My brother thought two minutes underwater was funny. I spent two years unconscious and lost everything. Now I’m coming for revenge. The neurologist’s words felt like they were coming from underwater, distorted and impossible to process fully. Severe hypoxic brain injury, she explained using terms that sounded clinical and cold.

 2 years and 3 months you’ve been unconscious. Your family has been waiting a very long time for this moment. But I couldn’t focus on her words because my body felt wrong, alien. Like I was operating a machine I’d never learned to control. My fingers wouldn’t grip the bed sheet properly.

 My legs lay motionless under the thin hospital blanket, refusing commands my brain sent with increasing desperation. When I tried to ask what happened, the sounds that came from my throat were garbled and nonsensical. My tongue thick and uncooperative in my mouth that tasted like metal and chemicals. My mother sat beside the bed, looking a decade older than my last clear memory, her hair completely gray now, and her face carved with lines of exhaustion and grief.

 She held my hand while crying, squeezing my fingers like she was afraid I’d disappear again if she let go. My father stood by the window with his back to us, his shoulders shaking in a way that suggested he was crying too, but didn’t want me to see. Neither of them looked like the parents I remembered from the pool party.

 That had been in July, 4th of July specifically, at Uncle Raymond’s house with the entire extended family gathered for the annual barbecue and swim. Now my mother was saying it was October, and the year had advanced twice since that day. 730 days of my life simply erased. stolen, gone into a darkness I couldn’t remember or explain.

 The physical therapist arrived within an hour of my waking, a man named Julius, who had the build of someone who’d played college football and the gentle demeanor of someone who worked with broken people constantly. He explained in simple terms that my muscles had atrophied severely during the coma, that I’d need to relearn basic motor functions, that the process would be slow and frustrating, but possible with dedication.

 When he tried to help me sit up, my body wouldn’t cooperate. My core muscles had forgotten how to engage. My balance was completely shot. And the simple act of moving from horizontal to vertical left me dizzy and nauseous. Julia supported my weight while I fought tears of humiliation.

 I’d been an engineering student at MIT on a full academic scholarship before the pool party. Now I couldn’t sit up without assistance like a baby. My older brother Damian visited that afternoon and something felt immediately wrong about his presence. He came in carrying flowers and wearing an expression of relief that seemed practiced rather than genuine.

 When he grabbed my hand and said he’d been praying for me to wake up, his grip felt performative, too tight, and too deliberate. He talked about how guilty he’d felt, how the accident had haunted him, how he’d been visiting me every week throughout the coma, but his eyes kept darting away from mine, and when I tried to ask what happened at the pool, he changed the subject quickly. Said we’d talk about that later when I was stronger.

 My mother agreed, saying I needed to focus on recovery first. The way they exchanged glances made my stomach clench with anxiety I couldn’t articulate. The cognitive assessment came the next day. A doctor named Woo administering tests that revealed the extent of my brain damage. She showed me pictures and I struggled to name simple objects. A chair took me 30 seconds to identify.

 An apple made me say orange first. She asked me to count backward from 100 and I got lost in the 70s. My processing speed so slow that each number required conscious effort to calculate. She had me try writing my name and the letters came out shaky and childish. My fine motor control destroyed by the oxygen deprivation. Dr.

 Uh, Woos expression stayed professionally neutral throughout the assessment, but I could see the concern in her eyes when she compiled the results. The number she finally gave me for my cognitive function was devastating. I tested at roughly a 12-year-old level despite being 22 years old chronologically.

 My memories of the pool party existed in fragments, unreliable and dreamlike. I remembered the heat, the smell of chlorine and charcoal smoke from the grill, my cousin’s new GoPro camera that everyone was playing with underwater. I remember Damen challenging me to a breatholding contest for money. $100 to whoever could stay under longest.

 I remember diving down, the water cool against my skin, my lungs starting to burn as I counted seconds in my head. Then nothing, a blank space where memory should exist. The next clear thought was waking in this hospital bed 2 years later with my mother’s aged face and my body that didn’t work correctly. Dr.

