The nurse stormed into the office, voice cracking with fury as she accused the doctor of cruelty. How could he tell an elderly woman she was pregnant? The question trembled between them, but he stayed calm, pen scratching across paper, and asked only one thing: “Is she still hiccuping?” The realization hit like a second shock. His lie hadn’t been diagnosis; it had been treatment.

He’d gambled her fear against her suffering, betting that terror would jolt her body out of its relentless spasms. It worked. The hiccups that had tormented her were gone, snapped away by a single, impossible sentence. The nurse’s anger faded into uneasy understanding. Medicine wasn’t always gentle, and this cure had teeth. Between ethics and effectiveness, he’d walked a razor’s edge, leaving everyone to wonder where compassion truly ends and desperation quietly begins.