I suddenly ran upstairs frantically with tears rolling down my face.
Shivering all over, my feet felt like jelly and a few times, I almost fell to the ground.
While stumbling along, there was still a glimmer of hope deep down that the patient on the fifth floor the doctors were talking about only happened to be my brother’s namesake, and he couldn’t be my brother!
When I arrived at the ward and pushed the door open, a nurse was slowly covering someone’s face, which looked so pale and familiar, with a piece of white cloth.
“Get out! What are you doing? Get your hands off him! He’s not dead yet! I’ll sue you of being careless with your patients!” My heart suddenly lost its pace.
Burning with anger, I rushed to my brother’s bed like a lunatic.
I shoveled away the nurses around my brother and stared at them, gasping with my hands trembling.
It wouldn’t be my brother!
Though I saw the image on the screen of the electrocardiogram machine had become a striking, red straight line, I was still reluctant to believe the fact that my brother was dead.
I shook my head in a daze and suddenly grabbed one of the nurses by the collar, yelling that she was lying to me.
Tears blurred my vision again.
However, I still saw my discomfited appearance in her sympathetic eyes. With bloodshot eyes and distorted facial features, I looked like a clown.
Without saying anything more, they all shook their heads and walked out with a sigh, as if they intended to leave me alone in the room so that I could calm myself down.
With trembling hands, I wiped tears off my face and moved closer to my brother’s bed.
“Brother, wake up! Please! Let’s hang out together.” I grabbed him by the skinny, cold shoulder and forced a smile, trying to sound calm.
However, before I could finish my words, my feelings had gone out of control. I pounced on my brother’s freezing body while wailing aloud.
In the blink of an eye, I was overtaken by the overwhelming grief mixed with regret and guilt.
I crazily shook my brother’s body, which was as light as a feather, and called his name with tears in my eyes, trying to wake him up.
After waiting for quite a while, I felt like my last glimmer of hope was gone.
Looking at my brother’s serene face, I was suddenly seized by the colic in my heart and then blacked out.
It was getting dark when I woke up. Jud the dim light in the room, I could tell that I was still in the hospital.
At the thought of my brother, my eyes turned reddish and tears rolled down my face again. I pulled the infusion needle out of my vein in haste and ran out barefoot.
I must have been in a dream! My brother must be alive!
When I rushed into my brother’s ward and found nobody there, I suddenly felt much relieved.
Being too feeble, I leaned against the wall and then slipped to the floor slowly. However, for no reason, I felt a trace of morbid felicity rise inside.
When I turned my head slightly, I suddenly saw my red, swollen eyes as well as a tall, slim figure standing behind me.
“He has been cremated.” With an indifferent voice ringing over my head, I was pulled up by a big, powerful hand.
After a trance of a few seconds, I was out of my mind and began to slap him on the chest desperately. “Let go of me! How could you do this without my consent? He’s my brother!”
What he said finally woke me up completely.
It wasn’t until I had vented my anger on him that I realized I had indirectly acknowledged the fact of my brother’s death.