Victorino had been rushed to the emergency room mere minutes after the attack. Thanks to the doctors' swiftness, the bullets stole nothing from him but time and blood; they operated without complications and kept him admitted for observation. His only complaint—voiced with the tone of someone protesting the weather rather than someone who had just nearly died—was that the hospital staff wouldn't let him smoke.
And so, he spent the first few hours lying in bed, his body bandaged but his spirit intact, listening to the radio with a mixture of boredom and resignation. It was inevitable: the assassination attempt had become world news before the day was out. The Seven Republics were talking about it. The radios did nothing but repeat his name, his age, his trajectory, his condition, his wounds, his "miraculous survival." Victorino heard himself described in the voices of strangers more times than he could tolerate.
When one of the stations revealed the name of the hospital, the old man furrowed his brow. Barely a minute later, he heard the murmur of voices outside, rising like an unstoppable tide. Human voices, shouts, engines, cameras. He sat up with a long sigh—one of those that meant oh, please, not now—and walked to the window.
He saw it: a compact crowd surrounding the hospital. Thousands of people with signs, journalists climbing the fences, cameramen, onlookers, supporters. Some were praying. Others shouted his name. The police formed an improvised cordon, shoving back the boldest among them with their forearms, unable to truly contain the fervor.
"This is an opportunity, of course," Victorino murmured, resting his forehead against the cold glass. "But it isn’t what I wanted."
He pulled away, returned to bed, and turned up the volume on the radio to drown out the roar from outside.
The hours marched on with the slow cadence of a hospital. The smell of disinfectant, the white lights, the rhythmic beeping of machines, the harsh pulse of the building itself. And then, the door opened without much ceremony.
"Fausto?"
The young man looked at him for barely a second before throwing himself into a hug. Victorino tensed; he wasn't accustomed to that kind of affection, but he reciprocated begrudgingly, patting the young man’s back with a few clumsy taps.
"Eh, yes... I’m fine, I’m fine."
"What happened?" Fausto asked, his voice cracking with anguish.
"Some nutjob shot me," Victorino replied, as if discussing the weather.
"How are you now?"
"I’m fine. It’s not the first time I’ve been shot."
Fausto’s eyes widened. "What?"
"I’ve had a very active life," the old man said, shrugging his shoulders.
"And what are you going to do now?"
"Nothing has changed. The campaign continues."
"Are you crazy? What if he comes back?"
"Let him come back," Victorino answered with a lopsided smile. "If I learned anything from you, it is that one does not surrender to adversity. If a young man like you could stand in the heart of the revolution, with the danger of being killed, what example would I be setting?"
Fausto shook his head. "It’s not the same. I was lucky. Don’t tempt yours."
"I appreciate your concern, Fausto. But politics is my most lethal weapon... and this," he pointed to the window, to the crowd, to the history being written without him, "gives me a massive opportunity. I’m going to use it."
Fausto smiled wearily. "You’re stubborn."
"We both are: a stubborn youth and a stubborn old man."
They spent a good while talking, loose words about nothing and everything, as if both were trying to stretch the moment to forget what had happened.
Over time, others arrived: Karen, the President of the Seven Republics, serious and genuinely concerned; a few family members; old comrades; political figures like Rivas; even adversaries like Harrington, who shook his hand with a solemn respect that Victorino appreciated.
A day after the attack, the entire country was ablaze with speeches.
Karen spoke the following day in the central plaza, where thousands had gathered without any formal summons. The air was charged with electricity and murmurs; flags waved by trembling hands; improvised signs written in thick marker: Victorino Lives, They Won’t Silence Us, No More Political Violence. When she took the podium, the murmur died out as if someone had flipped a switch.
Karen took a deep breath before speaking. Her voice rang out clear, modulated, yet tempered by an indignation she did not hide.
"Yesterday, they tried to silence a man who dedicated his life to speaking for us. Yesterday, someone wanted to quiet a gentleman, one of the precursors of the presidency, who has carried more history on his back than those who tried to kill him could ever comprehend. Yesterday, they shot at all of us... and they missed. They didn't miss due to aim; they missed because this country is not governed by bullets, but by convictions."
The plaza roared. Some wept; others raised their fists.
