At 9:30 p.m., a woman arrived at the emergency center carrying a little boy.
Her clothes were soaked, her face was pale, and her arms were trembling.
“Please,” she begged one of the paramedics. “My son won’t speak.”
The boy was six years old.
His name was Noah.
Daniel sat him down on a chair and wrapped a dry blanket around his shoulders.
“Hey, Noah. I’m Daniel. Can you tell me what happened?”
The boy didn’t answer.
He stared at the floor, clutching a small red toy car.
Daniel turned to the boy’s mother.
“Where’s his father?”
The woman began to cry.
“We were trying to reach the evacuation center. Our car slid into a flooded ditch. My husband got out to find help, but he never came back.”
Daniel said nothing.
He knew some questions could hurt more than silence.
He sat down in front of Noah again.
“Do you like that car?”
The boy nodded.
“Is it called Flash?”
For the first time, Noah looked up.
“My dad gave it to me.”
Daniel smiled gently.
“Then we’ll keep it safe until your dad comes back.”
But Noah lowered his head.
In a voice barely louder than a whisper, he said:
“Dad told me he’d be back in five minutes.”
Daniel’s smile disappeared.
It was such a simple sentence, yet it carried a kind of pain he didn’t know how to ease.
He couldn’t promise the boy his father would return. He didn’t even know whether the man was alive.
All he could do was place a hand on Noah’s shoulder.
“We’re going to look for him, buddy. We’re not giving up.”
In that moment, Daniel realized that everyone entering the emergency center was carrying a different kind of disaster.
For some people, it was a destroyed home.
For others, it was a family photograph lost beneath the floodwater.
But for a six-year-old boy, the disaster was five minutes that never seemed to end.
Chapter Five: The Road of No Return
HE HAD ONE NIGHT TO SAVE EVERYONE HE LOVED… 💔
