Refused to Save My Brother

A bullet had torn through my brothers heart on his last peacekeeping tour. A ruptured artery. Massive bleeding. He had three hours to live, tops.
But as they wheeled him into the OR, I was calmly watering my plants.
A minute later, the door to my office flew open, kicked in by my wife, Lena. Her voice was a blade. "That's your brother in there, Elias! Are you just going to let him die? How can you even wear that uniform?"
I knew, with cold certainty, that I was the only surgeon who could save him.
I just murmured, "Oh," and continued tending to my flowers.
The next second, a sharp sting exploded across my cheek. My mother's slap.
"Elias Thorne! You ungrateful monster. You wouldn't even be here if it weren't for your brother!"
My father ripped the service ribbons from his own uniform and threw them at my face. "Get in that operating room and save your brother. Now."
I simply raised a hand to wipe the blood from the corner of my mouth, then coolly rolled up my sleeve, revealing the tapestry of horrifying scars that covered my arm.
"I'm sorry," I said, my voice flat. "This hand is useless. I can't operate anymore."

1
The air in the office seemed to crystallize. Every eye was fixed on my right hand.
This was the hand that had performed countless impossible surgeries. The hand they once called "The Hand of God" at this military hospital.
But now, it was a grotesque ruin, twitching uncontrollably. It trembled so violently I could barely hold the watering can steady.
I was, for all intents and purposes, a cripple.
Lena shook her head wildly, her eyes wide with disbelief. "Stop acting, Elias. You were in surgery just yesterday. How could your hand be 'useless' today?"
"You'd really sink this low? You'd lie about this just to avoid saving him?"
I met her accusation with a faint, chilling smile and held my arm out closer for her to inspect.
"Believe what you want, Lena. My hand is finished." I let the smile widen. "Perhaps fate has decided it's Clark's time to die."
The dark, swollen veins looked as if they were about to burst from my skin. The sight made her recoil, but her indignation quickly returned. "You're a medical genius! I bet you did something to your own hand, used some obscure technique to make it look like this. I don't believe for a second it was ruined in just a few hours!"
Beside her, my mothers composure finally broke. Tears streamed down her face. She reached for me, not to strike me again, but to clutch at my sleeve, her voice pleading.
"Elias, I'm begging you. As your mother, I am begging you. Please, just go operate on your brother."
Her voice cracked. "Have you forgotten who saved you when you were being torn apart by those wild dogs?"
A phantom pain shot through me, the old scars on my back burning as if they were fresh.
I was eight years old, a Boy Scout on a camping trip in the countryside. A pack of feral dogs appeared out of nowhere, lunging for me. Their teeth sank into my back, ripping flesh from bone. I was moments from death when he appeared.
Nine-year-old Clark, brandishing a heavy branch, driving the dogs away before carrying me home.
He saved my life.
My parents were overwhelmed with gratitude. When they learned he was the victim of horrific abuse at home, they decided to adopt him.
My injuries were severe. I spent a full year bedridden, missing the selection trials for the elite military academy. Clark, naturally, took my spot. I could only watch from my sickbed as he dazzled the recruiters, earning the praise that should have been mine.
Everyone lauded my parents for gaining such a brilliant son. No one seemed to remember that I had once been even more brilliant.
My body healed, but it was never the same. The rigorous training of a soldier was now beyond me. For my parents, both decorated battlefield commanders, having a son who was a true, hardened soldier was everything.
A dream only Clark could fulfill.
From that day on, the scales of their love tipped, never to be balanced again.
Clark got the first pick of everything. Clark's needs always came first. In my own home, I started to feel like the one who had been adopted. I was jealous, but I swallowed my bitterness and accepted it.
Hoping to win back their approval, I became a military surgeon. But it changed nothing. Their eyes still followed Clark, their pride swelling only for him. Their cold indifference nearly drove me into a deep depression.
I pushed the memories away. I didn't answer them. I just went back to my flowers.
My father strode forward and swatted the planter from my hands. It exploded on the floor, a shower of terracotta and soil.
"Your brother is lying on a gurney, bleeding out, and you have the heart to play with these damn flowers? Are you even human?" He wasn't finished. He brought his boot down, grinding the delicate petals into the dirt.
A sharp pain lanced through my chest. My grandmother had given me the seeds for those flowers.
Still, I said nothing. I knelt, carefully picking up the broken shards and ruined blossoms.
My mother completely unraveled. Her hair was a mess, her face streaked with tears as she sobbed. "Please, Elias! I'm begging you! Do you want your father and me to get on our knees? Just go look at him! Please, just one look!"
She bent her knees, as if she truly was about to prostrate herself before me. I had never seen her lose control like this. Not even when I was a child, mauled and bleeding, had she shown a hint of panic. A commander, she always said, must remain impassive in any situation.
Why was it so different for Clark?
My father's voice boomed with the authority he used on the battlefield. "I don't care if you're crippled. You will perform this surgery, and you can fall apart after!"
A sharp edge of a broken pot sliced my palm. A thin line of red welled up.
A mocking smile played on my lips. "Are you sure about that? If Clark dies on my table, whose fault will it be then?"

