My Sacrifice Was For Her Only

The day before my brothermy adopted brother, that istook his own life, he drove his car straight into my oldest sisters legs, shattering one of them. Then, he climbed thirty stories and jumped.

As he lay in the blood-soaked pavement, he smiled up at me, a sickeningly bright expression on his face. "Cody," he whispered, his voice a ragged gasp. "I'll save you a spot."

I knew what Damian was doing. He was opting out of the world, choosing oblivion over existence.

That night, I bought a small birthday cake and posted the news of my own impending departure in the family group chat.

Claire, my doctor sister, the one who always kept a sterile distance, replied with a single, cold emoji.

Scarlett, the international music icon, sent a venomous voice note. "If you're going to kill yourself, just do it already! All you ever do is envy Brooks. If you drop dead today, I'll live-stream myself shaving my head and singing karaoke to my own greatest hitsbadly!"

Mom and DadDana and Victor Harringtonwere silent. Instead, they flooded the chat with dozens of pictures of Brooks at a world-class Formula One exhibition, celebrating his lavish eighteenth birthday.

Only Charlotte, the one whod just had her leg mangled, the CEO of the familys conglomerate, sent a cascade of choked-up messages.

"Cody, you know where Damian went, don't you?"

"Im begging you. Tell me"

I didn't reply to any of them. I simply ate the cake, alone, in the quiet of my room.

Because soon, I would be reunited with my real parents and my real sister.

After finishing the slice of cake Id cut, I opened the system interface and selected my method of suicide.

[Host, are you absolutely sure you want to select this method?]

[Death via this route will be extremely painful. I suggest you reconsider.]

The system's mechanical voice prompted me, a sterile warning against the agonizing reality.

I ignored it, clicking 'Confirm.'

With the deed done, I finally checked my phone. The family chat was still scrolling. Brookss eighteenth birthday was a grand eventa coming-of-age celebration worthy of the Harrington name.

Claire, the ER surgeon, had rescheduled multiple surgeries to dedicate an entire day to him. Scarlett, the A-list celebrity, had canceled a national stadium tour just to serenade him with a personal birthday song.

And Charlotte? The eldest, the one lying in a hospital bed with a shattered leg, was still posting tearful voice notes.

"Cody, please, just tell me where Damian went, okay?"

"Im pleading with you..."

I listened to a few, then shut the phone off. I tossed the remaining cake into the bin and, following the systems coordinates, headed to the designated location.

Seattle General Hospital.

As I walked toward the entrance, my phone abruptly rang.

"Cody Harrington, what did you say to Brooks?!"

"Why did he just attempt suicide with an overdose of sleeping pills!"

Scarletts furious scream pierced my ear.

I held the phone, my face blank, trying to recallhow many times had this been? How many times had I been slandered, framed, or made the scapegoat?

I couldn't remember. The number was too high to count.

"Did he die?" I asked plainly, hanging up before the expected torrent of curses could begin.

Walking into the hospital, I found a quiet spot to wait for the systems suicide timer to tick down. I had barely settled when a sharp sting flared on my cheek.

Slap.

"Cody Harrington, you are beyond defiant!"

Claire, rigid in her pristine white coat, glared at me, rage blazing in her eyes.

"I thought you were merely a spoiled delinquent, but I see now you harbor genuine malice! You're the son of a trafficker and a rapist, aren't you? The trash genes always surface!"

"Eighteen years in the Harrington home, and youre still nothing but a piece of low-born garbage!"

"Get on your knees and wait right outside the emergency room until Brooks is safely awake!" Claire grabbed my arm and tried to haul me up.

I struggled, and my head slammed hard against the wall. A wave of darkness washed over my vision. I felt a warm liquid trickle down my forehead. Claire, seeing the blood, flinched back, her anger momentarily replaced by a flicker of shock and panic.

"Claire Harrington, I have never hurt Brooks," I stated, my voice steady. "I won't bear a crime that isn't mine."

Wiping the fresh blood from my brow, I met her gaze calmly.

A look of deep disappointment crossed Claires face, followed by a low sneer. "You haven't hurt Brooks? Then why are you slinking around the hospital at midnight, you coward? Don't tell me you're here for a scenic stroll?"

"I came here to die," I said, quietly pursing my lips.

The method of suicide I had selected in the system was to stop a mass casualty eventa hospital shooting.

Tonight, a man with a knife was scheduled to go on a rampage here, stabbing seven doctors before jumping to his own death. Among his victims was Dr. Aris Thorne, a specialist in womens cancers and the brilliant mind behind the Womens Health Equity Acta major push for medical-grade hygiene products that dramatically lowered infection rates.

In my real world, my mother was dying of uterine cancer. That was why the System had found me.

