The Day Our Promise Breaks

Andrew's shout, wild with ecstatic relief, shattered the heavy gloom of the lab like a lightning strike.

"Hurry! Draw the serum now! Ultra-purify it—maximum concentration! Move!" His voice shook with excitement as he summoned his team.

The assistants sprang into action without missing a beat.

Andrew took charge himself, hands steady but moving fast, drawing out the vital blood from Charles's battered veins veins that had barely survived heart failure and a toxic onslaught.

That blood held hope: rare antibodies, shimmering with the promise of a miracle.

Every second was precious.

The purification machines whirred at full tilt, the concentration process racing the clock.

Within minutes, Andrew was clutching a vial of potent antibody serum in his hand.

He didn't hesitate. Sprinting down the corridor, he crashed through the door of the next treatment room.

"Now! Give this to Charlie-right now!"

Andrew's arrival snapped Francis out of his hopeless daze.

Just moments earlier, Charlie's heart monitor was barely flickering her life hanging by a thread.

Francis had given Charles his word: he'd save Charlie. He couldn't let her slip away now.

"Everyone, move!"

around Charlie's bed, clearing a path for

pause, Andrew injected the serum

flood Charlie's icy,

door, Charles-fresh from his own brush with death, his heart barely coaxed back to life-struggled to find consciousness, desperate to

"Charlie..."

voice little more than a whisper, but

name.

unfocused and weary, searched for

he

second a battle. Everyone held their breath, waiting, watching Charlie for any sign of life. Charles didn't

placed Charlie's cold little

curl his fingers around hers, weak

dragged. Every heartbeat

doubt began

started to stip away, the monitor beside Charlie's bed-its line

the rhythm clear

faded, replaced by steady, gentle beeping-the

Charlie's

She was back.

to check her vitals,

stable, they turned to Charles, voices trembling with relief. "Charles, she's

you did it.

Charles finally

holding for so long.