2
Disappointment, regret, sheer disbeliefa storm of emotions churned in their eyes.
"Enough, Elias," Lena snarled. "We all know if you do this surgery, it will be a success. Unless you don't want to save him."
Her eyes narrowed. "Or maybe... you want to kill him?"
I just chuckled softly and continued to gather the broken pieces of my flowerpot.
"This is insane!"
Their words washed over me, but I remained silent, my head bowed. Time was ticking away. Clark was running out of it.
Suddenly, a nurse burst in from the operating theater, her face pale. "It's bad! Colonel Thorne is flatlining! If we don't operate now, he won't last another ten minutes."
My mother swayed, her eyes rolling back in her head as if she might faint.
That's when Lena stepped forward, her fists clenched.
"Mom, Dad... let me do it. Let me perform the surgery."
"Elias and I studied under the same mentor. I've observed this procedure countless times. I know I can do it."
My parents trusted Lena, but this was Clark's life on the line. Their golden boy. Their everything.
My mother hesitated. "Lena, are you sure? The senior specialists all refused. You've never been the lead surgeon on something this complex."
A flicker of steel entered Lena's eyes. She shot a venomous glare in my direction.
"That's only because Elias hogs the spotlight, never giving anyone else a chance! The truth is, my skills are every bit as good as his now."
She pressed on, her voice filled with conviction. "I know this procedure inside and out. And with the help of Elias's surgical assistance mech, I'm confident I can succeed."
My body went rigid.
I had spent seven years developing that mech-assisted surgical system. It was designed for the most delicate operations, like suturing microscopic blood vessels, guiding the surgeons hand with inhuman precision. Its success rate was hovering around sixty percent.
The hope of saving Clark lit up my parents' faces, though a shadow of doubt remained.
"I've heard how difficult this is," my father said. "Can a machine really make the difference? I'm still not sure."
Lena was ready with a reassuring answer. "Don't worry. The assistance arm handles the fine motor skills, the impossibly precise suturing. Plus, I won't be alone. I'll have a full team of doctors assisting me."
As if on cue, a group of surgeons filed in from the hallway, all nodding their agreement, all offering their help.
I scanned their faces. Most of them were my own residents, my protgs.
And now, every single one of them had turned their back on me.
Tears of relief streamed down my parents' faces. They grabbed Lena's hands, their gratitude overflowing.
"Lena, my dear, if you pull this off, we'll write you a letter of recommendation to the Central Command Medical Center. You'll be made a senior consultant. And everyone who helps you, we'll make sure their superiors know of their valor."
My hand twitched again, a tremor of ice this time.
A position I had bled for, worked seven long years to achieve, and they could grant it to Lena with a single letter. A letter they had never once offered to write for me.
My heart, already a cold, dead weight, sank even lower.
"Hold on," I said, my voice cutting through their celebration. "You want to use my machine? Have you obtained my authorization?"
The atmosphere in the room instantly dropped back to absolute zero.
Lena stared at me, aghast. "Elias, have you lost your mind? Your brother is dying, and you're talking about authorization?"