 Woo explained that hypoxic brain injury often caused memory loss around the traumatic event that I might never recover those final moments. The explanation felt insufficient somehow. Julius worked with me daily on physical rehabilitation and progress was agonizingly slow. Day three, I managed to sit up unassisted for 30 seconds before exhaustion made me collapse back.

 Day five, I moved my legs voluntarily for the first time, just a twitch. But Julius celebrated like I’d run a marathon. Day eight, I stood with support, my legs shaking violently from the effort of holding my wasted weight. Every small victory came with the crushing awareness of how far I’d fallen. I’d been running 5 miles daily before the pool party. My body lean and strong from years of athletics.

 Now walking 10 ft to the bathroom required assistance and left me sweating and dizzy. The person I’d been had died at that pool party, and this damaged version was all that remained. My best friend from MIT, a guy named Terrence, visited during week two, and his face when he saw me was devastating. He tried to hide his shock, but I saw it clearly.

 the horror of seeing someone who’d been brilliant reduced to someone who struggled with basic cognition. He told me about graduation, about the engineering jobs our classmates had landed, about the research projects I’d been working on that had been abandoned when I didn’t return. He said it carefully, trying not to make me feel worse.

 But each piece of information was another thing stolen from me. My scholarship had been terminated after the first semester of absence. My dorm room had been cleared out. My research had been reassigned. MIT had moved on without me because come students don’t complete degrees. Damen came back during week three and this time brought photos on his phone to help jog my memory.

 He showed me pictures from the pool party, images of family swimming and eating and laughing. There was one of him and me by the pool edge, both of us grinning at the camera, taken maybe an hour before everything went wrong. He swiped through more photos and I saw his life had continued without interruption during my coma.

 Pictures of him at graduation from state university wearing cap and gown. pictures from his new job at an engineering firm, wearing business casual and posing with colleagues. Pictures of him moving into a nice apartment downtown. Every milestone was documented cheerfully while I’d been unconscious and dying.

 When I asked what degree he’d gotten, he said mechanical engineering with emphasis in robotics, the same degree I’d been pursuing at MIT before the accident. The police report arrived during week 4, requested by my mother, who’d been pushing for answers about what exactly happened at the pool party. The document was clinical and frustratingly sparse on details.

 It described the incident as an accidental near drowning during a voluntary breatholding competition between brothers. Multiple witnesses stated both parties had participated willingly and the extended submersion was not intentional. Damian had pulled me from the pool as soon as he realized I wasn’t surfacing voluntarily. Paramedics had been called immediately.

 Resuscitation had been successful after several minutes. The investigation determined no criminal negligence or intent to harm. Case closed. The sterile language made it sound mundane, just an unfortunate accident between siblings who’d been playing too rough.

 But something about the phrasing bothered me in ways I couldn’t articulate with my damaged cognition. Physical therapy graduation came during week six, meaning I could walk unassisted for short distances and manage basic self-care with supervision. Julius said, “I’d made remarkable progress given the severity of my injury, but remarkable still meant I moved like an elderly person and fatigued after minimal activity.

 The occupational therapist taught me strategies for managing my cognitive deficits, using timers and lists and structured routines to compensate for my impaired executive function. I’d need these accommodations for the rest of my life.

 There was no cure for hypoxic brain injury, no surgery or medication that would restore the oxygen starved neurons. The damage was permanent, and I’d spend however many years I had left functioning as a cognitively disabled adult. My younger sister, Yasmin, visited during week seven, and she looked at me with an expression I couldn’t quite read. She was 18 now, no longer the 15-year-old I remembered from the pool party.

 She’d grown taller and cut her hair short and developed a weary intensity that hadn’t been there before. She asked how much I remembered from that day, and I admitted my memory was mostly blank. She went very quiet and then asked if I wanted to know the truth or if I wanted to keep believing the official story.

 My mother immediately interjected, saying Yasmin shouldn’t upset me when I was still recovering, but Yasmin’s eyes stayed locked on mine, and I saw something fierce and angry burning there. I told her I wanted the truth. She said she’d show me something when we had privacy. Discharge came during week 8 with instructions for outpatient therapy and cognitive rehabilitation. Cara drove me to her apartment where I’d be staying since I couldn’t live alone in my condition.

