What We Left Behind

Chapter Five: In Which His Family Knows

He'd been dead only an hour, when his mum burst into his space. Her footsteps were angry, and her mood was sour and irritated.

But all of that immediately vanished from her face when her eyes fell on him lying in the tub. Water soaking him from head to toe.

She rushed to him, gave his hand a rub, and yelled his name.

"Wake up, Erix!" She screamed. "What happened to you? Tell me, dear!" Her tears blurred her vision, and she couldn't see that something was wrong.

The water was red, she noticed, there was a stain on his knee. 

"Mum! Where are you?" A voice suddenly called from the hall, frightening her.

She heard footsteps coming her way, and she sobbed harder. Her elder son stood against the wall, taking in the scene where his brother lay.

A gasp escaped his lips. His handsome features twisted in shock and horror.  

"What happened to him?" He whispered and his mum burst into a fresh pool of tears.

The atmosphere tensed, the air felt crisper. 

"I don't know!" She sputtered, and he pulled out his phone, then fumbled with it for a few seconds. While staring at his baby brother, stripped of power, he called the ambulance, eyes still wide and they shone.

The two of them thought he was injured, but he had been dead for an hour.

__________

"Calm down, mum," Morgan said, holding her face between his hands as they stared intently at each other. 

She looked scared, and he had never seen her scared. 

That was the crazy thing about all this fiasco. 

Kids were never used to seeing their mothers scared, no kid should have to see that. No one should have to go through that feeling of being utterly helpless because your parents didn't know what to do either. 

Around the place where they stood, the paramedics rushed about, a stretcher being carried out from inside the house while an ambulance waited at the gate. 

Morgan's eyes flitted away to where his brother lay on that stretcher, possibly dead. 

"But—" his mother sputtered, trying to look at her younger son but Morgan's grip on her face prevented her from doing so. "But, Morgan, you—he—he wasn't breathi—" She sobbed, her head falling forward into his shoulder. "You saw it!" 

Morgan hadn't felt any pulse when he had checked. But he felt hope. 

Sometimes it so happened that the pulse was so low and the heart was beating indeed—just had a low rhythm to it—and the patient was still found alive in the end. 

Morgan hoped this was the case. 

Else he wouldn't know what to do, especially since his mum didn't have any idea either. 

Who had hurt Eric? 

Had Eric hurt himself? 

After all the progress they were making, were they again back to square one? 

It physically hurt Morgan to think about what had been lately happening in their lives, but he had to stop himself from falling weak. For the sake of the woman who was sobbing into his chest. 

"Would any of you like to accompany Eric in the ambulance?" A nurse interrupted their grief, and Morgan found his mum pushing off him and nodding at the paramedic frantically.