My mission was complete. I had achieved the transfer of the necessary medical knowledge. In my final moments, I only wanted to help the women here, in this world.

I just hadn't realized this was Claires hospital.

"Suicide? Cody Harrington, are you really trying to change tactics and garner sympathy through death?"

"Who taught you this trick? Your buddy who threw himself off a building?"

"Ill tell you this: Damian was a psycho, and you're the same pathetic low-life!"

Scarlett marched over, holding her phone aloft to display a breaking news headline.

"Suicide of Construction Worker Shames Heiress Wife: Was He Eclipsed by Her Golden Boys Glory?"

She barked out the words. "Cody, look at this. Every word is true. You and Damian are cut from the same clothlow-born trash. You were swapped at birth, we raised you for eighteen years, and you still cant measure up to a single strand of Brookss hair!"

Scarlett slammed her phone down and grabbed a handful of my hair, yanking my head back.

"Cody Harrington, you are coming with me right now. You will apologize to Brooks. If you do, Ill consider forgiving you. Otherwise"

"I will expose your true parentage to the entire country. No university will ever touch you."

"Fine."

Scarlett froze, her grip loosening unconsciously. "What did you say?"

"I said youll never get into a decent college. Do you even understand what that means?"

What did it mean? I understood better than anyone.

My mother, Elena, had been diagnosed with aggressive cancer three months before my finals. My father and sister had lied, saying she was on an extended vacation to keep the news from me. But I knew.

My mother was the heart of our home, the anchor that held us all together. Her favorite saying was, "Without me, this family will fall apart!"

I would always smile and agree. "Then you must live to be a hundred, Mom, or we'll be completely ruined."

I remember the day I secretly followed my father and sister to the hospital. I saw my mother, frail and skeletal from the chemo. Her face was gray, but she held my dad's hand, asking over and over.

"Cody hasn't found out, right?"

"Is Cody doing well at school? I can't let this derail his college plans. My Cody is going to be a physicist!"

I ran from the hospital and cried by the river for three hours. Then I made my decision: I would quit school and spend every last moment with my mother.

I didnt want to miss a second. So, having no college was something I deeply understood.

"Cody, are you insane?!" Claire burst out, aghast. "Don't you dream of the MIT Physics Program?"

I shook my head, about to speak, when a nurse suddenly came running, frantic.

"Dr. Harrington, its an emergency!"

"Your brother woke up, had a depressive episode, and is threatening to jump!"

Brooks Harringtons depressive episodes were perfectly timed.

I scored first place in the statewide practice exams? Hed have an episode.

I called home with a 104-degree fever? Hed have an episode.

This time, I was not surprised.

In the hospital room, he was perched on the window ledge, a fruit knife clutched in his hand.

"Mom, Dad, Claire, Scarlett, Im so scared. I dreamed they beat me again."

"They forced me to eat dog food, and they tortured me every day"

"Why didn't you find me sooner!"

Tears streamed down his face. Brookss tragic, broken sobs moved everyone in the room.

My father, Victor, the seasoned businessman, had eyes red-rimmed with tears. "Brooks, put down the knife. Come to Daddy."

"Youre home now. You can have anything you want!"

My mother, Dana, the picture of a distraught society matriarch, was weeping hysterically. "Brooks, you're my baby!"

"Please, honey, come down!"

Brooks mumbled to himself, the knife hovering over his wrist. "But my brother doesn't like me. He said I don't deserve to be your son, I don't belong in the Harrington family"

"I might as well just die!"

He wailed, fixing a look of wounded injustice directly on me.

"Cody Harrington, did you really say that to him?!"

"Who gave you the right, you little snake?!"

Scarletts palm cracked against my cheek. She grabbed my hair and dragged me over to Brooks.

"Brooks, don't listen to a word he says! You are the true Harrington heir!"

"Yes! Cody is not our son. Brooks, you are!" Dana rushed to confirm, her voice thick with sobs.

Brookss tears finally stopped. He slowly lowered the knife and climbed down from the window.

"Good boy, Brooks. Give the knife to Claire. Don't hurt yourself." Claire spoke gently, reaching out to take the blade.

Suddenly, Brooks let out a piercing shriek.

The knife lashed out, aimed at me.

Slash!

The razor-sharp blade sliced diagonally from my forehead to the corner of my mouth. The burning, searing pain instantly brought me back to my sophomore year.

Id scraped my face after falling off a basketball court. MomElenahad rushed to the school, her eyes filled with distress, whispering over and over:

"My sweet boy, don't cry. It won't hurt, my sweet boy"

Her gentle voice still echoed in my ears. I stumbled backward, clutching my face, and collapsed onto the floor.

"Ah! I didnt mean to!"