3
A cold smile touched my lips.
"That machine is the result of seven years of my life's work. Why should I let you use it for free?"
Lena's eyes burned with hatred. My parents looked at me as if I were a monster they were seeing for the first time.
"Elias," my mother choked out, "we were wrong to have ever raised you. If we'd known you'd become this... this thing... Clark should have let those dogs finish you off!"
My own mother, wishing me dead.
I should have felt something. Pain. Anger. But there was nothing left inside me but a vast, silent emptiness, like a dead lake.
I continued calmly, "Unless... you sign over the villa. The one in my parents' name. Then I might consider it."
My parents were trembling with rage.
"You bastard!" My father's hand flew up, striking me again.
I just smiled through the pain. "That's another million you owe me. Pay up, or you get no authorization."
His hand hovered in the air, shaking, but it didn't fall again.
"You vile creature!" my mother screamed. "Using your brother's life to blackmail us for money? That house was meant for Clark! It was going to be our wedding gift to him and his future bride."
I didn't respond. I just tapped my watch, a silent reminder that their time was running out.
After a moment of agonizing indecision, my father finally broke. He scribbled out a transfer deed on the spot and had it rushed for an official seal. Minutes later, the signed contract and the deed to the villa were in my hand.
"There," he spat. "Now sign the authorization."
My pen hovered over the paper, then stopped.
"Seven years of work," I mused. "One house is hardly enough. I also want the family heirloom. The locket."
My mother's eyes widened in horror.
"That is for the eldest son's wife! It belongs to Clark's future bride! How dare you!"
The eldest son. Before Clark, that was me.
I said nothing, just idly twirled the pen between my fingers, waiting.
Finally, they yielded. My father sent someone to retrieve the heirloom. Only after the delicate, antique locket was safely in my possession did I sign the paper.
"There. You have my permission," I said, my voice devoid of emotion. "I do hope you know how to operate it."
The mech's success rate was sixty percent, but that number was entirely dependent on the lead surgeon. In the end, it was the human, not the machine, who would determine the outcome.
Lena scoffed. "Just you watch. You're not the only genius in this hospital, Elias."
I gave a slight, knowing smile.
With the deed in one hand and the locket in the other, I walked out of that office with my head held high.
As I passed my parents, my father's voice, cold as a tombstone, followed me. "Don't bother coming home again."
I just grunted in acknowledgment and kept walking.
The stares of everyone in the hallway were like daggers. Even patients I had personally saved now shook their heads in disgust. In their eyes, I was a monster, a pariah who would trade his own brother's life for profit.
I didn't care. I smiled as I left the hospital behind.
I went back to the house, packed my bags, and erased every trace of my existence there. Then I drove to the villa.
My grandmother's favorite carnations by the front door had withered and died.
It didn't matter. I would bring them back.
I placed the locket on the small altar before her photograph.
Grandma, I got it back. I'll never let someone like Clark tarnish it. He doesn't deserve it.
The surgery took nearly four hours. The entire field hospital held its breath. The grounds outside were swarming with media, a circus of cameras and reporters. My phone blew up with calls and messages, a flood of hate from a world that had already judged and condemned me.
I was a cold-blooded animal, a disgrace. My years of service, my past triumphs, were all rendered worthless.
I ignored it all, focusing only on the delicate, withered carnations in my hands.
Six hours after it began, the doors to the operating theater swung open. Lena emerged, proclaiming the surgery a resounding success.
The hospital erupted in cheers. The media descended upon her, hailing her as a hero. The headlines were already being written: The top surgeon's throne had a new heir. Lena was the new "Hand of God."
She spoke eloquently to the cameras, describing the grueling procedure and magnanimously promising to make the surgical mech technology available to hospitals everywhere.
"A doctor's duty is to save lives," she declared, her voice ringing with false piety. "What Elias Thorne refused to do, I did for him!"
Offers from medical tech corporations poured in. Lena ultimately signed an exclusive deal with the titan, Astral Corp.
Overnight, Lena became a household name. And I became a rat, scurrying in the filth of public opinion.
Looking at the court summons that arrived on my phone, I knew my judgment day was at hand.

4
A few days later, a military vehicle pulled up in front of the villa.
I gathered my prepared documents and stood for a moment before my grandmother's portrait.
"Wait for me, Grandma," I whispered. "I'll be back soon."
Then I walked out and calmly surrendered myself to the military police.
At the tribunal, every face was a mask of contempt. My parents glared at me with a hatred so pure it could have melted steel.
The judge banged his gavel. "Elias Thorne, you stand accused by this council of dereliction of duty and gross violation of the Military Medical Code. How do you plead?"
I slowly lifted my head, meeting his gaze. "Not guilty."
The courtroom exploded. Accusations flew from every corner. If not for the bailiffs holding them back, my parents would have torn me apart with their bare hands.
"Not guilty?" Lena scoffed from the witness stand. "You abandoned your brother and blackmailed your family! We all saw it! How dare you deny it?"
"Elias, if you had a shred of decency, you'd confess," she continued, her voice dripping with disgust. "If I hadn't stepped in, your brother would be dead!"
I looked at them, my expression as still and dead as a frozen lake.
"But he's not dead, is he?"
A collective gasp swept through the room. Camera flashes strobed around me, the media desperate to capture the face of this unrepentant villain.
No matter what the judge asked, my answer was the same. "Not guilty."
Just as the proceedings reached a stalemate, the grand doors of the courtroom swung open.
Clark was wheeled in, looking frail and pale. Even with the surgery's success, his body was shattered. He'd never regain the strength to be a commander. The life he had stolen was now, finally, broken.
"Your Honor, Mom, Dad," he said, his voice weak but clear. "If my brother won't admit to abandoning me... then perhaps he'll admit to treason!"

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