Karen continued, now pointing toward the hospital visible in the distance, between the buildings.
"Erick Victorino is not a martyr, nor an empty symbol. He is alive. He is conscious. And he remains determined to fight for this nation. What kind of monster tries to kill another in such a way? What kind of cowardice hides behind a shot in the back?"
The applause was so intense that the pigeons in the plaza took flight in disorder.
"Today, more than ever, we must be united. We will not allow fear to dictate our future. And let it be clear: those who wish to destroy our democracy will find a wall formed by millions. A wall that will not retreat. For a nation of equals and opportunities."
Fausto, for his part, did not speak in plazas but in front of the press microphones that surrounded him at the hospital exit. Lights, cameras, and a rain of questions. But he raised a hand, trembling with rage, and his voice exploded:
"A coward! That is what that man is. A coward who shot at an elderly gentleman. Are they so afraid of him that they used the most cowardly resource to silence him? A man who carried no weapons other than words. You want to know what I feel? I feel disgust. I feel fury. And I feel more determination than I had yesterday."
The reporters fell silent. The young man breathed heavily.
"Erick is stronger than a bullet. And stronger than all the fanatics put together. I dare say he is stronger than me. Yesterday, that man wanted to kill my mentor, but he killed nothing: he stoked a flame. And if he thinks he is going to intimidate us, he has the wrong country and the wrong generation."
One of the newspapers would headline the next day: “The Gabrielist Bile: Fausto sets the nation on fire with his most visceral speech.”
The aggressor was identified before noon: Silvio Darte, forty-seven years old, ex-military with a clean record but a sickly faith in the radicalized ideas of Andrés Reccson. After the fall of his leader, many followers scattered; Darte, however, hid, isolated himself, and rotted slowly in his own fantasies of struggle and sacrifice.
They detained him without resistance. Not a word. Not an explanation. Only that lost and unbreakable stare that so unsettled the guards, as if he were convinced he had performed a heroic act.
He awaited trial for attempted homicide and magnicide.
Meanwhile, the entire country boiled.
Radios repeated every detail. Some voices sounded tremulous, others indignant, and others—the minority—asked for calm in a tone that actually betrayed fear.
Newspapers published extra editions, distributed by paperboys running and shouting: "Attack on Victorino! New issue! New details!"
In cafés, the foam on the coffee went cold while customers argued. "To try and kill him like that... it’s a message," said a man in a suit, rapping the table with his knuckles. "A message from whom?" asked a woman. "From loose fanatics? Or from someone who wants to burn this down?" "And what if there are more like this Darte guy? Are the military really behind this?" whispered another, looking toward the window as if expecting a stranger to pull a gun at any moment.
In the bars, the conversation was cruder. "That old man is hard to kill, and that’s coming from someone who didn't vote for him," laughed a drunk, clinking his glass. "It isn't funny," replied a young man with a clenched jaw. "This kind of thing doesn't go without consequences. Something is going to happen."
In the plazas, people gathered without needing to be called. A young man held a lit candle and repeated: "Let no more blood be spilled, please..." A group of youths painted an improvised mural on a wall: Victorino does not fade. In schools, teachers improvised dialogues to calm the students. In public transport, the news generated uncomfortable silences between strangers who would never have spoken to each other before. In homes, families ate dinner with the radio on, as if turning it off were a form of surrender.
Something profound had shifted. Something no one could ignore anymore. For better or worse, the country had crossed a threshold.
Days passed, and the country lived in a strange, expectant silence. Victorino did not appear on the radio, gave no interviews, wrote no columns. Analysts speculated, journalists grew impatient, and the streets murmured his name as if it were an omen.
Until, one morning, the government confirmed a public event: Victorino would speak at the plaza of the Government House.
The news exploded like gunpowder in a dry wind.
Thousands attended. Some out of hope, others out of nostalgia, others because they sensed, without knowing how to explain it, that they were about to witness a moment that would be etched into history books.
Politicians of all stripes mixed into the crowd, trying not to draw too much attention. Governors, senators, old colleagues, and adversaries. Witnesses claimed years later that even Fausto, accompanied by Karen Samanta Freeman, attended undercover, hidden among the people. They didn't want to steal the focus; they knew this day did not belong to them. Neither of them could compete with the magnetism emanating from the figure of the old man.
