The Hollow Core
The penthouse suite of St. Jude Metropolitan Hospital sat high above the city, insulated by three layers of acoustic glass that turned the stormy skyline into a silent, gray panorama.
Dr. Sarah Linwood held the digital chart, adjusting her spectacles as she reviewed the radiographic scans of Arthur Vance. Beside her, Dr. Robert Sterling, the hospital's chief of orthopedics, frowned at the telemetry logs.
On the motorized therapeutic bed lay Arthur Vance—seventy-two years old, founder of Vance Infrastructure, and a man whose political and financial donations had built half the specialized wings in this facility. He was draped in an expensive navy silk dressing gown, his silver hair neatly combed back. His right leg was encased in a thick, heavy white plaster cast extending from above the knee to his toes, supposedly immobilizing a catastrophic comminuted fracture from a hit-and-run three weeks prior.
The quiet of the suite was broken by a soft, rhythmic patter on the polished marble floor.
Walking in through the unguarded service doorway was an eight-year-old boy. He was barefoot, wearing an oversized, dirt-stained brown button-up shirt and frayed shorts. Smudges of coal dust shadowed his cheeks. In his right hand, he carried a smooth, heavy river stone the size of an apple.
"What are you doing in here?" Arthur barked, his voice carrying the sharp, accustomed authority of a man who commanded thousands. "Security! Where is security?"
The boy didn't stop. He walked straight past the two stunned physicians, stopping at the foot of the bed. His dark brown eyes were ancient with a calm, unblinking clarity.
"Stop!" Arthur shouted, scrambling backward against the pillows.
May you like
With a single, measured motion, the boy brought the heavy stone down onto the center of the plaster cast.
CRACK.