 I’d never been to her place before the coma. Obviously, since we’d only been dating 3 months when the pool party happened. Now, she was my primary caregiver by default, having stayed with me throughout the coma when my parents couldn’t be there constantly.

 Her apartment was small but comfortable, and she’d set up one bedroom as my space with medical equipment and safety rails. The domesticity felt surreal, given that I barely remembered our relationship. She showed me photos of us together before the accident, trying to help me reconnect with memories that felt more like stories about strangers than my actual life.

 Yasmin came to visit the apartment 3 days after my discharge, and she brought her laptop. Cara had errands to run and left us alone for an hour. The moment the door closed, Yasmin pulled up a video file and asked if I was ready to see what actually happened at the pool party. My heart started hammering as she hit play. The video was underwater footage, blue tinged and slightly murky, shot from my cousin’s GoPro that had been mounted on the pool floor, filmi

ng people swimming. The timestamp showed July 4th, about 3:15 p.m. I watched myself and Damen dive down for the breath holding contest. Both of us swimming to the bottom and settling there, looking at each other competitively. The video continued for 30 seconds, 45, 1 minute. I could see myself starting to struggle, my body wanting to surface as my lungs burned. I pushed up toward the surface, and that’s when everything changed.

 Damian’s hands shot out and grabbed my shoulders, pushing me back down. I struggled against him, clearly trying to get to air, and he held me down forcibly. The video captured it all with devastating clarity. His hands on my head, holding me underwater while I thrashed and fought. Other swimmers legs were visible in the background. People at the surface who couldn’t see what was happening below. The time stamp continued.

 1 minute 30 seconds, 145, 2 minutes. My movements got weaker, more desperate, then sluggish. Damen held me down through all of it. At 2 minutes and 8 seconds, my body went limp. He immediately released me and shot to the surface, dragging my unconscious body up with him, yelling for help. Yasmin paused the video, and I sat there unable to process what I just witnessed.

 My own brother had deliberately held me underwater until I lost consciousness. Until my brain was starved of oxygen long enough to cause permanent damage. It wasn’t an accident. It wasn’t a game that went too far. It was assault, attempted murder, something deliberate and calculated.

 Yasmin explained that she’d found the GoPro footage a week after the accident while going through equipment at Uncle Raymond’s house. She’d shown it to our parents immediately. They’d watched their oldest son nearly kill their middle son on camera, and they decided to bury the evidence. They’d convinced Yasmin that pressing charges would destroy the family, that Damen hadn’t meant to cause serious harm, that protecting both their sons meant keeping this quiet.

 Yasmin had been 15 and terrified, and had gone along with it. But she’d kept a copy of the video, hidden and encrypted, waiting for me to wake up. The rage came slowly at first, then all at once, like a damn breaking. Every visit from Damian where he’d played the concerned brother.

 Every time my parents had deflected questions about what happened, every piece of the police report that had called it an accident when video evidence showed deliberate violence, they’d all been lying to me, protecting Damian while I suffered with permanent brain damage. Yasmin said it got worse. She pulled up Damen’s social media profiles showing the past 2 years.

 Posts about graduating with honors in mechanical engineering, posts about landing an entry-le position at Morrison Robotics, one of the most prestigious firms in the state, posts about the research project he’d completed that earned him the job. a project with specifications that matched exactly what I’d been working on at MIT before the coma.

 Yasmin had done more digging because something about Damen’s success had felt wrong to her. She’d contacted my former MIT adviser, Professor Keading, pretending to be verifying information for a scholarship application. Keating had mentioned how unfortunate my accident was, especially given the promising research I’d been conducting on adaptive robotics interfaces.

 He’d said Damen had actually reached out to him during my coma, asking questions about my work, claiming he wanted to complete my research as a tribute to me. Keading had provided access to my files and notes, thinking he was helping a grieving brother honor his comeomaos sibling.

 Damen had taken my research, slightly modified the approach, and submitted it as his senior thesis at his mediocre state school. The thesis had been good enough to get noticed by Morrison Robotics during recruiting season. I listened to Yasmin explain how Damen had systematically stolen my life while I was unconscious. He’d taken my research and used it to get the engineering job I would have gotten. He’d moved into the kind of apartment I’d been planning to rent after graduation.

