The incessant ticking of the clock seemed to mock Ryan with each passing second. He sat hunched over in the dimly lit hospital room, his elbows resting on his knees as he stared fixatedly at his younger brother’s frail form lying motionless in the bed.

Tubes and wires snaked out from under the thin hospital gown, attached to the various machines that beeped and hummed with lifeless indifference. A ventilator rhythmically pushed air into Liam’s battered lungs, the only thing keeping his 19-year-old body from succumbing to the injuries sustained in the horrific car accident.

Ryan felt his throat tighten as memories of that fateful night flooded his mind. He could still hear the screeching of tires, the crunch of twisting metal, and Liam’s agonizing screams that were abruptly silenced. Just two brothers out for a late night drive and a few laughs, completely unprepared for the drunk driver who ran the red light and obliterated their world.

The doctors said Liam’s condition was “severely critical” – a delicate way of saying he was barely clinging to life. With severe head trauma and his body battered beyond recognition, it was a miracle he even made it to the hospital. Ryan knew the bleak reality, though. He could see it in the grim faces of the medical staff, in the hushed tones they used to update him, in the way their eyes dimmed with pity.

His baby brother was fighting a losing battle.

As the night dragged on in that sterile room, Ryan maintained a silent vigil by Liam’s bedside. He spoke few words, having exhausted his pleas and desperate bargaining with whatever higher power may exist. Now he simply sat, holding his brother’s limp hand as he had for countless agonizing hours, days…he’d lost track of time.

The deep circles under Ryan’s eyes betrayed his exhaustion, but he couldn’t leave, not even for a moment. A primal part of him worried that if he let go of Liam’s hand, it would be engulfed by the cold darkness that seemed to perpetually lurk at the edges of the room. So he kept his grip tight, as if somehow his own feeble strength could tether his brother’s spirit to this world.

Every so often, Ryan’s eyes would drift to the myriad of machines surrounding the bed. The monitors seemed to taunt him with their sterile calculations of gunshots and plunges, cruel numbers that measured the invisible threads by which Liam’s life hung. He found himself mentally bargaining with those unfeeling digits, as if willing them higher through sheer force of thought could rewrite the laws of biology.

“Just a few more points…that’s all I ask…” he muttered through chapped lips, each whispered plea separating into a thousand unheard shards.

When the occasional nurse came in to adjust an IV line or tinker with the machines, Ryan felt a flicker of desperate hope. Maybe this time they would offer a glimmer of good news, or at least an encouraging word. But they never did. Just the same somber expressions and weighted silences that amplified the ticking clock, making him want to cram cotton into his ears.

As another day slipped away, Ryan knew he should attempt to get some rest in the guest room down the hall. His body begged for respite, if only for a few hours. But he couldn’t leave, he wouldn’t leave. Not for a single moment. This bedside vigil was his penance, his self-imposed imprisonment for the events that led to this nightmare.

If he had been behind the wheel that night instead of Liam, none of this would have happened. If he had tried harder to convince his brother that they didn’t need to go out and blow off steam, Liam would be safe at home right now. If, if, if… the torturous what-ifs screamed through his mind like hanged men dropping through collapsed floors.

As much as Ryan wanted to open himself up to the cold reality of the situation, he couldn’t let go of that infinitesimal sliver of hope. That’s what kept his numb fingers intertwined with Liam’s. That’s what forced air into his weary lungs with each anguished inhalation. Hope was the cruelest of all jailors, but he couldn’t find the strength to leave its desolate confines.

Not yet. He had to stay awake. Alert. Unyielding in his vigil.

Because if he didn’t… if he even blinked… Ryan feared that Liam’s watching spirit would mistake it for permission to depart. And he couldn’t fathom a world where he would ever have to utter a final goodbye to his best friend, his mischievous shadow, his baby brother.

As another night bled into day, Ryan’s temples pounded from lack of sleep, his body’s pleas for rest turning into outright screams. But he pushed through. He had to. This was his calling now, his sole purpose.

To keep vigil.

With a heavy blink, Ryan forced his eyes open once more to study the gentle rise and fall of Liam’s chest. A vigil without end, he thought through a fog of fatigue. Until the depths of hell freeze over, pulling their tormented souls into a deserving oblivion.

Only then would he finally be able to let go.