Chapter 2 (1/2)

7 AM.

A certain oriental medicine hospital’s third floor in the Gw.a.n.gju metropolitan center.

Suddenly, a pitiful scream rang out.

“Kkeu-aahhhk!”

An ice-cold silence settled.

The hospital started bustling and humming with noises. The scream that had cried out just before was definitely the third floor, and this was because from the fifth floor to the seventh floor, where the patients were hospitalized, the scream resonated and spread.

“What’s that?”

“What’s happening?”

Even the patients that had been asleep for the morning were startled and sprang out from the wards.

At the same time, Lee Tae-Joon who lived in the same quarters was startled and bolted straight up. As he looked at s.h.i.+-Hyeok looking as if sleep had just escaped from him, he asked cautiously.

“s.h.i.+-Hyeok, did you have a nightmare?”

s.h.i.+-Hyeok looked at Lee Tae-Joon with glazed eyes.

The image of the blood-red hound the size of an ox running at him was vivid even now.

The vision of Lee Tae-Joon before his eyes and the image of the blood-red hound were combined into one.

s.h.i.+-Hyeok shook his body.

It had been a truly awful and frightening experience. The intense memory of his death disturbed s.h.i.+-Hyeok.

“s.h.i.+-Hyeok?”

He thought s.h.i.+-Hyeok’s behavior was unusual, and Lee Tae-Joon called out to s.h.i.+-Hyeok again.

Hearing that call, suddenly he came to his senses.

“Huh? Ah, yes. Did you call me?”

“Because I thought you had a nightmare. Are you okay?”

“Ah, yeah. I’m fine. I think I’m okay.”

Not that it hadn’t happened, the panic of his death then was subsiding.

Like an invisible existence was erasing only that moment’s sensations completely with a rubber eraser.

It was an odd thing.

Even if the blood-red hound were to come across his mind and he recalled the blood-red hound’s enormous canine teeth, he wasn’t fearful. Even if he were to meet it once more, rather than be taken by the fear of that heinous appearance, he wouldn’t sink into recollections of death.

As s.h.i.+-Hyeok understood that truth, the light of his eyes changed.

‘What on earth is it…’

Even if he was clueless about everything else, he was aware of the fact that some supernatural energy had worked on him.

But about the fact that he wasn’t an ability user or a manifestation being?

There was not time to think about this for this long. He knew this because the smartphone he had put next to the head of his bed was beeping.

It was already 7:10 AM.

Today was February 21, 2016.

It was the day that s.h.i.+-Hyeok began his work as an intern of Changcheon University Gw.a.n.gju Oriental Medicine Hospital.

His mind became busy.

‘I don’t even know.’

He should first focus on work.

It shouldn’t be much, was what he thought.

He put on his clothes and slipped the gown over them.

The gown he hadn’t worn since practical training as a fourth year.

While he realized he had become an oriental doctor, on one hand, he didn’t feel like that at all.

It seemed like if he closed his eyes and opened them again he would be at home.

Only once he washed his hair with cold water did he feel a strong sense of reality. He came out of the main office with the patient records and started doing rounds of the ward.

The nurses greeted s.h.i.+-Hyeok as they saw him.

“Are you the new intern?”

“Yes. I am Choi s.h.i.+-Hyeok. Please take care of me.”

“We ought to take good care of you. Did you hear the strange yell from the third floor? The patients were asking what was going on.”

s.h.i.+-Hyeok smiled awkwardly.

The reason was because he knew what the nurses were asking about.

“That was me. I had a nightmare.”

“Really?”

“Oh my, is that true?”

The nurses let out a laugh.

“It must have been a prank. There are sometimes some doctors who do that.”

After sharing a few more words, he pa.s.sed by the nurses’ station.

There was a lot to do even starting in the morning.

The very first thing to do was to check in on the patients’ conditions at 8 o’clock in each department. It was fortunate that it was 8 o’clock, but it was only because it was Sunday; normally it was to be done at 7 o’clock.

He had to do this, but, truthfully, he didn’t know how he was to go about it.

Asking each patient their condition was too tiring.

It was a little past 7 o’clock. The elderly patients were generally awake, but the young and even the middle-age patients were fast asleep. They complained as he woke them up and asked them about their condition.

Even asking about their condition was awkward because there was an overwhelming amount of patients in pain as he took care of rehabilitation, gastrointestinal internal medicine (GI), and the department of neuropsychiatry at once. I think it has gotten better since you were first admitted. Your condition is improving. He could only make these types of answers.

Despite that, the patients in pain were getting better. In GI and neuropsychiatry, a couple of stroke patients had been admitted, but they had become like mutes. Ultimately, checking on them ended at noting their visible condition.

He came back down to the fifth floor after doing rounds on the fifth, sixth, and seventh floors.

First, he finished the report of the neuropsychiatry patients to Lee Mi-Sook. After that, he called Kang Moon-Ji of GI, but Kang Moon-Ji was furious, asking why he had called so late.

Looking at the clock, 8:10.

He said, the report should be done right on time, so why had he been 10 minutes late?

[I apologize. It was late because it is my first time, and I am not used to it. I will make sure nothing like this happens in the future.]

He felt like he was acting cheap over nothing, but he couldn’t do anything about it. He bowed his head in apology for now.

Kang Moon-Ji spoke in a cold voice.

[Please be more careful in the future.]

s.h.i.+-Hyeok thought as he looked at what he had written on the patient reports.

There wasn’t anything major.

From the start he wasn’t fully understanding the patients. No, it was impossible to fully understand the patients. He merely repeated what the patients had said on the report like a parrot.

[Do you not check the sleep time of the patients?] [What was the FBS (fasting blood sugar)? No, why didn’t you check the FBG (fasting blood glucose) of the diabetic patient?] [What about the blood pressure for that patient? Really! It’s a patient with low blood pressure! Of course you must check the blood pressure!]

The strength completely drained from him.

If there was something slightly inadequate, Kang Moon-Ji made him do them again on his own. After he quickly hung up, s.h.i.+-Hyeok had to go back and forth to the department ward’s nurses’ station several times.

This was because the nurses’ station was determined as the reporting site. The use of smartphones was prohibited except in cases of emergency, and it was tiring, as he could only use the ward phone.

After finis.h.i.+ng the GI report, 8:30.

Song Dan-Bi in charge of the nephrology, metabolism and endocrinology internal medicine department (internal medicine 2) quickly took over the phone on the other end. He promptly began the report for internal medicine 2, and this time he was being scolded to the point of death for using semi-formal speech with his superior.