THE MACHINE STARTED SCREAMING AND MY BROTHER LOOKED LIKE HE SAW A GHOST
I was holding her hand, feeling how cold her skin was, when the first alarm went off across the room. The sound wasn’t a gentle beep, it was a high-pitched shriek that cut through the quiet hum of the unit like a physical blow. Nurses and doctors swarmed in instantly, their faces tightening with sudden alarm under the harsh fluorescent lights. It felt like the air crackled with frantic energy, everything speeding up around Mom’s bed in an instant.
My brother, Liam, was standing rigidly by the window, totally frozen. While everyone else was rushing and shouting urgent medical jargon, he just stood there, his knuckles white where he gripped the sill. I had to pull my hand from Mom’s to grab his arm, shaking him slightly and yelling, “Liam, what’s happening?! Why aren’t you moving?” The air in here always smelled sharp, like disinfectant mixed with something metallic from the machines.
He didn’t answer me immediately, just stared past my shoulder at Mom’s bed with an expression I couldn’t read. His eyes were wide, fixed on something only he could see amidst the chaos. Then, just loud enough for me to hear over the frantic beeping and the doctors’ voices, he muttered, almost to himself, “It’s happening again. Just like before.”
“Again? What’s happening again, Liam? What do you mean ‘just like before’?” My own voice was shaking now. I couldn’t process the panic in the room or the cold dread his words sparked. Just as I was about to press him for an answer, one of the doctors turned sharply towards me, his face tight with urgency.
He just kept staring at the monitor and whispered, ‘I knew this would happen’.
👇 Full story continued in the comments…He just kept staring at the monitor and whispered, ‘I knew this would happen.’ His voice was flat, devoid of the panic that was gripping everyone else. It wasn’t directed at the doctor; it was just a chilling pronouncement aimed at the flashing screen. I grabbed his arm harder, shaking him again. “Liam! Stop it! What are you talking about?”
The doctor who had turned towards me just a second ago was already barking orders, his attention fully on the medical team surrounding Mom. They were moving with practiced, desperate speed, attaching pads, adjusting dials on machines I didn’t understand. The high-pitched shriek of the alarm was joined by faster beeps from other monitors, a frantic symphony of crisis.
Liam finally looked at me, and his eyes, usually so full of life or teasing, were hollow with a fear so profound it felt ancient. “It’s the pattern,” he whispered, his gaze flicking back to the bed. “The sudden change. The machine screaming. The doctors rushing in like this… It’s exactly like Dad.”
A wave of nausea hit me. Dad had died five years ago after a sudden, catastrophic heart attack. The last time we’d seen him conscious was in a room not unlike this, shortly before the alarms started, the frantic rush… Liam had been with him in those final minutes while I’d stepped out to get coffee. He’d never talked about it in detail.
“It’s not Dad, Liam, it’s Mom!” I argued, trying to ground him, trying to ground myself. But his words had opened a cold, dark pit in my stomach. He wasn’t just scared; he was reliving a trauma. He saw Dad’s face on Mom’s pillow, heard Dad’s last moments in the shriek of the machine.
While I wrestled with Liam and the terrifying echoes of the past, the chaos at the bedside intensified. One of the doctors yelled, “Charge!” and for a heart-stopping second, everything went still before a low, guttural hum filled the air, followed by a sharp crack and the sound of shuffling feet. The shriek of the main alarm didn’t stop, but the frantic energy shifted slightly, focused on the rhythm displayed on the monitor Liam was fixated on.
Minutes crawled by like hours. The air was thick with tension, the only sounds the machines, the urgent medical commands, and the ragged breaths of the medical team. I held onto Liam’s arm, my knuckles as white as his, both of us rooted to the spot, staring at the scene unfold. His eyes were still wide, fixed on the monitor, but the terror in them was slowly being replaced by a desperate, fragile hope as the beeping pattern on the screen changed.
Slowly, gradually, the most piercing alarm quieted. The frantic beeping slowed to a more regular, though still worrying, tempo. The doctors and nurses, their faces slick with sweat, didn’t relax entirely, but the immediate, life-or-death urgency receded. One of the doctors let out a long, shaky breath.
“We got her,” he said, his voice weary but relieved. “That was too close.”
The room began to clear out, leaving only a couple of nurses to monitor the now-stable machines. The harsh fluorescent light felt less accusatory, just tired. I turned to Liam, releasing his arm. The rigid tension had left his body, replaced by a tremor that ran through him. He sank against the wall, covering his face with his hands, letting out a low, pained sound that was half sob, half gasp of relief.
I went to him, pulling him into a tight hug. He clung to me, shaking, whispering, “I thought… I thought it was happening again. The sound, the look on their faces…”
“I know,” I murmured, holding him. “I know. It felt like it for a second.”
We stood there for a long time, just holding each other in the quiet hospital room, the lingering smell of disinfectant and the gentle hum of the machines now sounding like a promise of continued life rather than a prelude to an ending. The crisis was over, at least for now. Mom was stable. And Liam, seeing his deepest fear not realized this time, was finally able to let go of the ghost he’d seen.