After everything he'd come to understand, Jim couldn't sleep.
"I gotta live," he muttered to himself. "God, I get it, the old have to die. But why the young? That's just rude."
It was past midnight. He was wide awake, his brain refusing to shut up. And just when he thought things couldn't get any weirder, he heard a voice coming from the next room—the one they'd converted into a makeshift home studio a few weeks back.
According to the doctors, he had two more weeks left. But Jim could already feel death breathing down his neck, like an unwelcome dinner guest who doesn't understand boundaries.
Jim Slevann was seventeen, and he had glioblastoma—fancy name, brutal disease. No cure. A terminal ticket out of life. He hadn't exactly had a highlight reel of a childhood—no girlfriends, no wild parties, not even a high school dance. Just hospitals, IVs, his mom, and his older brother Matt.
And now? Now he was dying.
"Live," the voice said.
Jim blinked. "Huh?"
Could Matt be sleep talking?
He sat up with effort, his body arguing with every move. He looked over at Matt's bed. His brother was sound asleep, snoring like nothing was wrong in the world.
"Hey…" Jim whispered, barely catching his breath. "Is… is there someone there?"
No answer. Just the quiet hum of late-night silence.
Then, again, the voice.
"Live. Do you want to live?"
Jim squinted toward the studio door. Okay, either he was hallucinating, or some ghost had taken a motivational speaking course.
It was a cruel question for someone who'd spent thirteen out of seventeen years in a hospital gown. He'd never even learned to ride a bike.
But yeah, damn right, he wanted to live.
No bucket list. No last-minute dreams. But this.. this felt important.
He dragged himself out of bed, one weak foot at a time, and stumbled toward the studio door. When he pushed it open, a blinding light smacked him in the face like an overenthusiastic stage spotlight.
"What the hell is life, anyway?" he asked, shielding his eyes.
"Life," the voice replied, smooth and oddly charming, "is whatever you make of it. Until now, life chose for you. But what if you get to choose now?"
There was a pause. Jim's heart pounded.
"You in?"
Jim didn't think. He didn't analyze
"YES!" he forced a yell.
And then promptly passed out.
__
Gloria Slevann had faced more than her share of hardships. She'd just turned thirty-three years old two days ago, but life had already thrown enough at her to fill a dozen lifetimes—an unstable childhood, dropping out of college, raising two boys on her own—and now this.
This was the heaviest.
Jim Slevann, her youngest and dearest.
She'd fought alongside Jim through thirteen brutal years of illness. She'd sat by his hospital bed through surgeries, seizures, and sleepless nights. And now that he was finally close to resting, the pain hit even harder.
God, how she loved her sons.
She had just cried herself to sleep when a faint murmuring stirred her awake. At first, she thought it was part of a dream. But no, it sounded like Jim's voice. Still groggy and weighed down by grief, she didn't want to move. "Goodness my! where do mothers go to resign?" she whispered to the shadows of her room.
Then she heard it—clear and sharp:
"YES!"
Jim's voice.
Shouting.
Gloria shot up, heart hammering, and ran straight to the boys' room. She flipped on the light. Matt was there, dead asleep and snoring like a broken engine.
But Jim's bed was empty.
"Oh God. Matthew! Matthew Slevann!" she cried, grabbing his arm and checking him to wake up.
"Huh? What's going on, Ma?" Matt mumbled, jolting upright.
Gloria bolted from the room—and saw it. The studio door. Open.
She rushed in, breath caught in her throat, and there he was.
Jim.
On the floor.
"Jim!" she screamed, dropping to her knees and pulling him into her arms. "Matt!"
Jim wasn't breathing. His skin was pale, his body cold. There was no movement, no sign of life.
There's a kind of heartbreak that speaks without words. Gloria felt it as her arms cradled her son's weight. The kind of pain that steals time.
Matt appeared beside her, eyes wide with fear, and dropped to the floor. He didn't say anything— no, he didn't need to.
It was 2:30 a.m. Too late for rushing to the hospital. Too late for saving.
And maybe… maybe it was just time.
She held him tighter. Her tears soaked through his shirt, her fingers trembling against his back.
"Matt," she whispered, barely able to breathe, "he's gone."
Matt shook his head slowly, as if trying to undo what he was seeing. But the truth was all over his mother's face.
So he cried, too.
And then...through the thick, aching silence, came a voice.
Calm. Familiar. Impossible.
"Live."
Jim gasped. His eyes flew open. His chest rose fast. He was breathing. Alive.
"Mom…" he said, his voice raw, fragile.
Silence.
And then, joy.
Real, overwhelming, unbelievable joy.