 He’d built a career on the foundation of my work while telling everyone he was honoring his injured brother. And our parents knew all of it. Knew he’d nearly killed me deliberately. Knew he’d stolen my research and had helped cover it all up to protect him. The betrayal was so complete and multi-layered that I couldn’t process it fully with my damaged cognition.

 I just kept watching the underwater video. Damian’s hands on my head holding me down while I struggled and died. Cara returned home to find me hyperventilating on the couch while Yasmin tried to calm me down. Between gasping breaths, I explained about the video, about Damian holding me underwater deliberately, about the stolen research and the lies.

 Carara’s face went through shock to fury to something cold and determined. She was a nurse and she understood medical assault, understood the concept of deliberately causing harm while maintaining plausible deniability. She asked Yasmin if she had copies of everything, and Yasmin nodded, showing her encrypted files on multiple drives.

Cara said, “We needed a lawyer immediately, someone who specialized in assault cases and could navigate the complicated intersection of family violence and prosecutorial reluctance.” She knew someone from her hospital work, a victim advocate who connected assault survivors with legal resources.

 The lawyer’s name was Diana Okoy, and she specialized in cases where initial investigations had been inadequate or corrupted. She met with us 3 days later and watched the underwater video without visible reaction, her expression professionally neutral. When it finished, she asked why this hadn’t been presented to police originally. Yasmin explained about our parents suppressing it, about being 15 and scared, about the family pressure to protect Damian.

 Diana asked if I’d suffered permanent injury, and I gestured to my entire body, to my obvious cognitive and physical disabilities. She made notes and said, “This was clearly assault with severe bodily harm, possibly attempted murder, depending on how prosecution wanted to frame intent. The statute of limitations hadn’t expired because I’d been comeomaos during most of the time window, which paused the clock legally.

” Diana explained the process carefully, aware that my cognitive processing was impaired. Filing charges would require involving police and district attorney’s office. The video evidence was compelling, but we’d face challenges from my family, who would likely defend Damian and claimed the footage was misleading, or that they’d already investigated and found no criminal intent. Diana would need to prove not just that Damian held me underwater, but that he intended to cause serious harm.

The defense would argue it was brother’s roughousing that went too far accidentally. We’d need additional evidence showing pattern of behavior or motive. I asked what happened if we won. Diana said Damen would face criminal charges, likely serve significant prison time, and I could pursue civil damages for the assault and for the theft of my intellectual property.

 The money couldn’t restore my brain function, but it could provide for ongoing care I’d need for life. Yasmin had more evidence to share. Pulled from 2 years of quietly investigating. While everyone thought she’d accepted the family’s cover story, she’d found texts from the day of the pool party, where Damen had messaged friends about being sick of living in my shadow, about how everyone always compared him unfavorably to his genius brother at MIT.

 She’d found his search history from the week before the party, showing he’d researched how long someone could hold their breath, what happened during drowning, how long brain damage took to occur. She’d documented his access to my MIT research files and the timeline of him submitting nearly identical work as his own thesis. Every piece of evidence pointed toward premeditation, toward Damian deliberately attacking me, and then systematically stealing my academic work while I was unconscious and unable to defend myself. We filed the police report during week 10 of my consciousness 11 weeks after waking from

the coma. Detective Marshall took our statement and watched the video with an expression that shifted from skepticism to grim determination. He asked why the original investigation hadn’t uncovered this footage, and Yasmin explained about family suppression. Marshall said that complicated things, but didn’t make the assault less prosecutable.

 He’d need to interview witnesses from the pool party, obtain the original GoPro as evidence, and talk to my parents about why they’d hidden exculpatory evidence in what amounted to an attempted murder. The interview would be contentious because my parents would likely refuse to cooperate. I told Marshall to do whatever was necessary.

 My family had chosen Damian over me when they buried this evidence, and I owed them no protection. Now, my parents’ reaction to the police investigation was exactly what Yasmin had predicted. They called me repeatedly, which I ignored. They showed up at Cara’s apartment demanding to speak with me, claiming I was being manipulated by Yasmin and making terrible decisions while cognitively impaired.

