The house was too quiet.
Hope stood on a stool in the bathroom, fingers clenched around a small plastic bottle. His hands were shaking so badly that the cap rattled against the sink.
"Hope…" his younger brother wheezed behind him.
"…can't… breathe…"
The sound was wrong.
Not like crying.
Not like pain.
It was thin. Fragile. Like air slipping through a crack.
"I—I know," Hope said, voice cracking. "I know."
He had seen their mother do this before. When his brother's chest tightened. When his face turned pale. She always moved fast. Always calm.
Hope was not calm.
He grabbed the first bottle he saw under the sink.
The letters blurred in front of his eyes.
He poured.
"Drink this," he said. "It'll help."
His brother hesitated, then obeyed. He always did.
Seconds passed.
Then his brother screamed.
Hope froze.
The scream turned into coughing. The coughing turned into choking.
The bottle slipped from Hope's hand.
It shattered.
The smell filled the room. Sharp. Bitter.
Wrong.
Hope looked down.
The label stared back at him.
INSECTICIDE.
"No," Hope whispered.
His brother fell to the floor, clutching his chest, eyes wide with terror.
Hope jumped down, slipping on the liquid, slamming his knee into the tiles.
"I'm sorry," he said desperately. "I'm sorry—I'll fix it—I'll—"
His brother's mouth opened.
No sound came out.
Hope screamed.
The ambulance lights painted the living room red and blue.
Hope sat on the floor, knees pulled to his chest, rocking back and forth.
"I didn't mean to," he repeated. "I didn't mean to."
No one answered.
His father stood near the door, staring at nothing.
His mother's face was blank.
A doctor approached them, lips pressed thin.
"I'm sorry," he said.
Hope felt something inside him collapse.
He looked up.
His parents did not look back.
Not once.
That night, Hope lay in bed, staring at the ceiling.
He waited to cry.
He waited to scream.
Nothing came.
Only a single thought, looping endlessly in his mind:
I killed him.
And somewhere deep inside, something fragile and warm quietly went cold.