Extra. That Was His Name.

Fifteen years ago. Elena, 6 years old.

Mr. Lee was sitting in his office and reading the morning paper. Suddenly, a loud cry of the girl interrupted him,

"Daddy! Daddy!"

The man jumped from his chair and rushed into the living room.

He and Elena had been together for half a year, and only recently she started calling him a dad. The girl was an unusually intelligent and cheerful child. The only thing that bothered Chen was her night hysterics. But he even managed to get used to them.

Therefore, Chen waited every evening for the girl to fall asleep and erased the numbers from her forearm gently. When Elena woke up from her nightmares and saw that there were no numbers, she calmly fell asleep again.

Chen ran into the room and looked at his daughter, "What is it? What happened?"

"Dad, look, look! This is Daniel!" The girl pointed to the TV set.

The man looked at the screen and froze. The journalist interviewed a smiling couple and their two sons.

This was the Anderson family.

President Lee felt resentment and anger flare up inside him.

"Dad, this is Daniel!" Elena shouted once more joyfully and jabbed a finger at the younger of the brothers.

Chen frowned, but answered to the girl, "Elena, this boy's name is different."

The man did not specify the name of the child, but he knew for sure that Daniel Anderson was the eldest son of William, because he knew him personally. But even if she confused two brothers, how did Elena know what his name was?

"No, Dad, I know for sure that this is Daniel. He promised that he would find me. So now everything will be fine, right?"

Mr. Lee did not know how to answer this question. The girl's face shone with such happiness he had never seen before.

"Well, if he promised...", the man reluctantly agreed with her words.

"Great!" The girl jumped with joy, hugged him tightly and ran into her room.

Chen scratched his head in surprise, turned off the TV and went back to his office.

He did not want to reflect on what had happened since he absolutely did not want to think about the people who were living a happy life, while his family was no longer with him.

He took a deep breath to calm down and went back to reading his newspaper. Maybe that's why he didn't notice that it was after this day that Elena stopped crying at nights. And the numbers completely disappeared from her forearm, like a forgotten dream.

. . .

Twenty-four years ago. Anderson family.

The boy tried to fall asleep, but the cries of his younger brother would not let him rest. He got up from his bed and went into the next room.

His younger brother was laying on a small bed and tossing and turning in his sleep as if someone was tormenting a child in his night dreams.

The kid was making low grunting sounds, so the parents did not hear anything. Only the elder brother could hear him as if all the screams were right in his head.

He leaned over to the child and shook his shoulder, "Daniel! Daniel, wake up!"

The younger brother opened his eyes and rushed into the arms of the older one. "Brother! Brother! I'm scared! Bad men want to offend Lena! They will find me too soon!"

The child did not let up and was bursting with tears in the arms of his elder brother.

David took the kid by the hands and said, "Close your eyes. Let me see what these men are, okay? Maybe they are not so scary?"

The younger brother closed his eyes obediently; David did the same and began to concentrate.

Five minutes later, he unclasped his hands abruptly and pulled his younger brother to him firmly. The whole body of the boy was shaking with fear. He had never seen such a horror.

"David?" The boy looked at his brother with worry.

David tried to calm down and smiled, "Come on, go to bed. I will be there, so no one will offend you."

The little boy nodded his head and lay down. David lay down next to him and took his hand.

"Daniel, I have one idea! You don't want these men to find you, right? Let's fool them?"

"And how?" the younger brother asked in surprise.

"Let's tell them that your name is not Daniel, but David. And I will be Daniel. What do you say?"

A little boy thought for a minute. "But then, will they be looking for you?" He asked and immediately became worried.

"Nuh, don't worry about me! I'm your older brother! I will protect you and myself! After all, I'm already so big and strong!"

Daniel laughed and hugged his brother tightly, "My David is the best!"

"Yeah. Only now call me Daniel, okay?"

The kid happily nodded his head and began to sink into a dream.

David lay beside him and looked at his younger brother. Then he hugged him tightly and whispered,

"Do not be afraid, Daniel. The older brother will do everything to protect you. I won't let anyone hurt you. Never."

The next morning, the boy approached his parents and told everything he saw in Daniel's thoughts.

William and Dina were shocked by what they heard. David told them about his deal with his younger brother.

After long thinking, they decided to follow the advice of their eldest son.

And David was celebrating his next birthday as Daniel Anderson.

And his younger brother officially began to be called David. David Anderson.