy with solemn grief. The entire surgical team lined up beside the gurney and bowed deeply toward my family. “We are deeply sorry. We did everything we could.” “Patient Jesse Mitchell was pronounced dead at 6:11 PM. Please accept our deepest condolences.”
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