While our female community mingled and lifted each other's spirits, Dad quietly and slowly left the room. I followed suit. Perhaps, like me, it was too painful for him to watch all this and understand where it was all leading.

There was no one in the corridor except for the grumpy nurse, but my father's face often wore an intimidating expression, seemingly saying, "Don't approach me, or I'll rape you," and the latter was clearly not something she desired. So, even though she was about to say something, she turned away and didn't utter a word.

"The medication doesn't help her," he exhaled when we stepped outside. Apparently, he needed to vent to someone, explain the situation. "It seemed like the disease was retreating, but then it takes over again. They prescribed her new pills, as if they can solve the problem."

"Even more expensive and stronger?"

"Right."

But could it have been otherwise? I've never heard of anyone prescribing weaker drugs to replace stronger ones.

"But why not immediately give her the strongest ones?"

"Ah, the strongest ones. Have you seen their prices, huh?" He glanced at me with a bitter smile.

All it took was a look into his eyes to understand what he was feeling. Despair. It was literally shining in his eyes. And even though he never showed it, never spoke about it, and generally did not let on, I saw now how far he'd been pushed.

He understood everything. He'd understood from the very beginning, but he held out hope for a victory until the very end.

And he still hopes. But only after his words did I understand how he felt watching all this and knowing that our Nataliel would be gone in a few months. And the endurance and willpower my mother must have to know this, yet continue to smile at her daughter, who only has a few months left, I didn't even try to imagine. I simply couldn't understand what it cost her.

"Can we afford the new ones they prescribed her?" We were an open family. Our financial situation was no longer a secret to any of us. It was enough to just look at where we worked.

"If we tighten our belts, we can. But... everything will be fine," he exhaled and patted me on the shoulder. "Everything will be fine."

He didn't believe in what he was saying. I could feel it in his voice.

"And... how much does the new drug cost?" Not that I was so eager to know the price; I just decided to understand right away how bad it all was.

"A thousand," he said, and, predicting my next question, added, "And the strongest one is about five per pack."

"Well... It's expensive, of course, but..." I began.

"One pack a week," my father cheered me with great news, and I understood why we wouldn't be able to afford the strongest medicine. "Did you think I hadn't thought about that?"

"Just... every week?"

He just nodded.

An unpleasant silence hung in the corridor.

Five grand each week. Five grand... That's my father's entire salary and one-third of my mother's. You could say that after this we'll have to do more than just tighten our belts. But every week... Our family was already on its last financial breath, but now it was clear where our fight for my sister would end.

It all came down to money in the end. Just ordinary pieces of paper that some people had in abundance. If they would spend just a little on my sister, they wouldn't even notice the loss. And we needed, by their standards, not that much...

I don't know what he was thinking at that moment, but my thoughts involuntarily revolved around the conversation I had with Alex in the morning. No matter how hard I tried to shake them off, I couldn't get the sum he mentioned out of my head. Yes, it was a one-time handout, but it could be helpful now. Any chance, any opportunity to tip the victory in our favor, had to be used. Besides, I wasn't asked to do the job. All I needed to do was show up, open some safe, and that's it.

Yes, I should have ignored him and refused...

If it wasn't for my need for money. Because the temptation now was stronger than ever. I could give a damn about myself, but there were things I was ready to go to great lengths for. Really, great lengths.

Besides, a quiet inner voice was tormenting my mind: What will happen after one time? Just once, and I can still refuse. If something is illegal or dangerous - I'll say no. Even if it's illegal, I'll break the law once, and it won't make things worse, right? So many people break the law every day, so what? And besides, who said the safe was stolen?

No one said it. Like no one said it was illegal. I don't know anything, I don't hear anything, I'll just open the safe, and that's it. They asked me, I did it. Tying me to them will be difficult.

Yes, I could justify my decision. I could come up with a thousand arguments to prove that I can do it, and it would be right. But the irony is that I knew the truth perfectly well. And I understood that every beginner criminal starts with these words - it's just a small job, no one will care.

And yet...

Money.

Even my sister, who could have long found a husband and moved away from us, was working her fingers to the bone for our family, like a damned, spending her money on her twin's treatment. And refusing easy cash, for which, in principle, I don't even have to break the law, would be sacrilege. I don't know anything about the safe - I'll just open it, no more.

In any other situation, I wouldn't even consider such an option, but now it was about my sister. The one who took care of me for many years. She was practically one of my mothers who raised me and for whom I was ready to do almost anything.

