Chapter 3The Brother Who Built My Hell

The high-pitched wail of the telemetry monitor shattered the silence of the warehouse.

"Mr. Aldridge! The subject's cardiac rhythm has ceased!"

The lead physician’s shriek halted Harrison in the doorway. He pivoted sharply, his gaze locking onto the flat red lines glowing on the primary console.

"What do you mean? You said her physiological baseline was stable enough to handle the transition!"

Harrison sprinted back to the terminal, shoving the frantic medical tech aside.

The physician’s hands shook as he adjusted the emergency overrides. "Sir, three years of continuous neural immersion... Even with nutritional IVs and physical therapy in the stasis pod, her psyche has undergone complete catastrophic collapse. When the mind surrenders, the autonomic nervous system shuts down in sympathy!"

Through the haze of my floating perspective, I watched the medical team rip away the remnants of my hospital gown, exposing the physical ruin beneath.

Five distinct deformities ridged my ribcage where repeated sensory fractures had forced abnormal bone remodeling. Across my lower abdomen ran a deep, jagged scar—the physical consequence of an emergency surgical intervention from Year Two, when severe internal hemorrhaging from uterine trauma nearly killed me in the tank.

"Resuscitate her! I didn't give her permission to die!" Harrison swung his hand, cracking his palm across the doctor's cheek.

Years of unrelenting terror had wasted my physical frame down to sinew and bone. My eye sockets were sunken hollows; my skin had the translucent, grayish hue of parchment.

The crash cart buzzed. The chest compressions went on for three grueling hours.

When the first fragile, erratic pulse finally flickered across the screen, the chief physician collapsed against the cold floor, soaking in his own sweat.

"We stabilized her, Mr. Aldridge. But her neurological thresholds are completely shot. If she experiences even a minor emotional shock, she will arrest again."

Harrison stood beside the gurney, his eyes fixed on my hollowed face. He reached out a trembling hand, fingers hovering inches above my cheek, before pulling back as if burned. A flicker of something resembling nausea crossed his features.

The faint hum of an electric motor sounded at the door.

Sienna was wheeled into the room by a private nurse. Seeing my state, she clamped a hand over her mouth, her eyes welling with instant, theatrical tears.

"Harrison... is Natalie angry with me? Is that why she won't wake up?" She reached out, clutching the hem of his cashmere coat. "If Mom and Dad see her like this, they’ll destroy you. Why don't we tell them she received an overseas scholarship? We can move her to a private sanatorium in Switzerland—the recovery facilities there are world-class. It’s better for everyone."

Harrison remained silent for a long, suffocating minute, staring down at my bruised, needle-tracked forearms.

"Move her to the private facility in upstate New York," he said quietly. "Full NDA protocols. Total information blackout."

By the following afternoon, I was transferred under heavy sedation to a secluded estate clinic nestled in the Adirondacks. Harrison personally vetted every nurse, enforcing multi-million-dollar non-disclosure agreements.

To our parents, the story was flawless: Natalie had been accepted into a prestigious, fully funded fellowship abroad.

Harrison even hired a digital effects firm to render deepfake video updates for our parents. On their iPads, an AI-generated version of me smiled under Parisian sunshine, bright-eyed and whole, as if those three years of torture had never occurred.