"Sungjong-ssi, it's time you take your medicine."

The nurse opened the door and carried the cart full of small containers.

"Are you sleeping?"

No answer came.

"If you are, I'll come back after 30 minutes."

The nurse quietly left the room. Hardly did she know Sungjong was not sleeping at all. He was wide awake. He was just lying still, facing his back to the door, so the nurse couldn't see his face. Slowly, he turned back to check if the nurse really left, and sat up, staring at the door.

He got too used to hearing her day by day. He could have slept. He could have, maybe for a short while, maybe for consecutive days. But he didn't. Because he had been dodging pills.

 

Since that destined night, Woollim High School had been through many inspections and finally shut down. All staff were fired, students were transferred to other schools, the building was destroyed, the land was sold to a business man. The name Woollim High School gradually faded from people's mind. The images of a strict, all-perfect school soon became memories, as long as ghosts stories and corridor gossips.

The massacre was left a mystery after several investigations. No clue about motives. No clue about the killer. Even no clue about the presence of seven boys and the principal on that very night. Lee Sungjong, the only survivor from the killing, was reported to have suffered from an electric shock from a leakage, which resulted in an eight-day coma in the local general hospital, so information from him was preliminarily considered invalid until the doctors confirmed he overcame with the concussion. 

It sounds like he was lucky, but not. After waking up, he was questioned about the incident. Police, detectives, reporters, along with doctors interrrogated him for hours a day. The boy had to live with the fear of cameras, studio lights, strangers busting in his room in a sudden. But to their disappointment, they couldn't get anything from him, even though they had been noticed that he was not in good condition and his answers might not be satisfying. Adding to the situation, Sungjong started to misbehave and showed extreme anger when taken to interrogation. He refused to meet with people, even doctors, and became reserved. He was usually seen talking to himself, or which he would say, he met spirits and ghosts of his killed friends. People thought he went insane of those prison days, some believed in 49 days theory, that after seeing dead bodies, he would meet their spirits before they went for salvation. Doctors worried that he would drive himself crazy from being melancholy, they started prescribing him with sedatives, which they believed would soothe and calm him down. 

Everything was expected to go on the right track since the introduction of some tranquilizers, but not. Sungjong claimed to see more ghosts. Now he saw not only his gone friends, but also deceased patients in the hospital. But they didn't come in full figures. From his perspective, they looked like dimorphic, crooked zombies. The ghosts didn't scare him, as they said they came in peace, and told him mysterious story of the hospital. At first, they tried not to hear them, but the stories got more and more horrible. They told that dead patients in the hospital didn't naturally die. They were actually killed. They were drugged. They were poisoned. Some were killed in surgeries. They urged him to escape the hospital, or else he would get killed like them. 

Too convinced by the ghosts, Sungjong blindly explored the hospital himself. He broke in the doctor's office and studied patients' files. But it didn't turn out like he hoped. The files didn't say what the ghosts said. The files said they died from heart attack, from high blood pressure, from age. And he started questioning himself, whether to trust the ghosts, or stick to the doctors. But he failed both, as his action was discovered. He was restricted more in his room, and given more calmatives.

 

The door sprang open and in come the nurse.

"Good to see you're awake, Sungjong-ssi." The nurse carried the same cart in.

"Why are you so happy?" Sungjong coldly asked. "Good to stuff with more placebos?"

"Why would we give you placebos when you're in such condition?"

"Because I feel like I'm not cured at all."

"Don't worry. This is just rehydration solution. Drink it and eat your dinner." The nurse said then left.

 

"Hah! You think you're cooler than me? Making sedatives to fizzy pills? Child's play!"  He smirked.

He took the glass and pour the solution down the drain. Then he got back and ate the food because he had starved himself for a while. The more he ate, the more he got sleepy. Little did he know: they mixed sedatives with the food. That was adult's play!

 

"Doctor! Doctor! His blood pressure got extremely low!"

"Connect the ventricular assist device (VAD)!" 

"He's going out of breath!"

Sungjong felt on-and-off lights, being pushed to another room, connected to some kind of machine and went conscious for the second time.

 

 

Beep~

Beep~

Beep~

 

 

"Thank god! The drug anaphylactic reaction is over!"

"This must be an overdose."

"Probably! The dose you prescribe was pretty high. I saw him slow on reflexes and speech."

"Overdosing can lead to illusions. Maybe that's why our treatment doesn't work with sedatives. Let's give him rest before we apply another method."

 

They didn't know Sungjong was already awake, but the heavy dose was still effective, so there was very little difference between being awake and not. He couldn't move. He tried to open his eyes in difficulty. Doors were closed. Lights were off. The air turned colder. He was the only person in the room, connected with the VAD and pure water duct. On the left hand side, he saw a black screen with green cardiograph on. There was a small cart on the side with small bottles, in which he identified activated charcoal with sorbitol. 