"Im sorry, Cody, I cant control myself" Brooks cried pathetically, then dramatically slumped into a faint.

Panic erupted. Everyone rushed to Brooks, carrying him out of the room.

I lay there on the icy floor, my wound throbbing.

"Mom"

I called out for Elena involuntarily. Tears fell, tracing a salty path across the fresh cut, multiplying the pain. I couldnt stop them.

When I first arrived in this world, I was just a placeholder. I was careful and meticulous, focused only on completing my mission to save Elena.

But then, the Harringtons began to treat me well. I slowly let down my guard, foolishly believing I had gained two families, two sources of love.

Lying there, the stark truth hit me: family love, too, came in different grades.

After a few minutes, I fought down the sorrow, covered my wound, and sat up.

The systems alert flashed in my sight.

[Medical Event T-Minus 30 Minutes!]

[Host, proceed to the designated location and complete the transfer!]

The red letters screamed in my vision.

I found a nurse to quickly apply a bandage to the deep gash on my face, and then I headed for the exit.

As I walked out of the treatment room, Claire, her face shadowed with fury, strode up to me. She grabbed my arm in a vise-like grip.

"Cody Harrington, did you leak the information online?!" she ground out, her teeth clenched.

"How could you be so utterly malicious! You had someone expose Brookss past, and you deliberately fabricated rumors that he was assaulted by multiple men?!"

"Cody, when did you become this monster?"

Her eyes were filled with disgust. Claire forcefully yanked me in the opposite direction. "Youre coming with me to kneel and apologize to Brooks! I won't shield you this time!"

My wrist screamed in protest. I struggled desperately, but Scarlett rushed over and grabbed a handful of my hair.

"Still trying to squirm out of it?!" she shrieked. "We indulged you too much!"

They dragged me forward. A low moan escaped my lips.

"Sister"

The two women paused momentarily, but immediately recovered.

"Don't try to appeal to me, Cody!"

"Calling me sister wont work!"

I kept calling out. Sister.

But I wasn't calling them. I was calling Rosemy real sisterthe one in the other world. The one who, when I was mocked as a mute because I spoke slowly, had fought the bullies, returning with a bloody face but a look of heroic pride, promising me that anyone who dared to mess with me again would be beaten until they ate dirt.

Thinking of my family waiting for me in the other world, I gritted my teeth. I slammed my head back against the wall.

Again and again. Blood erupted.

"Cody, are you insane!"

"What are you doing?!"

"Stop it right now!"

Claire and Scarletts screams filled my ears, which had already begun to ring.

"Let go of me!"

"Let me leave!"

I cried out weakly.

Brooks, Dana, and Victor emerged from the room. They froze, staring at my blood-soaked face.

"Cody"

"What is this?"

Before they could say more, Brooks suddenly burst into tears.

"Cody looks so scary"

"Cody, why are you cyberbullying me online?"

As Brooks wept, the shock and pity in their eyes vanished, replaced by a profound disappointment and condemnation.

"Cody Harrington, what has happened to you?"

"You've disappointed us beyond measure!"

They shouted their accusations. I stood up, blood streaming down my face, and heard the system's sharp, final warning.

[Host! You must proceed to the designated location immediately!]

[Failure to do so will prevent World Transfer!]

Panic surged. I pushed past them, running toward the stairwell.

Behind me, I heard Claire and Scarletts angry, synchronized ultimatum.

"Cody Harrington, if you take one more step, we will disown you!"

"Good."

"What did you say?"

"I said Im giving you back your life!"

I turned, offered a quick, sad smile, and didn't stop.

On the ground floor, a middle-aged man with a twisted expression pulled a knife from his bag.

He screamed maniacally, "Where are the doctors!"

"Where is the staff in this damned hospital!"

Bystanders shrieked and scrambled backward. I ran against the fleeing crowd, pulling out my own concealed folding knife.

Shick!

The mans brutal knife pierced my heart, then plunged into me repeatedlyseven times. I drove my small knife with the last of my strength into his temple.

His eyes widened in shock, and he fell backward. I laughed, blood bubbling from my mouth, and crumpled onto the floor.

"Elena, Im home"

"Cody is coming home"

"Help! Someone call a doctor!"

Bystanders screamed. The man was finally restrained by a group of staff and security.

Minutes later, the hospital loudspeaker blared.

"Emergency! Emergency! Code Black: Active Threat on the ground floor. Multiple casualties!"

Up on the third floor, the Harringtons froze. Claire, the doctor, reacted first.

"A shooting! Someone needs help!" She looked frantic, ready to rush down to the ER.

A nurse burst onto the floor, shouting. "Dr. Harrington! It's your brother!"

"It was Mr. Harrington! He stopped the attack."

"But he was D.O.A. We couldn't save him."