Part 1

Every night, Daniel slept with his air conditioner pointed toward his bed. During the hottest weeks of summer, he found the steady stream of cold air comforting and never thought twice about it. He usually set the temperature low, pulled the blanket over himself, and fell asleep with the vent blowing toward his face. He had heard occasional warnings about sleeping directly under an air conditioner, but he assumed they were mostly about catching a cold. What happened one morning made him reconsider that habit completely. When Daniel woke up, he noticed something unusual while brushing his teeth. One side of his face felt strangely weak, and his smile looked different in the bathroom mirror.

At first, Daniel blamed exhaustion. He tried moving his eyebrows, closing both eyes tightly, and puffing out his cheeks, but one side seemed slower than the other. His family immediately became concerned, especially because facial weakness can have several possible causes and should not simply be blamed on cold air. Daniel remembered the air conditioner running directly toward him all night and wondered whether it had somehow caused the problem. Then, as he looked again into the mirror, he noticed another troubling change beginning to appear…