 Cara stood at the door and told them they weren’t welcome, that they’d forfeited their right to parental concern when they’d covered up their son’s assault on their other son. My mother cried and said they’d been trying to protect the family, that Damen hadn’t meant to cause permanent harm, that pressing charges would destroy everyone. Carara’s response was ice cold.

 Damen had already destroyed me, and they’d helped him do it. She closed the door in their faces and called the police to document the harassment. Damen was arrested at his workplace on a Thursday morning during his third month as a junior engineer at Morrison Robotics. Yasmin had positioned herself across the street with her phone camera and captured the moment officers let him out in handcuffs while his colleagues watched in shock. His face showed pure disbelief, like he genuinely thought he’d gotten away with everything.

 The charges were first-degree assault with severe bodily injury with attempted murder charges pending depending on what the grand jury decided. Bail was set at $250,000, and our father posted it within hours, liquidating retirement accounts to free his eldest son.

 The message was clear about which child they’d chosen to support. Morrison Robotics suspended Damen pending investigation once they learned about the assault charges and the intellectual property theft allegations. Diana had sent them a detailed letter explaining that Damen’s award-winning thesis was based on stolen research from his brother at MIT and that his employment had been obtained through fraudulent credentials.

 The company took IP theft seriously and launched an internal investigation. Within a week, they’d compared Damian’s thesis to my original MIT research files and found the similarities undeniable. He was terminated immediately, and the company issued a statement about maintaining ethical standards.

 Yasmin captured his LinkedIn profile update from employed to unemployed and sent me a screenshot with no commentary needed. The preliminary hearing happened during week 14. Diana presented the underwater video to a judge who watched without visible emotion, though his jaw tightened noticeably around the two-minute mark when my body went limp.

 Damen’s attorney, a man named Foster, argued the video lacked context and that the incident had already been investigated by police as an accident. Diana countered that the original investigation had been compromised by family members suppressing evidence and that the video clearly showed Damen forcibly restraining me underwater for over 2 minutes despite my visible struggling.

 The judge ruled there was probable cause to proceed to trial and increased Damen’s bail conditions to include no contact with me or Yasmin. Our parents sat in the gallery looking devastated, but they sat on Damen’s side of the courtroom, their allegiance clear. Professor Keading from MIT was horrified when Diana contacted him about the research theft.

 He provided affidavit documenting my original work, the timeline of my research development, and the suspicious similarity between my notes and Damian’s thesis. He also expressed regret for providing Damian access to my files, saying he’d been manipulated by someone claiming brotherly devotion when actually engaged in academic theft.

 MIT’s administration reviewed the situation and issued a statement supporting any legal action I chose to pursue. They also indicated my scholarship and research position would be reinstated if I was able to return to studies, though we both knew my cognitive impairment made that functionally impossible. The gesture was meaningful, but couldn’t restore what Damen had stolen.

 The local news picked up the story and it went viral regionally. Brother held underwater for 2 minutes, spent two years in coma, wakes to find brother stole his research and career. The video was shared thousands of times, though we’d provided edited footage that ended before my body went completely limp to avoid the most disturbing content.

 Public opinion was swift and brutal. Damen’s social media was flooded with comments calling him a monster, a thief, a would-be murderer. Several of his former classmates came forward, saying they’d always thought he was jealous of me and suspected his thesis work had seemed too sophisticated for his skill level. The court of public opinion delivered its verdict long before any jury would deliberate.

 My cognitive rehabilitation continued through all of this legal drama. Dr. Wu worked with me weekly on exercises designed to rebuild neural pathways and improve processing speed. Progress was minimal but measurable. I could now read simple books without losing comprehension, though complex text remained beyond me.

 I could follow conversations better and speak with less confusion, though I still struggled with word retrieval and complex sentences. I’d never returned to MIT level cognition, but I might eventually function at a high school level rather than middle school level. The improvements felt simultaneously significant and devastating.

 I was getting smarter, but would never be smart enough to finish the degree I’d earned a full scholarship for. Damen’s trial began during week 20 of my consciousness, roughly 5 months after I’d woken up. Jury selection took 2 days as Foster eliminated anyone with siblings or anyone in medical scientific fields.