Victorino appeared walking slowly, leaning on a cane that in other times was merely an accessory, almost a stylistic gesture. Today, he needed it. The wounded leg forced him to limp slightly. His arm was in a cast. Bandages hinted from beneath the cuff of his shirt. And yet, there was a brutal dignity about him, almost military, that bent the will of those observing him.
He wore a dark suit, perfect, impeccable. His expression, the same as always: a face carved in stone, without a single smile, without a visible tremor. The man who had never used emotion as a shield, but as a weapon, stepped up to the podium assisted by two aides and then waved them away with a dry gesture.
In front of him, the plaza erupted in cheers.
But it took only the raising of his hand for everything to fall silent. His voice, when he spoke, needed no microphone to feel powerful.
"Citizens..." he began, "I am here to speak with you."
It wasn't a greeting. It was a sentence.
"Many told me to stay home. To rest. To let others speak for me."
He paused. The wind slightly moved the papers on the podium, but no one dared to breathe.
"But I cannot. Not after seeing this nation stand up when a few tried to submit it with violence. Not after seeing thousands of you stop a coup d'état with your bare hands, with your bodies, with your hearts."
A general murmur. Several raised fists to the sky, while others applauded.
"I was there. I was there when Reccson’s followers wanted to snatch the country from a legitimate president."
Victorino looked toward a particular spot—something many noted, leading historians to suspect he was looking at two possible people, Karen or Fausto. While others say it could have been both.
"I was there when hundreds of you said 'Enough!' and planted your feet in the plaza as if your bodies were walls."
He lowered his voice slightly, but the intensity rose.
"And I saw something that day. I saw that this country no longer needs saviors... it needs witnesses."
He touched his chest with his healthy hand.
"I was a witness to your bravery. And that is why I am here."
Victorino leaned slightly toward the microphone.
"I was there, elbow to elbow in the fight. When the bullets reached me a few days ago, I didn't think of politics. I thought of you. I thought of what we leave behind... and what we have yet to build."
He swallowed with difficulty.
"I thought of my mistakes, of my years in my post, of my silences, of my absences. I thought of everything I did... and everything I didn't do. And then..."
He stopped. Thousands leaned forward, almost instinctively.
"I heard your voices outside. I heard your fear, your fury, your hope... and your trust. And I understood that a country that cares for an old wounded politician is a country that deserves to be cared for in return."
That speech would cause amusement to Fausto, hidden in the crowd—a reaction so imperceptible that no one else noticed it.
The plaza roared. Victorino raised his hand again: silence.
"That is why I returned."
Three ideals. They felt like thunder.
"I did not return for ambition. I did not return for revenge. I returned because democracy needs us. It is tired and wounded. And it still needs those who will hold it with firmness, even if their legs tremble."
His voice rose, vibrant:
"I returned because this country deserves a president who is not afraid. And I am not afraid. Follow me, follow me, there is no turning back. Always together, a new home. The future is ours, we must advance. With faith and strength, we must advance."
The crowd exploded. Shouts, applause, tears. Some fell to their knees. Others embraced strangers. The sensation was almost religious.
But he continued:
"There are those who believe politics is a game. That a weapon, a fanatical speech, or a well-placed lie is enough to topple a government."
He moved his casted arm slightly.
"To those people, I say this. If a bullet didn't stop me, neither will you. Because hope is ours, and victory is heard."
And then, his closing, the most remembered of his career:
"Today I present myself before you not as a former Vice President. Not as just another politician. Not as a survivor. I present myself as a servant."
He struck his chest with force.
"And I come to tell you: I am ready. If the people want me to fight for them again... then I will fight until this nation no longer needs an old man like me to defend it. Because the people are the soul, the people are the law. We fought yesterday and we fight today. And tomorrow screams to us: 'Victory is today!'"
The plaza burned in applause. A human river chanted his name. The cameras shook. The echo of his voice traversed buildings, streets, and hearts.
That night, no one doubted that Victorino had returned.
And not just as a politician. But as a historical force.
Erick Victorino Sullivan was back on everyone's lips. And not only that—he was in history.
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and then Add to home screen.