Six years earlier, she had heard the same tone and the same silence that followed afterward.

Her younger brother Ethan had died in a small clinic because no one attempted a cooling intervention that she only learned about months later.

She had discovered it through old online lectures that she watched on a broken phone late at night.

Since then, she had studied in silence every single night.

She took notes carefully and memorized medical protocols that were never meant for someone like her.

Words like hypoxia and therapeutic window and reversible damage became part of her thoughts.

Her heart began to pound painfully against her chest.

She did not know if there was still time to act.

She did not know if she was already too late.

She did not know if she would be dragged out of that room in handcuffs.

But she knew something worse than all of that.

If she did nothing, she would live forever asking herself one question that would never fade.

What if something could still have been done?

She let the mop fall to the ground and rushed into a nearby supply room.

She opened a metal compartment and found ice stacked inside.

Her hands shook as she filled a bucket to the top.