My Family Chose My Brother's Scratch Over My Dying Heart

My name is Autumn Weston, and I am dying.

The thought strikes me with startling clarity as I float above the operating table, watching my own pale body grow still beneath the harsh fluorescent lights. The heart monitor's rhythmic beeping has dissolved into one long, piercing wail that seems to echo through my soul. Below me, medical staff in green scrubs move with urgent desperation, their voices growing distant and muffled.

"We're losing her," someone shouts.

"Get the paddles ready!"

"Clear!"

The shock jolts my lifeless body, but I feel nothing. I'm suspended here, weightless, watching this strange theater of death play out. My chest rises and falls artificially with the ventilator's mechanical rhythm, but there's no life behind it anymore. Just an empty shell that used to be me.

"Again!" The voice cracks with desperation.

Another shock. My body convulses, then settles back into stillness.

A young doctor with kind eyes—Dr. Lucas Chen, according to his badge—refuses to give up. Sweat beads on his forehead as he performs chest compressions, his hands pressing rhythmically against my ribs. "Come on," he whispers. "Don't give up on me."

But I already have.

The separation isn't painful like I'd imagined. It's just... empty. A vast, hollow sadness that fills every corner of my being. Twenty-three years of life, and this is how it ends—alone on a cold table while my family sits two floors above, completely oblivious to my struggle.

Suddenly, I feel a pull. Not physical, but something deeper, like invisible threads tugging at my essence. My spirit drifts through the ceiling, past pipes and wiring, until I'm floating in the VIP ward on the second floor.

There they are.

My mother, Vivian Weston—Chief of Surgery at Metropolitan General—sits beside my stepbrother Ethan's bed, her manicured fingers stroking his perfectly styled hair. Her face, usually composed and professional, is creased with worry. But not for me. Never for me.

"Ethan, sweetheart, how are you feeling?" Her voice carries that special warmth she reserves only for him.

Ethan, all of nineteen and milking this for everything it's worth, lets out a theatrical sigh. "My knee really hurts, Mom. And my head feels fuzzy."

I want to laugh, but the sound won't come. His "injuries" consist of a few scrapes and a bruised knee that the X-rays showed wasn't even fractured. Meanwhile, I'd been bleeding internally for hours before anyone bothered to properly examine me.

My stepfather, Richard, paces near the window, his face flushed with anger. "If that girl had been paying attention instead of daydreaming like always, none of this would have happened!" His voice booms through the pristine room. "My son could have been killed!"

"Dad," I whisper to the empty air, "you don't need to worry anymore. I'm already dead. But you never cared anyway, did you?"

The memory of the crash floods back with brutal clarity. We'd been driving home from Ethan's college orientation, him complaining about everything from the dorms to the cafeteria food. I'd been listening patiently, as always, when the drunk driver ran the red light.

In that split second, I'd made a choice. I yanked the wheel hard to the right, ensuring the impact would hit my side of the car instead of his. The crunch of metal and glass had been deafening, but all I could think about was protecting him—the same boy who'd spent years making my life miserable, calling me names, "accidentally" breaking my things.

When the paramedics pulled us from the wreckage, I was covered in blood from head to toe, my ribs crushed, my lung punctured. Ethan had a few scratches and was already sitting up, dramatically clutching his knee.

But he was the one they'd rushed to the VIP ward.

I was the one they'd forgotten in the hallway for forty-seven minutes.

The memory shifts to that moment in the emergency room when I'd crawled across the blood-slicked floor, leaving a crimson trail behind me as I reached for my mother's pristine white coat.

"Mom..." I'd gasped, each word feeling like swallowing glass. "Please... I can't... I can't breathe..."

Vivian had looked down at me with the same expression she'd wear when stepping around a puddle. Pure disgust. "Autumn, must you be so dramatic? Your brother could have a serious head injury, and you're worried about a few cuts?"

She'd turned away then, her heels clicking against the tile as she walked toward Ethan's gurney, taking every qualified doctor with her.

She hadn't looked back. Not once.

Now, watching her fuss over Ethan's imaginary injuries, I feel that same crushing weight in my chest—or what used to be my chest.

Back in the operating room, Dr. Chen is still fighting for a body that no longer houses a soul.

"Please," he begs my lifeless form. "Just give me something. Anything."

A nurse with kind eyes gently places her hand on his shoulder. "Lucas, she's been down too long. We need to call it."

"No." He shakes his head violently. "She's too young. This isn't right."

I want to tell him it's okay, that he tried harder than anyone else ever had. That in these final moments, he cared more about my life than my own family did. But my voice is gone, my touch is nothing but air.

The heart monitor flatlines completely.

Downstairs, Lucas slumps forward. His hands rest heavy and defeated on my chest.

"Time of death..." His voice breaks, a ragged, ugly sound. "11:47 PM."

He pulls the white sheet over my face. The bright fluorescent light is blocked out.

My phantom heart shatters.

Then, a bright, cheerful laugh drifts through the ceiling from the VIP ward.

I float upward, pulled by the sound.

Ethan is sitting up in his plush bed, grinning. "Mommy, since I'm feeling so much better, can I have that strawberry cake from the bakery downtown? The one with the real strawberries?"

"Of course, darling," Vivian smiles. She kisses his forehead, blind to the blood on her pristine shoes. "Anything for my brave boy."

The injustice of it burns like acid in a throat I no longer possess.

I am dead. Covered by a sheet in the basement. And they are planning a dessert run.

The invisible force tethers me to this room. I can't leave. I am bound here, forced to witness their absolute indifference.

I drift right to the edge of Ethan's bed. My phantom body is vibrating with a rage I never let myself feel when I was alive.

I lean down. My face is mere inches from my perfect, golden-boy brother.

"I died for you," I whisper. The words are pure, concentrated venom. "I died for you."

Ethan stops laughing.

The smile drops from his face. He shivers violently, the color draining from his cheeks. His eyes snap wide open, and he turns his head slowly—

He looks directly at the exact empty space where I am floating.

"Mom," Ethan whispers, his voice suddenly trembling. "Did it just get really cold in here?"