I'm Trapped Inside a Prince as the Most Powerful Entity-Chapter 1: The End and the Beginning

Two more people came into view, standing near the foot of his bed. His mother was there. She looked older than he remembered from the last visit.

Her hair was mostly gray now, pulled back loosely. There were deep lines etched around her eyes and mouth, lines of worry and sadness.

Standing just behind her, a bit taller, was his younger brother, Mike. Mike wasn't a kid anymore. Adam remembered him as a scrawny teenager, always running around. Now he was a young man, twenty-five? He looked tired too, his shoulders slumped slightly. In his hands, he clutched two brightly colored books.

Adam recognized the art style instantly. Manga. Japanese comics. Mike had been bringing him manga for years now. Ever since Adam had first gotten paralyzed... Mike would visit and read the stories aloud. Stories of powerful heroes, exciting adventures, worlds where anything was possible.

Mike hoped the stories might offer Adam some escape, some flicker of enjoyment in his dark reality. Adam appreciated the effort, he really did, even if he couldn't show it. He liked hearing his brother's voice.

But today felt different. Very different.

Tears were silently rolling down his mother's cheeks, leaving wet tracks on her pale skin. Mike's eyes were wet too, glistening under the fluorescent lights.

Adam strained to listen as the nurse spoke again, her voice soft and low, directed at his mother.

"This decision is never easy," the nurse said gently. Her gaze was full of sympathy as she looked at Adam's mother. "There's no right or wrong time. It's about what you feel is best, for him and for you."

Adam's mother took a deep, shaky breath. He could hear the rattle in her chest. When she spoke, her voice was thick with tears, broken. "I... I just..." She stopped, swallowed hard, and tried again. "I can't... I can't watch him suffer like this anymore. It's not... it's not living."

His brother's head bowed slightly. Mike's grip tightened on the manga. A single tear escaped and rolled down his cheek. He didn't brush it away.

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Adam could only lie there, trapped behind his unmoving eyes, and watch their hearts break.

The nurse had probably seen scenes like this many times before. It was part of her job, but Adam wondered if it ever got easier for her. She gave his mother and brother a moment, then asked softly, her voice barely above a whisper,

"Would you like to stay here with him, or would you prefer to wait outside in the family room?"

Adam's mind raced. Go, he thought. Please go. Don't watch this. He didn't want their last memory of him to be this moment, watching the life fade from his useless body.

But neither his mother nor his brother moved an inch. His mother lifted her head slightly, her eyes meeting his brother's for a brief second. A silent agreement passed between them. They wouldn't leave him alone. They chose to stay.

The nurse seemed to understand their silent decision. She gave a small nod. Reaching into the pocket of her scrubs, she pulled out a small glass vial filled with a clear liquid.

It looked harmless, like water. She carefully broke the seal on the vial and drew the liquid into a syringe.

Then, she moved towards the IV stand next to his bed. She deftly uncapped a port on the tube that ran into his arm and attached the syringe.

With a slow, steady pressure on the plunger, the clear liquid began to flow from the syringe, mixing with the fluids already dripping into his veins.

Adam felt it almost immediately.

It wasn't painful. Not at all. It started as a strange warmth, deep inside his chest, spreading outwards. It felt like sinking into a warm bath after being cold for a very long time.

His thoughts, usually racing, began to slow down. But his understanding was crystal clear. He knew exactly what was happening.

'So... this is it,' he thought. The thought wasn't panicked, surprisingly. There was a strange sense of calm, of acceptance. After all these years... trapped in this silence, in this... it's finally over. Relief washed over him.

Relief that the endless, unchanging days were ending.

He wished he could turn his head, just once, to look at his mother, at his brother. To tell them it was okay. To tell them he loved them. But all he could do was cry his silent tears.

The warm, heavy feeling intensified. The drug was working quickly, gently pulling him away.

Adam felt his connection to the world loosening. He knew these were his final moments of consciousness. The last few seconds of being Adam.

A thought surfaced through the growing haze in his mind. A wish. A prayer. He wasn't a particularly religious man.

But in this final moment, as everything faded, a desperate plea formed in the quietest corner of his mind. He sent it out into the universe, into the darkness that was rapidly closing in.

'If... if there's something after this... 'The thought felt slow, drawn out.

'If there is another life... please...' He gathered the last fragments of his focus, his desire born from years of utter powerlessness, of being completely dependent, completely weak.

'Let me be strong. Not just okay. Not just healthy. Let me be the strongest.'

The darkness wasn't like sleep. It was deeper, thicker. It pressed in from all sides, swallowing the light, swallowing the sounds. The image of the stained ceiling tile vanished.

The steady beeping of the heart monitor beside his bed seemed to grow faint, stretching out, becoming slower... more distant... until it was gone. The quiet hum of the machines faded next.

He could still sense his mother's soft weeping, his brother's choked breaths, but they were like echoes from far away now. Getting farther and farther. Their sounds distorted, muffled, until they too dissolved into the vast, empty silence.

Everything just... stopped.

There was only darkness.

And then, silence. Complete and total silence. The end of Adam.