Rain pounded on the rooftops, and the wind tore at the branches as if it wanted to rip the village out by its roots. The night was so dark it felt like darkness itself had fallen to the earth. In the roar of thunder and the screech of the wind, a small boy named Timofey was running barefoot along a water-flooded road. He was only eight years old. His face was scarred from a fire, his eyes wide, full of fear and tears. But in his arms he held the most precious thing he had — a tiny bundle, a tiny life — his newborn baby sister.
The house had collapsed less than an hour earlier. Thunder, a lightning strike, and the roof burst into flames like a torch. His mother had just managed to scream:
— “Tima, run! To the hospital! Just take her, do you hear?!”
And then the ceiling came crashing down, and her voice disappeared.
Tima stood among the flames, his feet burning, choking on smoke — but he never even thought of letting go of his sister. He ran outside, into the rain, where the wind immediately swept the last warm tears from his face. He had no shoes, not even a jacket. Only an old blanket wrapped around the baby — and the hope that at the hospital, on the other side of the village, someone could help her.
The road had turned into a river. Water lashed against his legs, mud swallowed his feet, but he kept going. Every step sent pain shooting through him — his feet were raw, his knees bleeding. He fell, got up, fell again, holding his sister tightly to his chest. She was barely breathing. Her tiny face was pale, and Tima whispered:
— “Hold on… please, hold on…”
When a light flickered in the distance — the hospital — he thought he was hallucinating. But it was real. Light! He gathered his last strength and ran, stumbling and slipping in the mud.
— “Help!” he cried, but the wind carried his voice away.
He pounded his fists on the glass doors until a nurse rushed out from inside.
— “Oh my God — a child!” she cried, grabbing him and wrapping the baby in a dry towel. — “What happened? Where are your parents?”
Tima tried to answer… but only his lips trembled. He collapsed right there at the door.
He woke up in the morning — in a hospital bed, under a white blanket. Sunlight filtered through the curtains, and for the first time all night, it was quiet. The same nurse was sitting beside him.
— “You’re awake, hero,” she smiled. — “Your sister is alive. The doctors said if you had come even ten minutes later…”
She didn’t finish. She just squeezed his hand.
Tima turned to the window. Outside, there were still puddles and traces of the storm. But above the hospital, a rainbow was rising.
Years passed.
On the wall of that same hospital now hung a photograph — a boy with bandaged hands holding a baby in a blanket. Beneath it was a plaque:
“Timofey Selin. 8 years old. Saved his sister on the night of the great storm.”
Everyone who walked by would stop and stare. And one day, many years later, a young woman in a white lab coat — a neonatologist — stood before the photo. She looked at it for a long time, then quietly said:
— “Thank you, big brother…”
She touched the glass with her fingertips and smiled.
In the hallway, the light flickered softly — as if someone above had just winked at her.