 The final jury was seven women and five men, mostly middle-aged, with expressions suggesting they took the responsibility seriously. Diana’s opening statement was direct and devastating. She played the underwater video within the first 5 minutes, letting it speak for itself. She pointed to me sitting in the gallery with my cane and obvious cognitive impairment. She explained how Damen had not only nearly killed me, but had stolen my research to build a career while I was comeomaos.

 Then she promised to prove every element of first-degree assault and demonstrate that Damen’s actions were deliberate and malicious rather than accidental roughousing. Foster’s opening statement tried to paint the incident as a tragic accident during sibling competition that had gone horribly wrong. He emphasized that Damen had immediately pulled me to the surface and called for help, which showed he never intended serious harm.

 He claimed the underwater footage was misleading because it lacked audio and context about what we’d agreed to before diving. He suggested I might have signaled that I was fine underwater and Damen had misunderstood my movements. The argument was weak given the video’s clarity, but Foster was doing his job creating reasonable doubt.

 He didn’t address the research theft directly in opening, probably planning to dismiss it as irrelevant to assault charges or to claim it was ethical tribute rather than theft. Yasmin testified on day two, walking the jury through finding the GoPro footage, and showing it to our parents.

 She described their decision to suppress the evidence, her discomfort with the cover up, her choice to keep a copy hidden until I woke up. Under cross-examination, Foster tried to suggest she’d manipulated the footage, or that her memory as a 15-year-old might be unreliable. Yasmin stayed calm and pointed out that video evidence doesn’t require reliable memory. It shows exactly what happened.

 She also produced the original GoPro SD card with file metadata, proving when the video was recorded and that it hadn’t been edited. Foster couldn’t effectively challenge the technical evidence and had to move on. Professor Keading testified on day three about my MIT research and the suspicious similarity to Damian’s thesis.

 He brought both documents and walked the jury through specific sections showing identical problem-solving approaches, identical equations, even identical typos in some cases. He explained that while parallel research sometimes produces similar results, the level of duplication here was impossible without direct copying.

 He testified that Damen had specifically requested access to my files, claiming he wanted to complete my work in my honor, and that he’d provided that access, trusting in Damian’s stated intentions. The jury took extensive notes during this testimony. several members looking between the documents with visible skepticism about Fosters’s eventual claim of ethical tribute.

 Cara testified on day four about my condition when I woke from the coma, the extent of my disabilities, the cognitive deficits that had ended my academic career. She described the physical therapy and the cognitive rehabilitation, and the ongoing care I’d need for the rest of my life. She explained that hypoxic brain injury was permanent, that no treatment would restore the neurons damaged by oxygen deprivation.

 Under Foster’s cross-examination, she acknowledged that some coma patients recover more fully than others, but emphasized that two plus minutes without oxygen reliably caused severe brain damage. She looked at Damian while saying this, her expression making clear what she thought of him. Several jurors followed her gaze, studying Damen’s blank face.

 I testified on day five, and Diana had prepared me carefully for the experience. She asked about my life before the pool party, my MIT scholarship, my research, my plans for the future. I described my relationship with Damian growing up, which had been generally positive with normal sibling rivalry.

 I admitted I’d been the higher achiever academically, which had sometimes created tension, but nothing that suggested violence. Then Diana asked me to describe what I remembered from the pool party, and I explained the breatholding competition, the dive, the increasing need to surface. I told the jury the last thing I remembered was trying to push up toward air and feeling hands on my shoulders.

 Then nothing until waking in the hospital 2 years later to learn my entire life had been stolen. Foster’s cross-examination tried to suggest my memory was unreliable due to brain damage and that I might be confusing what I actually remembered with what the video had shown me. I acknowledged my memory had gaps, but said the physical sensation of being held down was visceral and distinct, something I’d recalled before seeing any footage.

 Foster asked if Damen and I had ever played rough before, if we’d ever wrestled or competed physically. I said yes to normal sibling roughousing, but emphasized that normal play doesn’t continue after someone is clearly trying to stop. Foster tried to suggest that underwater signals might be ambiguous and that Damen might have genuinely thought I was fine.

