Still no answer. So we moved to the next house. Same thing. By the fifth house, I was starting to feel stupid, like we were wasting our time knocking on doors that nobody was going to answer.

  "Maybe they're not home," Murin said, but he didn't sound convinced.

  "They're home," I said. I'd seen a curtain move in the window of the last house, just a flicker of movement. Someone was inside, watching us. They just weren't answering.

  We kept going. House after house. Some doors didn't even have a frame to knock on, just an open entryway covered by a piece of cloth hanging from a rope. I called out greetings anyway, trying to sound friendly and non-threatening. Nobody responded.

  At the tenth house, an old woman was sitting outside on a low stool, peeling vegetables. She had a large metal bowl in her lap and a small knife in her hand, and didn't look up when we approached.

  "Hello," I said. "We're from the medical camp at the health center. Is anyone in your family sick? We can do free checkups."

  The old woman finally looked up at us. She stared for a long moment, her expression completely unreadable. Then she turned her head to the side and spat onto the ground, a deliberate gesture of contempt, and went back to peeling her vegetables.

  "Let's go," Murin said quietly.

  We walked away from that house and kept moving. More houses. More closed doors. More silence. At the fifteenth house, a middle-aged man came out when we knocked. He stood in the doorway, arms crossed, and when I started to introduce myself and explain why we were there, he cut me off.

  "We don't need doctors," he said. His voice wasn't angry, just flat. "We have healers here. They take care of us."

  "But if anyone is sick—" I started.

  "We don't need doctors," he repeated. Then he went back inside and shut the door in our faces.

  "God," Murin muttered.

  "Come on," I said. "Let's keep going."

  We did. House after house after house. It was exhausting, both physically and mentally. My throat was getting dry from talking, and my feet hurt from walking on the uneven ground.

  At the twentieth house, a woman answered. She was maybe in her late twenties, with dark circles under her eyes that suggested she wasn't sleeping well.

  "Hello," I said, keeping my voice gentle. "We're from the medical camp at the health center. We're offering free medical checkups. Is anyone in your family sick?"

  The woman didn't answer immediately. Her eyes moving from my face to Murin's, then down to the medical kit I was carrying, then back up. "How much does it cost?" she asked finally. Her voice was hoarse, like she'd been crying or hadn't had water in a while.

  "Nothing," I said. "It's completely free. The government is sponsoring this camp. We're here to help people who need medical care."

  "Nothing's free," she said, but there wasn't any anger in her voice. Just a tired certainty, like she'd learned this lesson too many times.

  "This is," Murin said. He pulled out his student ID card and held it up so she could see the university logo. "We're students. We're here to learn, and to help. No charge. No payment required."

  The woman stared at the ID for a moment, and I saw something in her expression shift. Not trust, exactly. But maybe the beginning of it. Or maybe just the realization that she didn't have any other options left.

  "My mother," she said quietly. "She's been sick for a long time. She can't walk anymore. She can't eat and barely speaks. We've tried everything, but nothing helps."

  "Can we see her?" I asked.

  The woman hesitated, then nodded. She stepped back from the doorway, opening it wider. "Come in."

  We followed her inside. The house was small—one main room that served as living area, kitchen, and sleeping space all at once, with a smaller back room visible through a curtain made from an old bed sheet. A wooden table with two chairs. A couple of thin mattresses rolled up against the wall. And in the back room, visible through the gap in the curtain, I could see a bed. And on it, barely visible in the dim light, was a shape under a blanket.

  "She's in there," the woman said, gesturing toward the back room. "She hasn't gotten out of bed in... I don't know. Four months? Five? I've lost track."

  I walked toward the back room, Murin right behind me. The woman followed us, wringing her hands together in a nervous gesture. I pushed the curtain aside and stepped into the back room.

  The old woman on the bed was tiny. Her skin hung loose on her bones, gray and papery, and her eyes were sunken deep into her skull. Her hair was white and thin, spread out on the pillow around her head. She was lying on her back, completely still.

  I moved closer to the bed, setting the medical kit down on the floor. "Hello," I said softly. "My name is Ashrahan. I'm a medical student. I'm here to help if I can."

  The old woman's eyes moved toward me. Just the eyes—nothing else moved. She didn't turn her head or lift a hand, or speak. But her eyes tracked me as I approached the bed, and I could see awareness there. She was conscious.

  "Can she speak?" I asked the daughter, who was standing in the doorway behind us.

