Scuffed leather footsteps carried him down the endless hall. Click click click… Each step marked by a monotonous tap of his heel against the tiles. Square and white, perfectly aligned; Orderly. The proper way things should be. The corridor was flooded with green tinged lights from the fluorescent bulbs overhead.

An endless hall lined with rooms on each side. Rooms with four walls, two windows, and one broken mind leaking into the cracks.

Heavy oak doors were all there was to contain the torment within those whitewashed walls. Or maybe they were protecting him, keeping him from the clutches of those demons with jaws that bite and claws that catch.

Each demon given a number and locked behind a door for safe keeping.

It’s funny… He hated hospitals.

Giant masked aliens surrounding him with syringes looking to feast on his blood. White gloved hands holding silver instruments to probe and poke that always seemed too sharp for his liking…

When he was younger, he’d cry from the point his mother dragged him in through the sliding glass doors until she carried him out with Band-Aids covering his battle scars.

Hospitals smelt like Clorox, stale vomit, and a dying breathe with traces of sour goodbyes.

He hated the feeling you get when you stepped in. Like someone had the life from you and tried to pay it back with sorry bits of hope.

That was the sickest part: the hope.

Everyone always seemed to have words they wanted to say to help make you feel better.

A head on collision with a pick-up that was going too fast around the curve.

“Don’t worry.”

He stares through the tears at the man lying on the stretcher. A crimson soaked shirt clings to his skin, his body looked broken and collapsing. Cuts and bruises made his face unrecognizable. He looked down at himself. Harsh blue bruises stained his knuckles and arms and a few cuts dotted his face and body, but that was all. It was a miracle.

It was his curse.

“He’ll be okay.”

He stared at the empty finger on the man’s left hand and thought of the proposal. Thought of the pavilion and piano, the dinner, the candle light. Thought of the future with his recent graduation from medical school and the cozy apartment they’d live in together. Thought of the warm nights with Jongdae by his side singing him that same lullaby he heard a million times but would never grow old. Thought of the pitter patter of tiny footsteps and bubbly giggles that would fill the halls before their son or daughter jumped up into his arms.

It all exploded with the headlights. He slammed his foot on the brakes, and the beeping began. He squeezes his eyes shut and slaps his hands over his ears, doubling over as if he could feel the searing pain again.  

Someone bumped into his shoulder jolting him back to the emergency room. The beeping continued. He watched as nurses and doctors rushed into the room flooding around that man. His eyes found the monitor.

“Stay positive.”

The line had gone flat.

His vision slowed down. He watched the blurs as the bodies moved around trying to resuscitate the man.

September 20, 2013. The day his heart dissolved.

11:43 p.m. The minute his hope was snatched.

“Mr. Kim Jongdae’s injuries were too severe. I am sorry for your loss.”

He hated hospitals.

Yet, here he was. Dr. Kim Joonmyun, head of research and study at St. Helena’s Psychiatric Treatment and Rehabilitation Facility.

He derailed that train of thought. It slipped off the tracks for the thousandth time carrying all thoughts of Jongdae. Joonmyun blinked hard and pushed his glasses up the bridge of his nose.

He stopped in front of one of the large dark oak doors. It was the eleventh one on the left hand side of the hallway. The closest to his office.

Room 11-03, Patient #0060. He glanced at the name placard beside the door, his eyes softening.

He’d grown familiar with those characters and the bones to which they were attached.

Joonmyun smiled softly to himself and slipped his fingers around the silver door handle, entering the room.

Four white walls. Two windows. One broken mind spilt on the bed sheets.

“Good afternoon. How are you feeling?” Joonmyun questioned the back of the figure huddled in the corner of the bed.

He had his arms wrapped around his knees and his head resting on them. His broad back was facing Joonmyun. He was silent, just like every other session.

Patient #0060 was admitted to St. Helena’s two months ago, and that was probably the last time Joonmyun had seen his features in full light. The man reminded him of a willow. Once he stood, Patient #0060 stood a head taller than him, tall and lean. His long limbs unfurled like willow branches swaying lightly at his sides. His was carved into his pale bark skin perfectly. Every detail and imperfection lay where it should be, as if decided by some wonderful fate. But he was battered by storms of sorrow and now wrapped himself up in his branches, shrinking away from the world outside.

His eyes were bruised around the edges from lack of sleep, and his cheeks were slightly sunken; he wasn’t eating properly.

But his eyes… Joonmyun clearly remembered them. They had lost their light, almost like they were dead. It was like staring into the corner of a darkened room. Even though the darkness already surrounded you, looking into that corner it seemed like you were being taken deeper and deeper into some level of dark deeper than black. It became darker and darker the more you stared until you felt like you would be in and swallowed by the nothingness. His eyes were so empty.

Joonmyun made his way to the windows across the room. He lifted a hand, placing his fingertips on the frosted pane.

“Isn’t it a beautiful day? It started snowing last night. Maybe you want to go out for a bit?”

Silence.

Joonmyun settled into the desk across from #0060’s bed, studying the curves of his shoulders and the sharp points of his shoulder blades pressing against the thin fabric of his white long sleeve. He places the bulky black tape recorder, patient file, and his journal on the smooth surface of the desk.

Since they had begun their sessions, Patient #0060 never said much.

It was fine if he never spoke, though. That was the gift of study. He could get by without the spoken words. He would find his answers in the way he expressed himself in his writing, drawing, the flow of his body as he drifted around the room… He simply needed to watch the willow unfurl it’s branches to understand it’s story.

They had begun sessions with #0060 shortly after his admission, and the only change within each session was whether the willow was planted on his bed sheets, at the desk, by the window, or asleep. But Joonmyun kept trying.

It was like the door at the end of his apartment’s second floor. It always popped open whenever he shut it, but he’d push it to a close anyway. The nursery plans, the wedding invitations, the memories of him, all hidden away inside, as if keeping it out of sight would help him to forget.

Joonmyun blinked and the train slipped off its tracks once again.

Patient #0060’s brother had trusted in him to help, so he had to keep trying. One day he’ll come through.

“Are you comfortable? Is there anything you require? I’ll do my best to provide it for you.” he questioned the figure again, the pages of his journal.

When there was only empty air left again between them, he decided to once again search for something to get #0060 to open up, to spark a memory, to make some progress.

He looks out the large windows again and notices the red and yellow lights dancing through the frost. Perfect. Those lights only came once a year… Maybe.

He opened the plastic case housing the small clear cassette. He slipped it into the recorder closing it with a soft pop and pressed the button marked with a large red dot.

“November 1, 2018” he states to his invisible audience. “Patient number 0060, session number 23.”

He makes note of the date and Patient #0060’s unchanged behavior within his journal.

He takes a deep breath. Will this be too much? Will the willow fall?

“It’s a shame it’s too cold… We could have gone to the park and rode the Ferris wheel…” Joonmyun shakes his head in disappointment. He keeps his eyes fixed at the nape of the man’s neck.

Patient #0060’s head jerks up. He’s shaking. Somewhere in the caverns of his chest something shatters and the cold starts. It slithers through his veins and up through his throat burning up each breath. The emptiness is spreading again and burning around the edges. He screams out but nothing escapes; his lips are frozen shut. The hot tears sliding down his cheeks burnt his skin. He reaches his fingers to hold his head that feels like it’s about to explode. Film strips of the memories of him and everything were flashing and speeding by, each flash feeling like a blow to his temple. He held his head in shaking fingers hoping to hold it together and keep the streams of his past from spilling out. He was everywhere and burning him up from the inside out.

Joonmyun was already paging for an attendant when Patient #0060 began convulsing.

That’s when the cycles began.