The first headline appeared at 6:42 a.m.
It wasn't dramatic. It wasn't even accurate.
"UNIDENTIFIED PATIENT MAKES MIRACULOUS RECOVERY AT SAN JOSE HOSPITAL."
By 7:10, there were six more.
By 8:00, the hospital parking lot was full.
News vans lined the curb like vultures that smelled blood before it spilled. Satellite dishes unfolded. Cameras pointed at the glass entrance as if the building itself might confess.
Inside San Jose St. Bonaventure Hospital, calm fractured.
Dr. Lim stood in the administration office, phone pressed to her ear, jaw tight. "No comments. No confirmations. No denials. We are a medical institution, not a press outlet."
She hung up and immediately answered another.
Glassman leaned against the desk, arms crossed. "They know something happened."
"They always do," Lim snapped. "What they don't know is what."
A knock came at the door.
Before Lim could answer, it opened.
Elias Murphy stepped in.
The room quieted.
"You should stay off the floor today," Lim said immediately. "For optics."
Elias tilted his head slightly. "Patients are not optics."
Glassman sighed. "Kid—"
"Doctor," Elias corrected gently.
Glassman closed his eyes. "Doctor. The board is panicking. The media is circling. And someone in Washington is asking questions they shouldn't even know to ask."
Elias nodded. "That was inevitable."
Lim stared at him. "You expected this?"
"Yes."
"And you still did it?"
Elias met her gaze evenly. "I would do it again."
Downstairs, the ER televisions played news coverage on mute.
"…sources claim a previously untreatable condition…"
"…hospital refuses to comment…"
"…medical miracle or dangerous precedent?"
Nurses whispered.
Residents speculated.
Patients stared at Elias when he passed, some with hope, others with fear.
A mother grabbed his sleeve near Pediatrics.
"Are you the one they're talking about?" she asked, voice trembling.
Elias stopped.
"Yes."
"My daughter—she's been sick for years. They say there's nothing else—"
Elias knelt, bringing himself eye level. His golden eyes softened.
"I can help her," he said calmly.
The mother sobbed.
A nurse rushed over. "Dr. Murphy, administration—"
"I'll be there," Elias said. He looked back at the mother. "I promise."
Promises from doctors were dangerous things.
From Elias, they were statements of fact.
By noon, the hospital issued its first official response.
It changed nothing.
Reporters shouted questions at anyone in scrubs.
"Is there a miracle doctor?"
"Are experimental procedures being performed?"
"Is the hospital hiding something?"
Security was doubled.
Glassman cornered Elias in a quiet hallway. "You don't seem bothered."
"I'm not."
"You don't feel pressure?"
"I feel responsibility."
Glassman studied him carefully. "You really believe you can cure everyone who walks through those doors."
"Yes."
"And if the world decides you shouldn't?"
Elias' gaze sharpened—not with anger, but clarity.
"Then the world is wrong."
Shaun watched all of this from a distance.
The noise. The chaos. The attention.
It followed Elias like gravity.
"You are becoming a focal point," Shaun said later, standing beside him in the diagnostics wing. "Focal points attract force."
"Yes."
"That can be dangerous."
Elias looked at his brother. "For me?"
Shaun hesitated. "…No."
Elias smiled faintly. "Exactly."
The board meeting that afternoon was tense.
Lawyers filled the room.
"So let me understand this," one of them said sharply. "An eighteen-year-old doctor performed an unsanctioned procedure on a classified patient, and now the media is calling him a miracle."
"Yes," Lim said.
"And you're letting him continue practicing?"
"Yes," Glassman said.
"That exposes this hospital to unprecedented risk."
Elias spoke for the first time.
"No," he said calmly. "It protects it."
The lawyer scoffed. "You can't guarantee that."
"I can," Elias replied.
The room fell quiet.
"You're asking us to trust you," the lawyer said.
Elias shook his head. "I'm informing you."
Something about his certainty unsettled them more than arrogance ever could.
That evening, a black sedan waited across the street from the hospital.
Inside, a woman watched the building with interest, tablet resting against her knee.
On the screen: medical reports. Legal briefs. Media speculation.
And one name, repeated more than any other.
Dr. Elias Murphy.
She smiled slightly.
"Find out everything," she said calmly.
"Yes, ma'am."
The car pulled away.
Back inside, Elias finished his rounds as if the world weren't watching.
Patients stabilized.
Pain faded.
Charts resolved.
The noise outside grew louder, but inside his operating rooms, there was only focus.
Only healing.
Only certainty.
That night, as the city buzzed with speculation and fear, Elias stood once more by the hospital windows, golden eyes reflecting distant lights.
The world had noticed him.
It would try to define him next.
Elias Murphy didn't intend to let it.
End of Chapter 4