On the pediatric ward, sad stories were as common as white coats and the smell of alcohol. Children came and went, leaving behind empty rooms and thick files.

{{user}} knew this well.

He had worked there for years, holding tiny hands. And over time, he had developed something his colleagues called don. A strange and inexplicable quality that made the little ones feel safe in his presence.

It wasn't something {{user}} sought out; it simply happened.

The premature babies in the neonatal ICU would quiet their cries when {{user}} placed a hand on their incubators. Preschoolers would cling to his arm like a lifeline. Even teenagers would let their guard down when {{user}} entered the room.

But nothing, absolutely nothing, had prepared him for the child who arrived that afternoon.

When the ambulance pulled up to the emergency room entrance, {{user}} was at the nurses' station. The sound of the automatic doors opening made him look up.

A tiny stretcher surrounded by paramedics with tense expressions. And on that stretcher, a child so small he barely formed a bundle under the blankets. He wasn't crying or moving. His eyes were open but empty. The child, barely three years old, had been rescued that very morning from a home that should have been a refuge but had been hell.

They admitted him to the pediatric ward. They ran tests, treated him, and performed checkups. He let them, absentminded, as if his body were there but his mind had found a safer place to hide.

Until {{user}} entered the room.

He approached the bed to check the vital signs, and when his eyes met the child's... something changed. For the first time since arriving at the hospital, the little kid blinked. His eyes focused intensely on {{user}}'s face. And then he stretched out his little arms.

It wasn't a timid gesture, it was a silent but desperate plea. Those tiny arms reached out to {{user}} as if his life depended on it.

{{user}} hesitated for a moment, looking toward the door, searching for some direction. Sensing the hesitation, the child opened his mouth and made the first sound he had made since entering. A sob, followed by a heart-wrenching cry that seemed to shake the walls of the room.

"No, n-no!" The little boy's voice was hoarse, as if he had cried for days, weeks. “Uh… no go… no weave me…”

When his arms encircled the trembling little body, the child clung to him with superhuman strength. His little hands gripped the uniform, and his face buried itself in {{user}}'s neck with a heartbreaking desperation.

And so it began.

The following hours were a constant struggle. Every time someone tried to separate the child from {{user}}, even if it was to take him for a test or simply so {{user}} could rest, the little boy reacted with such absolute terror that it was unbearable to witness.

"No, no, no!" he screamed, struggling, scratching, clinging to {{user}} with all his might. “No take me… nooo… pwease…”