2Life was a joke, Ethan Carter decided, as he spat a mouthful of blood onto the cheap hospital sheets. It wasn't a clean, movie-style cough. It was a wet, rattling hack that tore at his throat and left a coppery taste on his tongue. So… so this is how I actually die? The thought wasn't panicked. It was just… there. A flat, weary acknowledgment.
He was a ghost in his own room, a seventeen-year-old boy who looked closer to twelve. His skin was the colour of old paper, stretched thin over a skeleton that seemed too sharp for his frame. His limbs were spindly, his chest sunken, the result of a lifetime war with a monster that lived inside his own cells: MELAS syndrome. Mitochondrial Encephalomyopathy, Lactic Acidosis, and Stroke-like episodes. A mouthful of a name for a disease that had systematically dismantled his body piece by piece. The stroke-like episodes had left him with tremors and occasional blindness in his left eye. The encephalomyopathy meant his muscles were weak, his heart a tired, struggling engine. The lactic acidosis was the constant, burning ache in his muscles, the nausea that never truly went away. It was a degenerative, merciless thief.
His childhood had been a blur of sterile white. He remembered the early years, the fear in his parents' eyes, the way his mother would hold his hand during endless tests, her grip a promise that she would never let go. His father would read him comics, doing all the voices, making him laugh until he coughed. His older brother, Mark, would sneak him contraband candy, and his older sister, Chloe, would paint his nails with glitter polish and call him her little rockstar. They were his world. But the world, he learned, had other plans.
The cracks appeared when the experimental treatments started failing, one after another. The hospital stays grew longer, the gaps between them shorter. His parents' visits became less frequent, their faces etched with a weariness that had nothing to do with him and everything to do with the life they were missing outside these walls.
His mother would stand in the doorway, her coat still on, her keys still in her hand, as if she were already halfway out the door. Ethan, we have to work. The bills… you understand, don't you? You're so smart. You understand.
His father would avoid eye contact, staring at the floor tiles or the window or the television that was always playing something Ethan wasn't watching. Mark has his championship game, buddy. We can't miss it. He's been practicing all year. You'd want him to have his moment, right?
Chloe would text instead of visit, her messages growing shorter and more sporadic. hey ethan. sorry cant make it tonight. recital. love you tho. The love you tho became a punctuation mark, a period at the end of a sentence that was never really about him.
The promises became hollow echoes in the quiet room. We'll be there next time, we promise. But next time never came, or when it did, it was rushed, distracted, filled with phone notifications and glances at watches. They had their own lives, their own healthy, vibrant children who didn't require a team of specialists and a pharmacy of drugs just to see the next sunrise. The money came, a cold, clinical substitute for their presence. It was their way of paying the hospital to bear the burden they could no longer carry.
The final, cruel twist was Adelaide. His younger sister, born when he was ten. For a few years, she was a bright spot. She'd toddle in, clutching a crayon drawing of a lopsided sun, and demand he tell her a story. He'd weave tales of dragons and space pirates, his voice hoarse but happy. She'd clap her tiny hands and look at him with something like hero worship. But as she grew, so did a mean-spiritedness that none of them saw coming, or maybe they just chose not to.
She learned early that being the sister of the sick boy granted her a certain sympathy, a certain leverage. It started small: breaking his favourite anime figurine and crying to their mother that he'd yelled at her. He hadn't. He'd just asked her to be careful with it. But her tears were more convincing than his quiet denial.
Then it escalated. She'd unplug his IV pump for a joke, laughing when the alarms blared and a nurse came rushing in. He'd tried to explain, but she was already crying, already playing the victim, already wrapping their mother around her little finger. He stopped trying after that.
When he was thirteen and got a precious hour of feeling almost normal, she'd told their parents he'd tried to kiss her, a lie so shocking and vile it had left him speechless. They believed her. Of course they did. They saw him as a fragile, hormonal, isolated teenager, and her as their sweet, innocent little girl. The look in his father's eyes—disgust, disappointment, a cold fury—was something Ethan would never forget. He stopped telling them anything after that. He stopped trying to defend himself. What was the point?
Adelaide's final act of malice was the most permanent. She told their parents that Ethan's constant illnesses were ruining her childhood, that she hated him, that she wished he would just die already. And they, in their infinite weariness and denial, had simply stopped bringing her. They'd stopped coming themselves. They left him with their money, their signature on consent forms, and their deep, profound absence.
In the quiet of his room, Ethan found other worlds. His mind was a fortress. He devoured knowledge with a voracious hunger. The doctors were constantly amazed. He could recite the pharmacological pathways of his own medications, understand the nuances of his MRI scans better than some residents, and had even corrected a specialist on the dosage for one of his experimental drugs. He could have been a doctor, he thought. A damn good one. He had the brain for it. He'd read medical textbooks, not just for his own condition, but for everything. Oncology, cardiology, neurology. He was fluent in a world of pathology, even as his own body fell apart.
When he wasn't studying, he was escaping. Anime, manga, manhwa, manhua, comics, donghuas, novels. He'd consumed thousands. He'd journeyed with Luffy to find the One Piece, fought demons with Dante in Devil May Cry, raced through the streets of Los Santos in GTA. He had lived a thousand lives, so he wouldn't have to face the fact that his own was barely happening.
