I Donated to Burn-Victim Children, Yet I Became the Villain

I donate to a hospital on a regular schedule, paying for treatment for children with burns.

And somehow I'm the one trending, cursed out by the parents.

That donor is a fake do-gooder. If he were really so kind, why won't he just clear all our bills?

If you ask me, he's fishing for a good name. Buying himself a reputation.

"People like him are the most disgusting, sucking blood off kids who are already hurt. It's just a little dirty money to him. If he ended up like one of these kids, he'd"

In my last life this all happened too.

Those righteous-warrior types online, the ones who split the whole world into good and evil, tore into me. They hired a hacker and opened accounts in my name.

They reached out to rival companies and closed in on my family from every side.

I was forced to leave and lie low, but on the way out of the country someone ran me off the road on purpose. The car caught fire. I was badly burned.

And the parent livestreaming her sob story cashed in on a whole wave of new followers off the back of it.

"You reap what you sow."

"Even heaven couldn't stand a petty little con man like that donor."

Those self-appointed champions of justice were like wolves smelling a kill. During my last round of treatment, I couldn't fight off the infection, and I died.

I open my eyes again, and it's the same tired game.

I go straight onto the livestream and connect.

"Money from a scumbag can't heal anyone."

"I wouldn't want to make things even worse for you all."

The comment stream turns on me even harder.

Some say I'm being snide. Some say I'm rich and heartless.

Even my friend thinks the whole crowd is out of their minds, and yet he turns around and lectures me too.

"Just go back to being a rich kid. Playing the good guy isn't worth it."

I let it slide, then picked up the phone and called the head of the cleft-lip-and-palate foundation.

That same day I pulled my funding and redirected it to treatment for kids with cleft lip and palate.

Those people stared at their treatment costs shooting up, dumbstruck.

They went live to apologize, begging me for money.

...

"He's nothing but a con man fishing for a name. Do you really believe he donates out of the goodness of his heart?"

"He just wants the tax write-off. He gives us ten bucks and saves himself tens of thousands."

I tapped into the livestream my friend had shared with me.

Louise Mason. Her name was on the treatment list the doctor gave me.

The patient was her daughter, the one who'd been scalded.

Plenty of parents in the stream were speaking up for me. Mr. Baxter is a good man. My son got his skin graft because of his donation.

The man puts up millions to save people. If you're so capable, then don't use his money for your kid's treatment.

But the comments defending me were washed away in no time by more parents piling in.

The streamer's right. Sure, he gives a lot, but by the time it's split among all of us it's next to nothing.

If he were really a good man, he'd waive all our treatment fees.

All you people sticking up for him, you're not shills he hired, are you?

My friend messaged me, half amused.

"Bro, is this the farmer and the snake or what?"

"You still going to donate that money? If it comes to it, we could just take it and go have some fun."

"Beats helping a pack of ungrateful animals, anyway."

I didn't reply. I just tapped into the live connection.

Louise wiped her tears and gave the camera a gentle little smile.

"Someone's connecting here. Probably one of the parents."

"If it's just me saying it, you might have your doubts, so let's have more people speak up."

The connection went through in a second.

I'd put a voice filter on myself, and I cut straight through her flattery.

"This parent has a point. That donor is nothing but a scumbag."

"I imagine none of you would want to keep using his money for treatment either."

Louise froze, her voice going a little frantic.

"Sir, that's not what I said."

She didn't say another word, but the crowd she'd whipped up kept flooding the comments.

We don't want a scumbag's money.

If you want our kids to keep getting treatment, then he has to settle the rest of our bills too. He wants a good name? Then pay up.

I glanced at the comments and spoke, mild as anything.

"So that's what you all think."

"In that case."

"Then let's just get him to stop donating. As it happens, I have his contact."

"I'll make sure he keeps that dirty money to himself, so it never has to offend you again."

The livestream connection had barely dropped before the hospital called.

It was Bartholomew Gray, the male attending physician I'd been in contact with earliest.

"Mr. Baxter, we all caught the livestream just now."

"That was you on the connection, wasn't it?"

"I don't mean to lecture you, but you're not some green kid fresh out of the gate anymore. Why would you go and get on a live connection with some little influencer?"

"Everyone online is cursing you right now. If someone traces it back and finds you, that's no good for you."

