At the Same Time, Somewhere Else
In one of the grand palace's third-floor rooms — a chamber twenty meters long, fifteen meters wide, and ten meters high — Sam was asleep.
The room included a private bathroom and was decorated elegantly, matching the palace's modern urban aesthetic. The bed was large enough to fit three people comfortably, yet Sam slept alone in its center.
It was a few minutes past midnight.
Sam suddenly woke to the sound of his brother Noor screaming from the adjacent room.
Noor's room was nearly identical to Sam's, differing only in certain colors and minor design details.
Sam remained lying on his side, facing the transparent glass wall that separated the two rooms. From his position, he could clearly see into Noor's room. The lights in Sam's room were off, while Noor's lights were on.
He saw Noor asleep on his bed.
Then—
A strange man climbed in through Noor's window, holding a knife.
Sam watched as the intruder approached the bed silently. The man grabbed Noor's head, trying to tilt it back and expose his throat.
Noor resisted.
A struggle began.
The intruder quickly seized a baseball bat from the floor and struck Noor violently in the head. The blows continued until Noor lost consciousness and collapsed onto the bed.
Sam tried to rise.
He tried to move.
He couldn't.
His body refused to respond — as if he no longer had authority over it. He attempted again, forcing himself to stand, but it was useless.
He told himself it must be fear.
But he knew he wasn't afraid.
Then he saw the man pull out a second knife from his pocket.
The intruder lifted Noor's head once more—
And slit his throat.
As it happened, Sam tried to scream.
But his voice came out faint, barely more than a whisper.
"What are you doing… stop… don't do this… why…?"
Tears streamed down his face. He bit his lower lip hard. His cheeks flushed red, his expression twisted into something between grief, rage, and unbearable regret.
He watched the man leave Noor's room.
He tried again to rise.
Still nothing.
Through the glass, he saw his brother's body twitching as blood poured from his neck like a fountain.
When Noor finally stopped moving—
When death fully claimed him—
Sam slowly lay back down.
And fell asleep.
As if nothing had happened.
He woke in the morning believing it had been nothing more than a terrible nightmare — vivid, detailed, unforgettable.
Yet anxiety gnawed at him.
Before washing his face or doing anything else, he rushed to Noor's room.
He knocked on the door.
"Noor?"
No answer.
He knocked again. Called louder.
Still nothing.
After nearly a minute of pounding and calling, he opened the door.
He stepped inside—
And froze.
Noor lay on the bed.
Surrounded by a pool of blood.
His blood.
He was dead.
Sam screamed in horror.
"Everyone! Come here! Quickly! Noor has been killed!"
No one heard him — except the maid, who immediately went to alert the rest of the household.
Sam stood there, unable to process what he was seeing. His mind felt distorted, disconnected from reality. He couldn't distinguish truth from illusion.
It was as if he were drugged.
As if his thoughts were submerged underwater.
He didn't know whether his brother was truly dead — or whether this was another hallucination.
The illusion shattered when the rest of the family arrived.
Their reactions confirmed it.
Noor had truly been murdered.
He dropped to his knees.
His hands gripped his face violently as the memory replayed in his mind — his brother dying beside him while he did nothing.
Worse than that—
He had gone back to sleep.
As if nothing had happened.
A crushing wave of regret overwhelmed him. His mouth hung open as though he were screaming, yet no sound came out — only a faint, broken murmur.
The details repeated inside his head again and again.
He still refused to accept what had happened.
He knew he could not live with this guilt.
How could he face everyone and admit that his brother died while he was watching?
That he never moved.
Never tried to save him.
The shame burned stronger than the grief.
He couldn't believe he was that much of a coward.
The guilt felt suffocating.
As if he were the one who had killed Noor.
But what tormented him even more — what pushed him closer to collapse — was the way his siblings were looking at him.
None of them appeared shocked.
They were saddened, yes.
But not shocked.
As if they had expected this.
As if this outcome had been inevitable.
And the way they looked at him—
It wasn't grief alone.
It was certainty.
As though they were convinced he was the killer.
Sam didn't know what to do.
Or what he could possibly say.
A sharp headache began to pound inside his skull.
His vision grew increasingly blurred.
He felt his control over his own body slipping away again.
Exhaustion weighed heavily on him — exhaustion from the storm of thoughts, from the suffocating shame, from the inner voice whispering that he should end his own life.
A mountain of tangled emotions pressed down on him.
Fear.
Guilt.
Humiliation.
Self-hatred.
It was enough to drive anyone insane.
But just before that breaking point—
Darkness overtook him.
He lost consciousness.
And in doing so—
He was spared from what he might have done next.