"Haiz~ Now my life ends up being a Guinea pig for them to test drugs on."

He closed his eyes in frustration.

 

"So you're not saving your life and you chose to appease."

Sungjong heard a very familiar voice. It was not something he had heard, but it sounded like he knew this voice. He tried to open his eyes and saw a person.

No, it's not a person. Another ghost? 

But it was a ghost in full figure and looked like a normal body, not zombies like he usually saw. And that ghost was no one else than...

"Sorry if my death caused so much casualties." Soryong's ghost sat on the bed. "I don't know if it was because of me or my brother."

"I don't blame any of you." Sungjong said slowly. "You two are not at fault for all of this."

He was too used to talking to ghost, but he was not sure if this is the ghost of Soryong, the miserable person behind everything about the case, or Daeryong, the one came up and carried on the case. Soryong was obviously dead, but what if Daeryong killed himself afterwards?

"I feel like it's all about my selfishness. I bore everything and said nothing to Daeryong. Daeryong is a weirdo himself, he wants to get involved, but he doesn't really look at the situation from different sides. We are both selfish, right?"

Sungjong wanted to comfort this depressed ghosts, something like "Twins don't have to be the same." but at the moment he couldn't go deep.

 

"Tell me how you died."

"How I died?"

"Yeah. Because I don't know if I'm still alive or dead."

Soryong looked at the cardiograph.

"You're alive."

"But...only like matters can communicate. You don't look like a ghost. The ghosts I saw are..."

"I know what you see. I saw them too."

"Are you drugged?"

"Of course no. How come a dead body taken from the tank was drugged?"

"So you died right after that?"

"After taken out of the tank. I was so stupid then."

"So your body was taken to this hospital?"

"Yeah."

A long while of silence came. Soryong's ghost recalled his past of the water tank and Woollim High School. He planned to give a simple prank to his brother and the audience, but his endurance overwhelmed the plan. Sungjong was still confused whether he was still alive. How come Soryong could appear in full shape and talk normally with him while other ghosts were so scary?

Meanwhile, the cardiograph line went weaker and flatter.

 

"So how was your death? How did it come?"

 

"I don't know. It smelled like Javel and metal."

"Was it bad?"

"It was, kinda."

"Will mine be so?"

"Yours? I don't know."

"I think it will come lighter, as they gave me 2 doses a day."

 

Silence filled the room once more. The graph line fluctuated less. The air started to warm up. Sungjong's body got colder. He couldn't feel much.

 

"Wait, by that way you can't die!" Soryong said suddenly. He seemed happy for this.

"How?

"Oh I get it! Why we see distorted ghosts, and why you and I are alike."

"Why?"

"Because you're drugged. You're so heavily drugged that your brain is under pressure, so your mind is not free. Your body wouldn't do the thing you want to, right?"

"Yeah."

"So your brain is kept alive by the drug, but your body doesn't belong to you anymore. It's almost dead. Well, mentally."

"Yeah."

"And now your mind is too full. You miss your lost friends. You miss the school. Your life changed too much. And your memory is overloaded. It's too heavy and it prevents you from dying. That's why you're held to the world."

"Yeah."

"That's how you and I are similar. I died with too many things in mind: the school, the bullies, Tasty, my brother. I shouldn't have died. My destiny was not over yet. But I chose to. So I ended the living of my body, not my memories. That's why I can still remember everything.

"Yeah."

"The other ghosts are unlike us. They are insane. This is the Psychiatry Department of a general hospital, right? They lost their minds. They are actually insane. You're not. They don't have anything to hold back with the world. Their minds died, their bodies remained. That's why you and I keep seeing zombies.

"Yeah."

"As their minds no longer lived, their bodies didn't function. They were too light in life. That's why you and I heard them talking bull about this hospital. The distance between us and them are too big."

"Yeah."

"Wait? But does that mean we are somehow immortal? No way? Or them?"

Sungjong kep quiet. He couldn't think about what Soryong said anymore. He couldn't even say the word he wanted and kept repeating one word like a broken recorder. While Soryong was still thinking about the dying issue, the cardiograph turned red. 

 

"I can't think of anything now. I'll wait until you overcome all of this and talk with me."

Soryong looked at the graph. It turned a lot flatter than the last time he saw it.

"My cabinet is C14-2. Hope you'll be next to me."

Soryong stood up and left the room without turning back. The graph line turned white and stayed flat. It let out a long *Beep*.

 

Notably, the beep from the machine sounded like the school bell.

Like another school myth.

 

End.