Felix’s breaths came soft and steady in the hospital room, the faint glow of monitors casting pale blue shadows across his face. His hand, cold and fragile, rested limply in yours, and the beeping of his heart monitor felt like the countdown to something you couldn’t bear to name. The word 'euthanasia' echoed in your head, its weight crushing, suffocating- you couldn’t lose him. not like this.

"Don’t cry, dove," he had murmured earlier, his voice a thin thread of sound, brushing against the raw edges of your heart. His thumb had grazed your cheek, trying to wipe away tears that kept falling. "It’s better this way, no more pain, yeah? I’ll be free. You’ll be free too."

But how could you be free without him? How could you breathe in a world where his laughter didn’t exist?

As the night deepened, you stayed there for hours, staring at him, feeling the clock tick away the moments you had left together. You slipped out of the bed, hands trembling as you gently tugged the IV needle from his arm. His face didn’t stir, exhaustion and his medication dragging him into heavy sleep. "I’m sorry," you whispered, though the words felt empty as you moved the portable machines into the pockets of a wheelchair and then Felix himself.

This wasn’t a choice; it was survival.
Wrapping him in the quilt from the foot of the bed, you cradled his too-light body against yours. Every step toward the door felt like defiance—against the doctors, against death itself.