  "Sometimes," the daughter said. "But not much. And when she does, it doesn't make sense. She says words that don't go together."

  I nodded and turned back to the old woman. "I'm going to examine you, okay? I need to check your pulse, listen to your heart and lungs, feel your abdomen. I'll be as gentle as I can."

  No response. Just those eyes, watching me. I reached out and took her wrist, feeling for a pulse. It was there, but weak and thready, that suggested poor circulation or low blood pressure or both. Her skin was cold to the touch despite the blanket covering her.

  I pulled out my stethoscope and warmed the diaphragm between my hands before placing it on her chest. Her heartbeat was irregular, skipping beats, and her lungs sounded congested, fluid pooling in the bases because she'd been lying flat for so long.

  "How long has she been like this?" I asked the daughter.

  "It started maybe... eight months ago? At first it was just tiredness. She'd get exhausted doing normal things. Then she started having trouble walking. Her legs would give out. Then she couldn't walk at all. And then..." The daughter's voice wavered. "Then she just got worse and worse. She stopped eating. Stopped talking. We've been giving her water and trying to feed her soup, but she can barely swallow."

  I pulled the blanket down to her waist and started palpating her abdomen. It was distended, hard in some places and soft in others. Her liver felt enlarged when I pressed on the right upper quadrant, and there was fluid in her abdomen—ascites, a buildup that suggested organ failure. I activated the system.

  I straightened up and looked at the daughter. "You said you've been giving her medicine. What kind of medicine? Can you show me?"

  The daughter nodded quickly and disappeared from the doorway. I could hear her moving things around in the main room, opening drawers or boxes. A minute later she came back carrying a cloth bag.

  She opened it and dumped the contents onto the foot of the bed. Packets. Dozens of small paper packets, each one folded carefully and tied with string. Some were empty, some were half-full of powder or dried leaves or things I couldn't identify. There were also a few small glass bottles with handwritten labels, the ink smudged and hard to read.

  "The healer has been giving us these," the daughter said. "He said they would make her stronger. That she had a weak constitution and these would fix it. We've been giving them to her every day, sometimes twice a day, for months."

  I picked up one of the packets and opened it carefully. Inside was a grayish-white powder that looked like nothing I'd seen in any legitimate pharmacy. It didn't smell like any herb I recognized. I picked up another packet. This one had dried leaves that might have been medicinal plants, but they were mixed with some small, dark crystals that looked like they could be anything from mineral supplements to industrial waste.

  "How much did these cost?" Murin asked quietly.

  "Everything we had," the daughter said. "We sold our goat. We borrowed money from neighbors. We've been eating once a day so we could afford the medicine. The healer said it was the only thing that would save her."

  I looked back at the old woman on the bed. Her eyes were still open and watching me. And for the first time I noticed that when I looked directly at her, her right hand, the one closer to me–moved. Just a tiny bit. The fingers twitched, then curled slightly, like she was trying to make a fist but didn't have the strength.

  "Can you move your hand?" I asked her directly.

  The hand moved again. The fingers curled and uncurled, a weak but unmistakable gesture.

  "Can you understand what I'm saying?"

  The hand moved again, and this time I realized what she was doing. She was trying to squeeze. Like she was responding to my question, saying yes in the only way she could.

  She'd been conscious this whole time. Trapped in a body that was systematically failing, unable to speak or move or do anything except lie there and experience it. Aware of everything happening to her. Aware of her daughter spending all their money on fake medicine that was probably making her worse. Aware that she was dying and couldn't do anything to stop it.

  I looked at Murin. He'd gone pale, and I could tell he'd realized the same thing I had.

  I turned back to the daughter. "These medicines," I said, picking up the bag and the scattered packets. "I need to take these with us. We need to have them tested to see what's in them. But I can tell you right now, they're not helping your mother. They're hurting her. They might be the reason she's in this condition."

  The daughter stared at me. "What?"

  "These aren't real medicines," I said, trying to keep my voice steady and calm even though I was furious. "I don't know what they are—industrial chemicals, contaminated herbs, cheap substitutes mixed with God knows what, but they're toxic. They've damaged your mother's liver and kidneys and nervous system. That's why she can't walk, can't speak, can't eat. Her organs are failing because she's being poisoned."

  "But the healer said—"

  "The healer lied," I said, and there was an edge to my voice now that I couldn't quite control. "He sold you fake medicine and took all your money and let your mother suffer. And I don't know if she's going to recover. The damage might be permanent."

