She had smelled it in the small bedroom of her apartment, beside her father’s bed, just hours before he suffocated to death while doctors at a public hospital insisted it was “just a respiratory infection.”
Anna tugged gently at her mother’s apron.
“Mom,” she whispered. “That boy has the same thing Dad had.”
Elena froze. Fear flashed across her face.
“Anna, stop,” she hissed. “Don’t say things like that. These people are important. We can’t cause trouble.”
“But Mom, look at his throat. He keeps touching it. Just like Dad. He said it burned inside.”
“Enough,” Elena whispered sharply, her voice shaking. “If we get fired, we don’t eat. Sit down. Be quiet.”
Anna obeyed.
But she didn’t stop watching.
Minutes passed. Then hours.
Suddenly, alarms accelerated. Doctors rushed in. Nurses ran. Charles Beaumont collapsed into a chair, covering his face with his hands, sobbing—the kind of cry only a parent makes when money is useless.
Anna felt ice settle in her stomach.
She knew what came next.
She knew the seizures would start.
She knew they’d try to intubate him.
She knew the tube wouldn’t go through.
She knew he would die.
Just like her father.