«I’ll give you a million if you cure me,» smiled the billionaire… Until the child touched him…

If someone had said that Alexander Harrington’s fate would be changed by a boy with a torn sleeve and a toy stethoscope, he would have laughed.

And added something snide. But that’s exactly how it all began. Alexander Harrington hated parks, especially on Sundays.

Especially this one, noisy, with the sharp smell of popcorn and crowds of kids who somehow always ran too close to his wheelchair. He hated their screams, their toys, their freedom. He sat in the shade of a sycamore, surrounded by silence.

Not because the park had gotten quieter, but because security politely but insistently cleared everyone within a twenty-meter radius. Harrington had a stroke five years ago. His left side was completely paralyzed, the right—almost numb.

He could speak, he could think, he could despise. And he did it with the mastery of a scalpel. «What are you playing at here?» he snorted toward a group of kids.

«We’re doctors,» a girl with two pigtails and a plastic folder in her hands replied joyfully. «Saving lives.» «Saving? Do you know that everyone dies? Even you.

Especially you, if you treat as badly as you dress.» The kids were confused, someone whimpered. But one boy stayed standing.

Short, thin, with an uncovered head and a very serious gaze. On his chest hung a red stethoscope, a toy one, but he held it like a surgeon holds a scalpel. «Do you want to be cured?» he asked calmly, looking straight into Harrington’s eyes.

«You?» The mockery in Alexander’s voice was almost affectionate. «The best clinics in the world pay me for treatment.» They couldn’t.

«And you’ll fix my spinal cord in exchange for a cookie?» «No,» the boy replied. «In exchange for a million dollars. If you stand up after my treatment, you’ll give me a million dollars.

If not—nothing.» Alexander looked at him with a long, studying gaze. He had seen a lot—liars, scammers, fanatics.

But in the eyes of this boy, Luke, as it would later turn out, there was something different. A calmness alien to children. A strange confidence.

«And how are you going to do it?» «Trust is the main condition. You have to allow me to perform the ritual. Don’t laugh, don’t interfere.

Just trust.» Harrington smirked. His guards exchanged glances.

One of them leaned in. «Sir, do you want us to…» «No,» he interrupted. «Let him treat.

It’ll be interesting. And then file a report on him for fraud.» Luke took a small box out of his backpack, cut from a shoebox.

Inside were colorful ribbons, a pebble, and… some photograph. He laid it all out nearby, waving his hands, whispering something barely audible. Alexander watched him and felt something long forgotten stirring inside.

Something illogical. The boy touched his hand. The palm was warm.

Unusually warm. «Done,» he said. «Tomorrow you’ll stand up, don’t forget about the million dollars.»

He gathered everything he brought and left. Just like that. Without dramatic words, without a show.

He walked toward where the trees were thicker, and the houses older. One of the guards burst out laughing. «Brilliant.»

He didn’t even try. Just waved his hands. Alexander smirked too, but with a strange aftertaste.

He returned home in his usual gloom. Fell asleep in his technologically advanced bed with an automatic body-turning system. And woke up.

From pain. But the pain was different. It was something like a cramp.

He first thought it was a reaction to medications. Then, another glitch. But when he looked down, his eyes widened.

His right big toe twitched. He tensed. Tried to concentrate.

And… Again. Movement. He didn’t believe it.

Called the nurse. Then the doctor. Then a whole team.

His hands were shaking. For the first time in five years, he felt. Shaking not just from anger.

Three hours later, he was already standing by the wall. With support. But standing.

«This is impossible,» the neurologist said. «You had a complete spinal cord conduction break. This… this is a miracle.»

«It’s not a miracle,» Harrington whispered. «It’s… a debt.» He remembered the boy’s gaze.

That calm voice. «Tomorrow you’ll stand up.» He stood.

Now he needed to find the one who cured him. He dreamed of running. Clumsily, gasping for breath, but running.

And at every turn, it wasn’t illness or death catching up to him, but a shadow with the boy’s face. When he woke up, the sun hit the windows with such audacity, as if it knew this day would be special. But unlike the dream, there was no running here.

Here were slow, uncertain steps. The first in recent years. He held onto the railing like the last argument in a dispute with reality…