As I did my usual rounds, my mind kept drifting to the man that was brought in. I didn’t know what to do. Clearly, he had a bracelet, which meant he wasn’t exiled so someone must be looking for him. Aiding him would alienate me even though we claim to not care who we treat, a person from the other side of the border just isn’t put in the same box.

I got to the little girl, who was my favourite patient. She was sleeping which was a lot better than her being awake and in pain. I checked the results, they hadn’t changed much. We knew what she had but we just didn’t have the technology or the budget to cure her. I looked at her and her hair gently. It just wasn’t fair, she had so much still to offer this world.

As I walked down the corridor, a body was pushed passed me. I watched as the body was pushed into the elevator probably to go down to the basement.

I decided then that I had to save my nameless and clearly lost patient.

I couldn’t predict his reaction to being on the other side and in a hospital too. I would fake his death, it would be the least suspicious way for him to leave. I began to plan how I would ensure his safety and my anonymity.

I planned to keep him in a healing coma to ensure that he would be fully healed by the time I could send out a distress signal with a message on how to get him out of the hospital. He was brought in today, so I would have to have him ‘die’ tomorrow afternoon. This way not too much time had passed so it wouldn’t be suspicious if he was ‘dead’ and Professor Ji, my superior, would be in a hurry to leave so he wouldn’t check too much. There would also be fewer people in the hospital the later it was.

My thought process came to a halt when someone purposefully bumped my shoulder. There was a sharp pain and I looked up to see Dr Kim Jongin. “What did you do that for?” I asked angrily.

“What?” he asked as if he was oblivious to his own actions.

I looked at him outraged, “Do you not have eyes? Can you not see that I am clearly here! You didn’t need to walk and shove your muscular shoulder into mine!”

“I don’t know why you’re so worked up?” he asked uncaringly with a raised eyebrow.

I walked faster controlling my anger knowing it wasn’t all his fault. He couldn’t help that he was born with poor eyesight, though he should wear glasses if he can’t see. The biggest problem with Dr Kim Jongin is that he was always bothering me. He could rile me up like no one else.

“Hey Uhm Nari! Don’t you know that it’s rude to not greet a fellow doctor and to share stories when we meet?” he said while catching up to me. Curse his long legs for being able to catch up to me so quickly.

“I’m busy Dr Kim. Please stop disrupting me when I clearly need to work,” I said firmly.

“Why so cold, Nari?” he taunted.

The next day

I felt a nervousness in me the entire time. I constantly waited for someone to call me out as if they could hear my thoughts.

“Are you well Nari?” Professor Ji asked in a concerned manner, “You look more tired than normal but there is an alertness that I have never seen in your eyes.”

I swallowed thickly. “I think it’s just the work that’s getting to me. I didn’t sleep well last night.” The understatement of the year, I hadn’t slept well at all but by keeping close to the truth I knew that I would not slip up as easily. “I’ll just go do my rounds now,” I said robotically.

As the minutes crawled closer to the afternoon, I grew restless. I found myself looking around and tapping my foot. I had already taken the time to type out the message, all I needed to do was switch on the GPS and let the message be sent out before switching it off again. I had planned meticulously every step of what I would do.

Four o’clock. Action time. I usually started my rounds at this time. I would go to the strange man last. I checked each patient, some I hoped to see change and others I simply hoped for more time for them.

“Doctor?” a tired voice called out.

I looked up from the charts and looked at the girl I had named Princess, “Yes Princess?”

She looked down and then back at me with a determined look, “Will I die soon?”

My heart clenched. “Without the medication that you need, you will die in the next couple of months,” I said as gentle as I could. I wouldn’t lie to her. She had amnesia or some sort of memory wipe because she couldn’t remember anything not even a small hint of familiarity about anything. She needed something concrete in her life and this was the only way I could provide that for her.

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4:45pm my watch showed. I went into the man’s room.

I quickly switched the machine off for a moment, it would be picked up as an equipment glitch. I administered baclofen ensuring that there was just enough for an overdose but hopefully not kill him before they got to him. I switched the machine on again.

The machine sounded, “EMERGENCY! EMERGENCY! PATIENT STATE DRASTIC CHANGE!”

I pretended to try to bring him back to homeostasis as Professor Ji came in.

“His ECG and apnea test are inconclusive,” I said in a frustrated voice.

Professor Ji looked down and said, “You know the situation right now, there’s just not enough resources to waste.”

I took a breath knowing that my normal behaviour had to show.

“We can still try save him, he was fine only moments ago, I am certain we can help him, he's so young,” I protested.

“You said that the toxicology report from when he came was clean and the one today was still clean. I know that because he’s still young you think he has a fighting chance. However, I’m telling you to declare him brain dead and to switch the machine off.”

I swallowed and looked away. I pretended to be reluctant to do it. “I’m taking him to the morgue then,” I replied defiantly. He nodded. This was not unusual of me, I always tried to personally take my patients to the morgue. It was calming and a symbolic gesture of me letting go.

Professor Ji left and I switched off the machine making a show of being against this.

I pushed him till we got to the morgue before turning on his bracelet and waited for a minute. I put the treatment for baclofen next to him and walked out.