5:30 in the afternoon. That’s what it says on my watch. The far-past-noon sunlight shines through the windows and casts shadows of the window panes that checkerboard the room while my brother stands over me.

I’m in my brother’s room right now, sitting against his bed on the floor. I stare across the room to see a translucent orange bottle, adorned with a nice white label, straight from the medicine cabinet.

The bottle’s white cap lay a few feet away from it’s counterpart. He must have been in a hurry before he brought me in here.

To say the least I’m panicked. It’s hard to keep your cool when your only brother who, albeit is a complete screw-up, you would hate to see go just because he downed a stomach full of sleeping pills.

“This isn’t death,” He says. “this is failure to live.”

I scream at him every expletive and objection, all while tugging on the rope that ties me to his bed.

“Let me go!” I say “I need to call the paramedics!”

“Too late.”

The look in his eyes freezes me. I realize.

He’s right.