 I pointed out that the video showed me struggling violently and going limp, which aren’t ambiguous signals. The jury seemed to agree based on their expressions. The video played again on day six, this time with a medical expert providing commentary. Dr. Rashid, a specialist in drowning and hypoxic injury, narrated what was happening physiologically at each stage.

 He explained that at 30 seconds underwater, discomfort begins. At 60 seconds, the urge to breathe becomes overwhelming. At 90 seconds, panic sets in. At 2 minutes, consciousness starts to fade. At 2 minutes plus, brain damage begins. He pointed out the exact timestamp when my movements went from active struggling to weak flailing to limpness, explaining that Damen would have felt the change in resistance.

 The expert testimony made the video even more damning because it proved Damian had deliberately held me through every stage of distress until I was unconscious and dying. Damen’s friends who’d been at the pool party testified with varying levels of helpfulness to the defense. Most admitted they’d been at the surface and hadn’t seen what happened underwater.

 One friend, a guy named Isaac, testified that Damen had seemed genuinely shocked when I didn’t wake up immediately, that he’d performed CPR while screaming for someone to call 911. Diana’s cross-examination asked if Isaac had noticed Damen acting jealous or resentful toward me before the accident.

 Isaac admitted Damen had made comments about always being compared unfavorably to his genius brother, but had dismissed it as normal sibling stuff. Diana asked if holding someone underwater for over 2 minutes fell into the category of normal sibling stuff. Isaac had no good answer. Damen testified in his own defense on day eight, probably against Fosters’s advice. He claimed the breatholding contest had been mutual and competitive.

He said I’d given him a thumbs up signal underwater indicating I was fine continuing. He claimed that when he’d grabbed my shoulders, it was to check if I wanted to stop, not to hold me down. He said he’d released me the moment he realized I was in distress and had immediately tried to save me.

 His story contradicted the clear video evidence showing two plus minutes of restraint through increasingly desperate struggling. Under Diana’s cross-examination, he couldn’t explain why checking on someone required holding them down forcefully. He couldn’t explain the thumbs up signal that wasn’t visible in the video. He couldn’t explain why his Google searches before the party had included how long can people hold their breath and what causes brain damage. The research theft came up during Diana’s cross of Damian.

 She asked him to explain the similarities between his thesis and my MIT work. He claimed he’d been inspired by my research and had developed his own approach to similar problems. Diana presented the documents side by side showing identical solutions and asked how inspiration explained identical typos. Damen said coincidence.

 Diana asked if it was coincidence that he’d requested access to my files during my coma. Damen said he’d wanted to understand my work to feel close to me. Diana asked if feeling close to his comeomaos brother included using that brother’s work to launch his own career. Damen had no answer that didn’t sound self- serving. Several jurors looked disgusted.

 Closing arguments happened on day nine. Diana walked the jury through every piece of evidence methodically. The video showing deliberate restraint. The Google searches proving premeditation. The stolen research showing systematic exploitation. the two years I’d spent unconscious while Damen built a career on my work.

 She emphasized that Damen had nearly killed me and then profited from my incapacitation, showing complete lack of remorse or accountability. She asked the jury to hold him responsible for attempted murder and to recognize that the assault had destroyed my future while building his. Then she pointed to me and asked them to remember that justice delayed shouldn’t mean justice denied. Foster’s closing tried one last time to frame everything as tragic misunderstanding.

 He emphasized that Damen had called for help immediately, that he’d visited me throughout the coma, that the research situation was complicated ethics rather than theft. He asked the jury to consider whether punishing Damian with decades in prison would help anyone, or just destroy another young life.

 He suggested that civil damages could compensate me for my injuries without sending Damen to prison. The argument felt hollow after 9 days of evidence showing calculated violence and systematic exploitation. The jury deliberated for 11 hours across a day and a half. When they returned, their expressions were somber and determined. The verdict was guilty on all counts. First-degree assault, theft of intellectual property.