"Pa," I called out. "If you had the chance to save my sister, but it meant doing something wrong, what would you choose?"

A stupid question, but at that moment, I needed some kind of support. I was scared. I didn't want to get involved in this, knowing what it could turn into, but I didn't see any other way out. I couldn't resist the temptation to earn easy money.

He glared at me grimly.

"You know what I think about this."

"Yes, but... would you do anything for your family?"

"Yes," he replied without hesitation. "I would do anything for my family because, in the end, it's the most important thing in life. And if necessary, you have to do everything in your power for it."

The narrative has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the infringement.

I have to do everything in my power.

I could earn a little money. For my sister, a dear person to me, who was fading before my eyes and whose voice I might not hear the next time. Perhaps it was even fate, an opportunity given from above, for me to improve the situation slightly.

Half an hour later, as I was leaving the hospital, I dialed Alex's number. The phone shook in my trembling hands, and I felt like I was stepping onto the treacherous ground. I couldn't even get his name right the first time, accidentally starting to dial the class representative and then my Mom. After visiting the hospital, his cheerful tone was more irritating than ever, but I managed to keep my cool.

"Hello, hi Rud, what's up?" his voice vibrated through the phone.

"Yes, hello..." I stumbled a bit. Despite my confidence, my heart skipped a beat as if I were about to take the most important exam of my life. From the tension, my voice unexpectedly squeaked, "I'm... regarding your offer. Is it still valid?"

I could practically see Alex grinning on the other end of the line.

"I was starting to fear it wasn't going to work out for us. So yes, it's still valid!"

I had the feeling that I was voluntarily putting my head in a bear trap.

Could I trust Alex?

I could say yes, I could. I would trust him with my back if necessary. I was not one of those cynics who don't believe in friendship and loyalty, who think that everyone can betray. I was just convinced that not everyone is capable of keeping their word. For that, your friend must be a real idealist who sincerely considers loyalty paramount.

Throughout our friendship, Alex never gave me a reason to doubt him and never set me up.

And we met in an interesting and unusual way. It was a similar situation to the one he was dragging me into now. He and his friends in fourth grade were trying to crack a safe.

It was an old, bulky, and very heavy safe with a mechanical combination lock, which could be used for various purposes - to store documents, to punish misbehaving students, to punish misbehaving teachers, to hide during a nuclear war, or simply as a table to put something on.

The teachers apparently used it for the first and last option, though Alex still claimed to have witnessed a crying child being locked in there.

Back to the story, Alex and three of his friends wanted to crack open this safe to get the answers for a future test, which would decide whether they would progress to the next grade or not. At that time, it was a super important and responsible task they had to complete at any cost, on which their lives and the integrity of the skin on their backsides depended.

Had I been a little older, I would have refused this venture, but at that moment, for me, cracking the safe seemed like an adventure. I didn't realize the danger and consequences, taking everything as a risky experience, from which I was sure to come out victorious. I still remember that excitement and having cold feet, as if I was about to unravel all the secrets of the world. And it was also a kind of challenge to my knowledge and abilities, which I acquired from books.

So, seeing their unsuccessful attempts to break into the office after classes, I volunteered to help. I had experience in picking locks, so eventually, we got inside. However, it wasn't as easy with the safe, even though I managed to open it. Its age played a role here - the dial was so old and battered that I could clearly hear the clicks and slight resistance when I turned the needed number. Apparently, no one even suspected that students would be cracking the teachers' safe for answers.

You could say that I started my criminal activity at the age of nine, long before this moment.

I kept pulling off this trick until the end of primary school, helping Alex and his friends somehow move from one grade to another. And so until middle school, when we moved to another school building. But there was a hitch there, as the safe was no longer mechanical but electronic. And even though I had been quite successful at picking door locks by that time, I ran into problems with electronics.

Not for long.

A few guides on the internet, a few directions from professionals, and safe manuals to understand what model it was, and voila - I was cracking electronic safes as well. And it wasn't about my genius or predisposition to it. It's just that the safes themselves were unreliable, poorly protected, and much smarter people than me already knew how to crack them. Had there been a real quality safe, we probably wouldn't have been able to do anything.

So, I helped him in middle school as much as I could. Until high school, where he started to handle his responsibilities on his own. No, not cracking safes, but studying. The last time I helped him was when he moved from middle to high school - from eighth to ninth grade. But to the tenth, he moved on his own, without any hacking and cheating, as if he had pulled himself together.