  The daughter's face crumpled, and then she was crying, hands covering her face, shoulders shaking. I didn't know what to say. There was no comfort I could offer. Her mother was dying. They'd spent everything they had on medicine that had made it worse. And I couldn't promise it would get better because I didn't know if it would.

  The old woman's hand moved again. This time it moved toward me, fingers stretching out like she was reaching for something. I took her hand. So light, nothing but bone and skin, and held it gently.

  "We'll do what we can," I said to her. "I promise we'll try."

  Her fingers squeezed mine. Barely any pressure, but enough. "We need to get her to the health center," I said to the daughter, who was still crying. "We can't treat her here. She needs IV fluids, supportive care, monitoring. And we need to stop giving her these medicines immediately."

  The daughter wiped her eyes with the back of her hand. "She can't walk. I can't carry her. And we don't have money for—"

  "We'll carry her," Murin interrupted. "And it's free. I already told you, everything is free."

  "We'll need help," I said, looking at him. "She's small, but we can't carry her all the way back to the health center on our own. Can you run ahead and get Dr. Voss? Bring a stretcher if we have one, or get a couple of the other students to help."

  Murin nodded and took off, moving quickly out of the house and back toward the health center.

  I stayed with the old woman and her daughter. I packed up all the medicine packets and bottles into the cloth bag, making sure I got every single one. Evidence, and also to make sure the daughter didn't keep using them.

  "What's your name?" I asked the daughter.

  "Vera," she said.

  "And your mother?"

  "Katya."

  "Okay, Vera. We're going to take Katya to the health center. The doctors there will take care of her. They'll give her fluids and medicine to help her organs recover if they can. But I need you to understand something." I paused, making sure she was looking at me. "She might not get better. The damage might be too severe. We'll do everything we can, but you need to be prepared for that."

  Vera nodded, fresh tears running down her face. "I understand."

  "And I need you to tell me—did the healer who sold you these medicines, does he live in the village?"

  "Yes. His name is Boris. He has a shop near the market. He's been here for years. Everyone goes to him."

  "And everyone trusts him."

  "Yes."

  Of course they did. That's how these things worked. Build trust over time, offer cheap solutions to desperate people, and by the time anyone realizes it's not working, they've already spent everything and it's too late.

  I heard footsteps outside. Murin was back, and he'd brought help—two of the fourth-year students and one of the interns, carrying a stretcher between them. Dr. Voss was right behind them, moving quickly despite the uneven ground.

  She came into the house, took one look at Katya on the bed, and her expression hardened. "Multi-organ failure," she said. Not a question. A diagnosis.

  "Yes," I said. "I think it's chronic toxicity from adulterated traditional medicines. The family has been giving her these." I held up the cloth bag.

  Dr. Voss took it from me and looked inside. "Oh no!" she muttered. She pulled out one of the packets, opened it, and smelled the powder inside. "This isn't medicine. This is poison. How long has she been taking it?"

  "Eight months," I said. "Maybe longer."

  Dr. Voss closed her eyes briefly, like she was trying to control her anger. Then she opened them and looked at the students with the stretcher. "Get her on it. Gently. Support her head and neck. We don't know what kind of neurological damage there is."

  They moved Katya from the bed to the stretcher, lifting her carefully and laying her down. She weighed almost nothing. I could see her ribs through her thin nightgown, every bone in her chest visible.

  Vera hovered nearby, wringing her hands. "Can I come with her?"

  "Yes," Dr. Voss said. "You should. We'll need more history, and she'll be more comfortable if you're there."

  We started walking back toward the health center, the stretcher carried between the four students, Dr. Voss walking beside it, Vera following close behind. I walked next to Murin, carrying the cloth bag full of fake medicines.

  People watched us as we passed. Doors opened. Conversations stopped. I could feel the weight of their attention, and it wasn't friendly. We were outsiders, and we were taking one of theirs, and they didn't trust us. And then, as we reached the edge of the market area, the path was blocked.

  Six men stood in front of us. They weren't doing anything threatening—just standing there, arms crossed, forming a human barrier across the path. They were all dressed better than most people in the village. And in the center, the man I'd seen earlier. He was smiling that same predator's smile.

  "Where are you taking her?" he asked. His voice was calm, pleasant even. But there was something underneath it that made my skin crawl.