The door swished open, a sound he knew as well as his own heartbeat. Dr. Edward Denart. He was in his late fifties, with kind eyes, a perpetually wrinkled lab coat, and a beard that was more salt than pepper. He had been Ethan's primary physician since the beginning. He'd been the one to diagnose the MELAS, the one to deliver the initial prognosis, and the one to be a constant, unwavering presence. He'd celebrated Ethan's small victories, mourned his setbacks, and argued with insurance companies and hospital boards to get him the best possible care. He was more of a father to Ethan than his own father had been in years.
Dr Edward: How are you feeling today, Ethan?
Ethan didn't have time for pleasantries. Every breath was a chore, a fire in his lungs. He looked at the man who had been his anchor for nearly a decade. Just tell me how long I have left. You don't need to beat around the bush.
Dr Edward: I'm not going to lie to you. You've always been too smart for that. The lactic acidosis is severe. Your heart and kidneys are failing. It's a matter of minutes now, not hours. I'm so sorry, son.
Edward's face, a carefully constructed mask of professional calm, crumbled for a second. A tremor ran through his hand as he adjusted the stethoscope around his neck. He had prepared for this, rehearsed the words a hundred times, but the reality of saying them to this boy, this brilliant, resilient boy he loved like a son, was a physical blow. He took a deep breath, the air rattling in his own chest.
Two other people stood just outside the doorway, having heard the exchange. Sarah, a young nurse with fiery red hair and a face full of freckles, had been the one to teach Ethan how to play poker on his good days. She clapped a hand over her mouth, tears instantly welling in her bright green eyes. Beside her, Maria, a seasoned nurse in her fifties with kind, dark eyes and a matronly warmth, had been the one to hold him when he was scared during the worst of his episodes. She had brought him home-cooked soup and smuggled in contraband snacks he wasn't supposed to have. They pushed into the room, their composure shattering.
Maria: Oh, honey. We're here. We're not going anywhere.
Sarah: You're the bravest kid I've ever known, Ethan. The absolute bravest. And don't you dare think for a second that you're alone.
Ethan felt a strange, alien warmth spread through his chest. He smiled. A genuine, small smile that felt foreign on his lips. He didn't know why. Maybe because, for the first time, he realized he wouldn't die alone. Maybe because he'd always believed his death would be met with silence, with nobody left to care. But here they were. The three people who had been his real family.
Ethan: They're not coming, are they?
It wasn't a question.
Dr Edward: They've signed a Do Not Resuscitate order, Ethan. They've arranged for you to be moved to a hospice facility, but they declined to be present. They said their goodbyes last week.
The lie tasted like ash in his mouth, but he couldn't bring himself to tell the boy that they had simply said, Let us know when it's done.
Sarah: How can they? How can any parent do that to their child? After everything he's been through? They're monsters! They don't deserve him!
Maria: We'll be your family, Ethan. We always have been. We love you. You know that, right? You're our boy.
Ethan squeezed her hand back, the gesture taking almost all the strength he had left. Thank you. He wasn't surprised. Not really. The hurt was an old, familiar scar, not a fresh wound. His mind drifted, a slideshow of everything he would never have.
He'd never have a best friend to share stupid inside jokes with. He'd never graduate, never toss a cap in the air. He'd never get a job, never know the satisfaction of earning his first paycheck. He'd never get to taste real food, not the mush the hospital served, but the ramen he saw in anime, the burgers from the shows, the exotic dishes he watched people cook on YouTube. He'd never have a girlfriend, never know what it felt like to hold someone's hand, to kiss them, to be loved like that. He'd never finish One Piece, never know if Luffy actually found the treasure. He'd never get to play GTA 6 or Devil May Cry 6. He'd never see Dragon Ball Super season 2 get animated, or see Boruto: Twin Blue Vortex get adapted. He'd never get to just… live. To have an adventure of his own.
A single tear traced a path through the grime on his cheek. Then another. He began to cry, not a loud, gasping sob, but a silent, shuddering release. The tears were for the life unlived, for the boy who had spent his entire existence in a cage of his own failing body, watching the world go by through a screen. He cried for the normal, boring, beautiful life he would never get to experience.
Maria leaned over and pulled him into a gentle, careful hug, her own tears falling into his hair.
Maria: It's okay, sweetheart. It's okay to cry. Let it out. We've got you. We've always got you.
Sarah rushed to the other side of the bed, gently rubbing his thin arm.
Sarah: We're right here, Ethan. We're right here with you. You're not alone. You're so loved. You hear me? So loved.
Ethan: I just… wanted to live. I just wanted to see what it was like. To be normal. To not hurt all the time. To just… be.
Dr Edward: You did live, Ethan. You lived with more courage and intelligence than anyone I've ever met. You fought harder than anyone should ever have to. And you were loved. We loved you. We love you. Don't you ever doubt that.
Ethan's breathing became shallower, each inhale a struggle. The tears slowed, and a strange calm settled over him. The fire in his chest was fading, replaced by a cold, gentle numbness that crept up from his toes. He looked at the three faces hovering over him, the grief and love etched into their features.
Ethan: Thank you. For being my family. For staying. For… everything.
He closed his eyes. He was tired. So incredibly tired. The room was fading, the sounds of the beeping machines and the soft crying growing distant, like a radio being turned down. He thought of the vast, fictional worlds he had loved, and for a moment, he imagined he was sailing on the Going Merry, the sea breeze on his face, or speeding through the streets of Red Grave City, a sword in his hand. It was a nice thought.
His hand went limp in Maria's. His chest rose one last time, a slow, final sigh, and then did not move again. The monitor behind him, which had been beeping a frantic, erratic rhythm, emitted a single, long, high-pitched tone that cut through the silence of the room and refused to stop.