I sat back in my chair, in no hurry at all.

"So I should just sit here and let them pin the blame on me?"

Bartholomew pretended to think it over, then spoke slowly.

"You're letting your temper get the better of you."

"How about this. I'll take the lead and pick out a few of the parents for you, you cover their bills for them. That way it shows your goodwill, and it makes the parents trust you more."

In my last life, he'd said the exact same thing to me.

And what came of it?

I paid off the bills for the few parents who'd made the biggest fuss.

I put their children first. They kicked me into the pit.

Back when I needed my own burns treated, the disinfectant medication I needed was held up by people they'd sent.

My family called Bartholomew. Not a single call went through.

My fingers tapped against the desk, and I let out a scoff.

"Dr. Gray, you've got this backwards."

"The donor has to grovel to the ones benefiting from it? Where does that logic come from?"

"Since your hospital cares so little about my donation that you'd send me a muddled foot soldier like you, then there's nothing I can do."

That afternoon, my assistant, standing beside me, called the hospital director directly.

We cut off this month's treatment donation.

The dressings and equipment I'd quietly thrown in on top for treating burns were cut too.

A parent who'd just finished having their child's wound debrided and dressed took one look at the bill in hand and just froze.

Then slapped the bill down on the nurses' station.

"Have you people gone insane over money? My daughter's wounds used to cost a few dollars to treat."

"Now one visit is over a thousand. Has this hospital lost its mind over money?!"

The nurse wasn't rattled. She set the bill back down on the station.

"Sir, the charges aren't wrong. It was always this much."

"It's just that before, all these supplies were billed to that donor's account. For every single item, he asked to cover ninety percent."

The parent just stood there, stunned.

Louise came over from the crowd to soothe them.

"Jamie, the hospital's obviously in on it with the donor. This is just their trick to force us parents to back down."

"It's only a thousand. The wound doesn't need treating every day anyway. So we spend it, we spend it."

"If he really wants a good name, he'll still have to pay for our kids' treatment."

"And when he does, we'll just make him reimburse the money."

The parent nodded. The nurse recorded everything they said, word for word.

Then sent it to me.

That afternoon, the livestream started up again.

It was Louise again, only this time two parents showed up on the stream too.

"We're begging that donor to let us poor parents go."

"All we want is to treat our children. Our kids are so young. I don't want mine turned into a tool for you to grab fame and money."

"Won't the donor even allow us that much?"

One of the mothers had already started wiping her eyes.

"Is there no justice in this world? Does no one see us, the ones with no power?"

A child wrapped head to toe in gauze glanced at the camera and burrowed, frightened, into their mother's arms.

"Mommy, it hurts."

The viewers were stirred up now, all rushing to ask what had happened.

Louise dabbed at the corners of her eyes and, right on cue, held up the hospital bills.

"Originally our treatment costs were only ten percent of this base amount."

"Ever since the day I told the truth, the fees we parents have to pay went up by ninety percent."

"We're parents of injured kids. We never had any savings to begin with."

"Now the hospital and the donor have joined forces, and we're about to be crushed under it."

Some viewers couldn't watch anymore.

They cursed me in the comments and started sending her donations at the same time.

We support you, we're sending you gifts, we'll get your kid better no matter what.

Ladies, those with money send a gift, those without, boost the post, let's push this stream to the top.

Garbage hospital, I'm going online to warn everyone away.

The gift animations kept flooding the screen.

Louise fought to keep the smile off her lips.

I gave the director a nod.

The next second, the ward door swung open.

Several attending physicians and nurses walked in holding treatment sheets and itemized bills.

They went straight to the livestream camera.

"Regarding these parents' claim that we forged the bills, I'd like to use this camera to set the record straight."

Louise went blank.

She moved to grab the phone, but a single look from the attending physician froze her in place.

"If you've got nothing to hide, you shouldn't need to shut this stream down."

Louise stopped.

Something in her chest turned uneasy.

The doctor laid the two bills, with their different totals, in front of the camera.

"Standard foam dressing, silver-ion antibacterial gauze, hydrocolloid wound patch, burn moisturizing ointment, silver sulfadiazine cream"

"Two sets of prices. See for yourselves."

The viewers erupted.

I know this dressing, the mid-grade medical one runs sixty, and the hospital only charged six.