Apparently, he found a new use for my skills, and all I could do was hope it wouldn't backfire on me. In the end, easy money and my sister's life were at stake. I sincerely believed then that this could improve our family situation somehow. If anything, I really didn't know anything.

It was not much of a reassurance, but I even managed to believe myself for a moment.

By the evening, I arrived by bus to some outskirts, where concrete factories used to be located. They were closed many years ago, but the empty workshops and old pipes still towered behind many less-than-presentable five-story buildings.

I'd never had to come here before, but from my father's stories, I knew it was one of the most crime-ridden places in our city. Every city has such, and ours was no exception.

Yes, indeed, the surroundings said as much. As if signaling to everyone where you've ended up, the neighborhood set the tone. The houses were gray and nondescript, the roads were patchy, and there was a sort of facelessness all around. Although the roadsides were clean, a step to the side revealed cigarette butts, plastic bags, and other small trash on the trampled lawns. At least there were no piles of garbage in sight.

I saw people who seemed to be in a hurry to get off the streets. Walking down the sidewalk and peering into the yards, I immediately saw groups of not-so-friendly guys who could easily ask you to gift them your phone as a passage fee.

However, to be honest, this area didn't look as scary and criminal as my Dad described it. Yes, it was a bit gray and not very welcoming, but certainly not a South American ghetto where you could just get shot for nothing. It wasn't much different from where we lived now, although our neighborhood had small private houses that looked like boxes, while here there were five-story buildings. You just shouldn't do anything that could attract too much attention to you.

After walking through the yards, slogging through the mud on the road where there was no asphalt, I came out to an inner courtyard, even more rundown than those I had seen before. If it looked somewhat decent from the outside, inside, where the tenements formed a box, it was like a human pigsty.

What was once a large lawn in the center had become a swamp, and all the mud literally flooded the area, leaving only small asphalt paths along the houses. Cars were parked here, filling everything. The walls of the buildings had peeled down to the brick, which was already crumbling.

But as soon as I reached the entrance, I experienced the full spectrum of fear. My heart, which had been beating calmly until now, started racing so fast that my temples pounded, and I could feel the beats almost in my throat. My stomach twisted as if from spasms, and my teeth itched terribly - I wanted to chew on something to alleviate these feelings somehow. I'm not even talking about my trembling hands. I felt like there was so much blood rushing to my head from the excitement that I was about to faint.

Gathering my wits about me, I stepped inside.

Soon, I was to lay my eyes on what I was destined to crack. I had even watched a few videos on the internet and read articles on the topic to refresh my memory and learn something new. Plus, I brought along a few tools that I used back in school. But this was akin to a quick review of question answers before exams.

I just need to open the safe, grab the money, and leave. Just open the safe, grab the money, and leave. Safe and leave, safe and leave...

I repeated these words to myself like a mantra, ascending an incredibly clean staircase. It was clear that people took more care of it than of the street.

At least the walls here weren't covered in graffiti, just a bit flaky.

Reaching the right floor, I stopped in front of a door with my heart pounding loudly. The combination of climbing the staircase and the intense anxiety, as if before an exam, was taking its toll. It felt like my blood would burst from all the seams due to such pressure. My face was burning up. I tried to convince myself that if things didn't work out, I could just turn around and leave, that it wasn't the end of the world, but it didn't help much. Neither did the prayer in my head, which kept spinning like a broken record.

Taking a deep breath and holding it, I slowly exhaled and gently knocked on the door with my trembling hand.

I froze. Listened.

After waiting a minute, I knocked again and froze once more.

This time, footsteps and some rustling could be heard on the other side of the door, and after a dozen or so seconds, the door in front of me opened.

"E-eh... um... well..." I had to exhale just to gather my thoughts and regain my ability to speak, lost due to the nervousness. "Good day."

In front of me stood a girl. An ordinary girl with overly predatory features, long light-pink hair, and a vertical scar running across her right eye. She looked pleasant, even despite the scar, slightly shorter than me. A solid average in terms of beauty, but her sharp features immediately put me off.

Her eyes were filled with unabashed aggression and challenge. She looked as if she was already annoyed by the fact that she had to open the door. An appropriate description for her appearance spun in my head - a bitch.

She looked me over with a particular disdain.

"So? What'd you forget here?"