She looked like the princesses in storybooks—trapped in a spell.

Ethan didn’t know what a coma was.

He didn’t understand wealth or tragedy.

He only saw someone who seemed very alone.

And in his seven-year-old logic, he decided maybe she just needed something happier than silence.

He lifted his plastic drumsticks.

And he struck.

Bang.

The sound shattered the sterile air.

He hit it again.

Bang. Bang.

It wasn’t music. It was uneven, loud, playful rhythm. The drum echoed off the walls, clashing wildly with the steady beeping of heart monitors.

Ethan grinned and played harder.

In the nurses’ station, Head Nurse Claire Donovan jolted upright.

“What on earth—?”

She stormed down the hallway toward 402, ready to scold whoever had broken the sacred quiet.

She burst through the door—

—and froze.

The boy stood near the bed, happily drumming.

Claire opened her mouth to shout.

Then she saw it.

Evelyn’s right index finger twitched.

Claire blinked.

Exhaustion, she thought.

But then Evelyn’s lips trembled.

Not random.

Intentional.

Claire’s heart began pounding.

“That’s impossible…” she whispered.

The monitors—usually slow and steady—spiked erratically.

Ethan kept drumming.

Rat-a-tat. Rat-a-tat.

Claire stumbled into the hallway.