While changing the bandages of a young woman who had been in a coma for

Dr. Daniel Harris sat in his office, the paper with the DNA results crumpled in his hand. The truth was a thunderbolt that shattered everything he knew about himself. The hospital corridors buzzed with a tension so thick it was almost palpable, but inside Daniel’s small, dimly lit room, silence reigned. He hadn’t moved since he read the results—unable to process how this could have happened, how he could be responsible.

The world outside seemed distant, a muffled reality he no longer belonged to. Memories of months past rushed forward, chaotic and disordered. Daniel had dedicated himself entirely to his work, often pulling double shifts and sometimes barely remembering the hours in between. But never, not once, could he recall doing anything that would violate the sanctified trust between doctor and patient.

There had to be a mistake. Desperation clawed at him, and he scrambled to check the paperwork again, as if hoping for a clerical error, a misplaced decimal, anything that would absolve him of this monstrous claim. But the reality stared back, unwavering and cruel.