Silver foam dressing, only thirty-six? Is this hospital running a charity?

And burns aren't a small area, some dressings cost tens of thousands a month, and the hospital only charged a few hundred.

The attending physician stayed calm and even.

"I've seen the comments too, so let me explain. The hospital isn't running a charity. These medical materials were all purchased through proper channels."

"The reason they're lower than at other hospitals is that a donor has covered most of the cost for the patients."

In my last life, other doctors at the hospital had actually spoken up for me too.

There just wasn't enough traffic, and viewers only wanted to believe what they saw.

This time I pinned the truth down at the very peak of the traffic.

Louise's face went stiff.

"You printed the bills yourselves. You could have faked them."

"Who's to say the amounts weren't changed too."

The attending physician's expression turned grave.

"You can insult me. You can smear me."

"But don't smear the character of us doctors."

"If you've got any sense left, you can go to the police and have them investigate, instead of telling lies with nothing to back them up."

I closed the livestream view and glanced at the director.

Then I pushed the check across to her.

"My assistant has already pulled together the list of the parents who came to make trouble that day. Do what you see fit with it."

The conference room door stood half open.

I'd just gone downstairs, about to leave the hospital, when I saw a little girl on the lawn being surrounded and jeered at.

One of the boys, his head wrapped in bandages, went up and snatched her face mask.

With his other hand he tore a fistful of grass from the ground and shoved it toward her mouth.

"Ugly bunnies are supposed to eat grass."

The little girl opened her mouth and cried out in protest. "I'm not a rabbit. I'm just sick."

"You're not sick. My mom says ugly rabbits like you lied in your last life, that's why you got punished."

The assistant glanced at me, then reached out and hauled the boy who'd been bullying her clean off his feet.

The boy shrieked in panic, and the other kids who hadn't been caught scattered.

"Let me go, you're a bad man."

"Waah, I want my mom."

The little girl slowly picked herself up off the ground, walked over to the assistant, and tugged at his sleeve.

"Mister, he's scared now. Can you let him go?"

"He was mean to me, but maybe it's only because I frightened him."

I crouched down to meet her at eye level. She stepped back twice and instinctively covered her mouth with her hand.

But it was already too late. I could clearly see the split in her lip and the teeth showing through.

"Well, since such a sweet little girl asked, I suppose I have no choice but to agree."

The assistant let go.

The boy took off running.

The little girl gave me a small bow and ran off too.

Except the direction she went was the foundation hospital next door, the one set up for cleft lip and palate.

It had even been in the news.

Though it was about to fold now, apparently because it had run out of money.

I turned and started toward the hospital.

"Better than donating to a pack of ingrates. I'll take my money somewhere else."

Bunny Foundation Hospital.

The one who received me was a middle-aged woman.

She stood off to one side of me, rubbing her hands together, a little flustered.

"That gentleman just now said you'd like to donate to treat the children here."

"We have quite a few kids who need treatment. But rest assured, we won't waste a single cent you give us."

The director took out an itemized statement.

Every sum was marked out clearly, where it came from and where it went.

Exactly who had received treatment, all of it carefully recorded.

There were plenty of other parents around with their children, all of them plainly and simply dressed.

They held their children close and murmured their thanks.

"You can treat the more serious cases first. Our child isn't urgent, we can wait our turn."

A few of the kids clung to their father's or mother's clothes.

Softly, timidly, they said thank you to me.

"Thank you, mister."

No pushing, no grabbing, everything in good order, neither servile nor proud.

The assistant had someone look into the foundation's finances.

Every dollar had gone where it mattered most.

Once she saw I'd finished going through it, the director asked quietly,

"Um, may I ask, the amount you're donating"

"Let's start with a million a month. And I'll put you in touch with a cleft lip and palate treatment team, to bring the costs down for you even further."

The director froze, and the next second her eyes filled with tears. She wiped at them over and over with her sleeve.

She wanted to shake my hand, then thought her hands were dirty and hurried outside to wash them.

"Thank you, Mr. Baxter. You've truly saved these children."

"From now on, these kids can finally take off their masks."

The thanks rose from every side, and for a moment they stirred something in me.

Only the next second, the assistant leaned his laptop toward me.

"Someone's spreading rumors online that you bribed the director to falsify the records. There's photo evidence, too."