 The attempted murder charge had been upgraded to assault with intent to cause serious bodily harm, which carried a sentence of up to 20 years. Damen’s face went white as the jury foreman read each guilty verdict. Our parents sobbed openly in the gallery, but I felt nothing except cold satisfaction. He’d been held accountable. The system had worked despite my family’s attempts to corrupt it.

 Justice had arrived late, but it had arrived. Damian was led away in handcuffs while his attorney promised to appeal. Diana told me not to worry about appeals, that the video evidence was unassailable and the verdict would stand. Sentencing came 6 weeks later. Diana helped me prepare a victim impact statement that detailed everything Damen had stolen from me.

 Not just 2 years of consciousness or my MIT degree or my physical and cognitive health, but my future, my career, my sense of safety in the world. I described waking up to discover my brother had tried to kill me and then spent two years building a life on the foundation of my work while I was unconscious.

 I explained that no sentence could restore what I’d lost, but that Damen needed to face consequences proportional to the harm he’d caused. Cara and Yasmin also submitted statements describing the impact on them as witnesses to my suffering and as people betrayed by Damen’s actions. Judge Richardson had presided over the trial with professional detachment, but her sentencing statement made clear what she thought of Damian’s conduct.

 She noted that he’d deliberately held his brother underwater until he was unconscious and brain damaged, then had systematically exploited his brother’s incapacitation for personal gain. She said the combination of violence and exploitation showed a disturbing lack of empathy or conscience.

 She rejected the defense argument for leniency based on Damen’s age and lack of criminal history, noting that firsttime offenders who commit attempted murder don’t deserve reduced sentences simply because they hadn’t killed anyone before. She sentenced him to 18 years in state prison with possibility of parole after serving 85%. He’d be 43 years old before having any chance at freedom.

 The courtroom erupted after sentencing. Our parents screamed that 18 years was excessive, that the judge was destroying their son over an accident. Judge Richardson’s response was sharp and final. Your son held your other son underwater for over two minutes causing permanent brain damage, then stole his research to advance his own career while that son was comeosse.

18 years is proportional to the harm caused and the complete absence of remorse shown. She ordered Damen immediately remanded and denied his attorney’s request for appeal bond. Damian was taken into custody while our parents pleaded for another chance. They’d lost one son to permanent disability caused by their other son.

And now they’d lost that second son to prison. The family they’ tried to preserve by suppressing evidence had been destroyed anyway. The civil suit for intellectual property theft settled out of court 6 months later. Morrison Robotics wanted to avoid publicity about hiring someone who’d stolen research, and they offered a substantial settlement that included acknowledgement that my work had been the foundation of Damian’s thesis.

 MIT formally credited me with the research and offered to name a scholarship in my honor, though I declined because I didn’t want my name associated with tragedy. The settlement money provided a trust fund that would cover my medical and living expenses indefinitely since I’d never be able to work at my previous capacity.

 Diana called it justice in financial form, though we both knew money couldn’t compensate for what I’d lost. My parents tried reaching out multiple times after the sentencing, wanting reconciliation or forgiveness or something I couldn’t provide. They’d watched Damian nearly kill me on video and had chosen to protect him rather than seek justice for me.

 That betrayal went deeper than Damian’s violence because they’d had a choice and had chosen wrong. I sent one email explaining that I had no family relationship with them anymore, that they’d forfeited their parental rights when they had suppressed evidence of attempted murder. My mother’s response was full of justifications about trying to protect both their sons and not wanting to destroy the family.

 I never replied. Some fractures were too fundamental to repair. Yasmin moved in with Cara and me 6 months after the trial, having finally aged out of our parents house and wanting distance from them. She enrolled in community college studying criminal justice, inspired by her role in bringing Damen to justice.

 She said watching the system work when given proper evidence had made her want to be part of preventing future miscarriages of justice. We’d become closer through the investigation and trial, bonded by shared betrayal and the choice to pursue truth over family loyalty.

 She was the only family member I maintained contact with, the only one who’d chosen to protect me rather than protect Damian. My cognitive function plateaued after 2 years of intensive rehabilitation. I’d improved from 12-year-old level to roughly high school level, which meant I could function independently with support systems in place. I’d never return to MIT, but I could read and write and think well enough to live a meaningful.