Louis followed Doctor Gayle in silence.
He watched as she lifted the unconscious Paul onto a gurney and pushed it toward the hospital's basement.
They stopped in front of a heavy door sealed shut with wooden planks and iron chains.
Pain and hesitation flickered across Doctor Gayle's face. After a long moment, she reached out, unfastened the chains, and pushed the gurney into the darkness beyond.
The moment the door cracked open, spine-chilling roars erupted from inside.
Louis understood immediately.
Medical supplies were limited. She could not save everyone.
In Doctor Gayle's mind, when a patient's injuries were beyond treatment, sending them into the cafeteria filled with Walkers was a way to end their suffering. A cruel choice, but one born of desperation in a world without mercy.
Yet just as Doctor Gayle prepared to reseal the door, something felt wrong to Louis.
He could not explain it clearly. Perhaps it was because he had recently been studying healing magic spell. Perhaps his sensitivity to life itself had sharpened.
In his perception, Paul's condition was dire, like a candle guttering in a violent wind. But deep within that fading flame, a stubborn spark still burned.
Paul was not dead yet.
Not truly.
Louis could not wait any longer.
He slipped off the invisibility cloak and shoved it into the shadowed corner of the hallway. Then he sprinted forward and shouted,
"Wait. He can still be saved."
The voice was young and clear, not loud, but piercing in the silence of the corridor.
Doctor Gayle spun around in shock.
At the corner of the hallway stood a blond-haired, blue-eyed boy who had appeared out of nowhere.
A child. Alone.
For a split second, Doctor Gayle's mind went blank.
Since the outbreak, she had seen desperate survivors arrive at the hospital. But this was the first time she had seen a child by himself.
Then the meaning of his words caught up with her.
He said Paul could still be saved.
Was that possible.
She was an experienced doctor. She knew Paul's injuries were severe. Without proper antibiotics or a sterile environment, death was only a matter of time.
Her judgment had never been wrong.
Perhaps this was only a child's naive kindness. A refusal to accept death.
Thoughts raced through her mind, but only a few seconds passed.
She met the boy's gaze.
His eyes were clear and steady, without fear or false hope. And in that moment, she remembered Karina's broken sobs earlier.
Something hardened inside her finally loosened.
After a brief hesitation, Doctor Gayle lowered her hand.
She did not question him. She did not argue.
Instead, she pulled the gurney back out of the darkness.
Louis rushed forward at once, helping her close and lock the door to that hellish room again.
Doctor Gayle thought she must be losing her mind, listening to a child in a world like this.
But looking at the boy standing beside her, she decided to indulge this moment of innocence.
Even if the man ultimately died, at least for now, a child's wish would not be crushed.
When they pushed the gurney back into the storage room, Karina, who had been slumped on the floor, suddenly looked up.
The moment she saw Paul again, disbelief and hope exploded in her eyes.
"Doctor Gayle. This… this means…" She crawled forward, her voice shaking. "Does this mean Paul can still be saved?"
Doctor Gayle opened her mouth.
Then she hesitated.
She did not know how to tell this woman that she had only postponed an inevitable fate, all because of a boy who refused to give up.
"Yes. I just saw his hand move, and his eyes reacted too. I'm sure he'll wake up soon."
"Really?"
Karina's face lit up with uncontrollable joy. She rushed forward and wrapped Louis in a tight embrace, her tears soaking his shoulder.
"Thank you. Thank you, kid. I believe you. We're going to be okay. We're really going to be okay."
Watching the scene unfold, Doctor Gayle felt her heart twist with conflicting emotions.
She wanted to say that what Louis had seen was likely nothing more than involuntary neurological twitching before death.
But seeing Karina's joy at having hope restored, and meeting the boy's unwavering, confident gaze, she could not bring herself to speak such cruelty.
She swallowed her words and decided to wait. If the man truly reached the end, she would deal with the aftermath then.
Yet what followed shattered every expectation she had.
Several hours later, just as Doctor Gayle was preparing to check Paul's vitals again and searching for the right words to comfort Karina, the unconscious man's eyelids fluttered.
Once.
Twice.
Then, slowly, they opened.
"Paul!"
Karina screamed his name through sobs and threw herself to his side.
"Cough… Karina?" Paul's voice was hoarse and weak, but unmistakably conscious. Even more unbelievable, his fever had begun to recede.
How was this possible?
Doctor Gayle checked his vitals repeatedly. Other than shock, she found no rational explanation.
Perhaps his will to live had been far stronger than she had believed.
Inside the storage room, Karina clung to Paul as if afraid he might disappear again.
"I heard it," Paul said quietly, stroking her hair. His voice still carried lingering fear. "When they pushed me toward that place, I thought it was over."
"But I heard a kid's voice. He said I could still be saved. That voice kept me going."
He looked toward Louis, his eyes filled with gratitude.
"Thank you. If it weren't for you, I would've been torn apart by those monsters."
Doctor Gayle approached and knelt down, pulling Louis into a firm, warm hug.
"I don't know how you knew," she said softly, her voice trembling with disbelief. "But you were right."
She turned toward the couple, lowering her head.
"I'm sorry. My judgment failed you. I almost ended both of your lives."
Her hand trembled slightly as she gestured to a syringe in her medical kit.
"I was prepared. If Paul died and Karina couldn't bear it, I was ready to help her find release."
"If Paul had lived but Karina had chosen euthanasia out of despair… that would have been the real tragedy."
"What?" Paul exclaimed weakly. "Euthanasia? Doctor, you don't have the right to decide that. That's just too much."
But when he saw the exhaustion and resolve in Doctor Gayle's eyes, and remembered that she had saved them in the end, he swallowed the rest of his protest.
Karina, however, took Doctor Gayle's hand.
"I understand," she said quietly. "I've already lost too many people. If Paul had really died, and I were left alone in this world… I might have made the same choice."
In the end, tragedy was avoided.
Paul still needed time to recover, but he and Karina chose to remain in the hospital for now.
As for Louis, this unexpected turn of events earned him the trust and goodwill of everyone present.
He naturally asked Doctor Gayle for a relatively safe and comfortable VIP ward to stay in and decided to remain at the hospital temporarily.
On one hand, he could legitimately follow an experienced doctor and learn first-aid knowledge that was invaluable in the apocalypse.
On the other, he finally had a quiet place to continue practicing the spell he had yet to master.
Episkey.