With wide, terrified eyes, Aiden screamed:
"Arin?! Arin! Answer me! Don't hang up! Arin!!"
He leaped to his feet, grabbed his car keys, and called the police.
Aiden, his voice urgent and panicked:
"I need the location of the last call to this number immediately! Send an ambulance to the location! I'm on my way!"
He got in his car, started the engine, and sped off like an arrow into the night.
Sera, watching him in bewilderment and concern:
"Aiden, what's wrong? Who is that?"
Aiden, his eyes tearful with rage and anxiety:
"His name is Arin… a doctor. The idiot! I know him…"
He paused for a few seconds, then muttered in a low voice, as if making a promise to himself:
"I won't let him die… not like this."
After what felt like an eternity, Aiden's car arrived at the scene of the accident. The road was dark, dominated by the smell of ash and death, but his headlights slowly revealed a horrifying sight… The metal frame of Arin's car was twisted in a frightening way, as if something enormous had violently crashed into it.
Aiden slammed on the brakes, the tires screaming savagely on the asphalt, leaving behind the smell of burnt rubber. His body shook for a moment as he gripped the steering wheel, his breathing accelerating hysterically, and his eyes widened until they looked like a blue flame burning in the middle of the night, reflecting his inner turmoil.
He opened the door violently, the sound of the metal hinges adding to the chaos of the scene. He ran toward the shattered car, his clothes flapping behind him, his steps heavy, staggering between the mud and scattered glass. Sera stood frozen in place, her hands trembling, her eyes staring at the wreckage as if her feet were rooted to the ground. She couldn't move… she couldn't even scream.
Aiden knelt by the car door, his hand shaking as he tried to open it, his face stained with sweat mixed with smoke, and his bluish-black hair stuck to his forehead. His voice came out raspy as he called out:
"Arin! Arin, answer me… for God's sake, wake up!"
Finally, after several frantic attempts, the door opened with a sharp sound. The moment of silence that followed was more brutal than any scream. Arin's body was still. A deep metal shard had pierced his side, and blood was slowly seeping onto the seat and dripping onto the ground. His brown hair was wet with blood and sweat, stuck to his face. Half his face was stained a dark color, and his green eyes were half-open, but they were devoid of any life. No blink, no gaze, no reaction… as if time had frozen in him.
Aiden's breathing quickened, and his hands trembled violently as he reached for Arin's neck, touching his cold skin, searching for a pulse… a faint, weak pulse, barely there.
Just then, Sera broke her silence, taking only one step forward, as if forcing her feet to obey. In a choked voice, laced with a tremor she had never known before, she said:
"Aiden… put him on the ground… gently, please."
Aiden raised his eyes to her, his eyes full of tears, but no tears were shed, just a silence filled with oppression.
"No… I can't, if I remove the shard he will die… he will die, Sera…"
She interrupted his words with her trembling steps, approached him, and then knelt beside him without looking at him directly, her eyes fixed on the flowing bleeding. She placed her hands on both sides, applying light, calculated pressure, trying to keep life from escaping further.
She said in a firm voice despite her trembling: "I didn't ask you to remove the shard, just put him on the ground gently, so we can maintain his pulse… Now, Aiden, call the ambulance again… immediately!"
Aiden remained frozen for a moment, as if his mind had not yet processed it, then took his phone out of his pocket with trembling hands, and dialed the number with shaky fingers.
Inside the ambulance, Arin's body was lying on the stretcher, surrounded by devices that made a regular, but tense, beeping sound, as if announcing the approaching danger. Sera sat beside him, her hands trembling, and her eyes never left his pale face. She saw the cold sweat beading on his forehead, and his brown locks stuck to his skin as if they refused to leave him even in moments of weakness.
The paramedic was monitoring his pulse and breathing rate with concentration, adjusting the mask, and preparing for any emergency.
Suddenly, and from among the cracks of delirium and fever, Arin's lips moved with difficulty. As if the letters were fighting to get out of his throat. In a faint voice that was barely audible, he whispered:
"My brother… Aiden…"
Sera froze. She wasn't sure if she was imagining things. She quickly turned toward his face, leaned closer, and whispered nervously:
"What did you say?"
But there was no time. Suddenly, the device made a terrifying sound, accelerating, then it started to drop sharply.
The paramedic shouted:
"Heart attack! Get back!"
He pushed the chair back and began CPR, while Sera backed up two steps, her heart nearly stopping with every moment he pressed on Arin's chest. The lights inside the car began to flash, and the sirens escalated.
In those moments, on the dark road, Aiden's car was following the ambulance. His fingers were gripping the steering wheel tightly, and his eyes never left the distant red lights. His heart was beating like war drums in his chest.
He was talking to himself, trying to understand what he was feeling:
"Why all this fear? Why do I feel like I'm going to explode? Who is Arin, really?"
He did not know that words Arin said inside the ambulance would turn everything inside him upside down…
"My brother… Aiden…"
The hallway was almost empty, except for the sounds of the devices in the background and the smell of disinfectants that filled the air and suffocated the chest. Aiden sat on one of the seats, his back bent back, his head resting against the cold wall, and his eyes staring at the white ceiling as if he was looking for an answer in it.
Sera sat beside him, her hands folded in her lap, looking at the red light above the operating room door that was still lit as if it was burning time slowly.
A long moment of silence passed, then she said calmly, trying not to look at him directly:
"Aiden… do you… do you have a relationship with Arin?"
He did not answer directly. Instead, he closed his eyes, and in a fleeting moment, that hazy memory from childhood emerged from within him…
Screams… blood… a small body lying there… the sound of heavy footsteps… a sharp whistle as if drums were beating inside his skull…
He opened his eyes slowly, then whispered in a low voice, with a mixture of confusion and exhaustion:
"I don't know him… I've only met him twice… but he was… strange. As if he was trying to get close to me, to talk to me… even when I didn't open the door for conversation…"
He sighed, rested his head on the wall again, looked at the ceiling as if he was talking to it, then added in a faint tone:
"But I don't understand… why did I act that way? Why did I run to him as if my life depended on it? Why am I… afraid of losing someone I don't know?"
Sera looked at him with her brown eyes, a look mixed with sadness and astonishment. Her heart was telling her what she did not dare to say aloud.
She said to herself:
"Maybe… because he's your brother."