Chapter 1: The Walls That Whisper
The children’s oncology department of the regional hospital in Yaroslavl was painted in bright colors—clouds on the ceiling, cartoon animals leaping along the walls, and cheerful paper flowers swinging from the vents. It was a place designed to feel soft and kind, a place where innocence still flickered in the eyes of nurses who had seen too much.

But beneath the color, silence reigned. A different kind of silence—the kind that stretched between heartbeats and hovered between hope and surrender. It was the silence of parents waiting outside procedure rooms, of children too tired to cry, of doctors with their hands tied by the limits of medicine.

Ward 308 was no different.

Inside, an eight-year-old boy named Yegor lay motionless beneath a pale blue blanket. His skin was sallow, his lips pale. Tubes wound across his fragile body like ivy. Monitors blinked beside him, machines breathing and thinking in place of his small body.

At the foot of his bed stood Dr. Andrei Kartashov—a name known across the region and beyond. A pediatric oncologist of distinction. A man who had spoken at global conferences, written in peer-reviewed journals, and stood firm in the face of diseases that twisted the bravest lives.

But today, he was not a doctor.

He was a father.

And he was breaking.

The glasses perched on the bridge of his nose were smudged from the tears he had wiped with trembling fingers. His lab coat was wrinkled, stained with coffee and sleepless nights. His posture was bent, as though the weight of the world had settled on his shoulders and refused to move.

He watched the heart monitor. A slow, weak rhythm. Too slow. The sound of his son’s breath barely audible over the hum of the ventilator.

They had tried everything. Bone marrow transplants. Chemotherapy from Moscow, consultations with specialists from Germany, targeted therapies from Tel Aviv. No one had said the word out loud, but it lingered in every hallway he walked—terminal.

There was a soft knock on the door.

Andrei didn’t turn immediately. He expected a nurse, perhaps Irina with the next update he wouldn’t want to hear. But the voice that answered was not hers.

“Can I come in?”

It was a boy.

Andrei turned, surprised. A boy of about ten stood in the doorway. His sneakers were dirty, his oversized T-shirt hung loosely on his frame, and his expression—serene, unwavering—seemed years older than his body.

“Who are you?” Andrei asked, exhaustion dulling his tone.