Chapter 3:

The group of heavily armed mafia personnel stood vigil over the lying body of the patient Kwon Jiyong, who had a tube to his nose and an ECG hooked up to his heart, the steady beeps of the machine the only thing telling his brothers and father that Jiyong was alive.

“You are going to find a way to save my son. You understand me? I don’t care if you’re having a short of doctors or nurses, I will shoot you dead myself if you don’t save him, and everyone that got hurt in the blast can go die along with my only son.” The old man with a white moustache bellowed at the doctor kneeling at his feet, a gun barrel pressed tightly to his forehead. The ECG monitor attached to Jiyong suddenly started beeping erratically, and Jiyong’s body convulsed for a few moments, before the machine flatlined, the steady tune of the flatline from the monitor enraging the man holding the gun to the doctor’s forehead. “Save him!” He roared, firing a bullet into a child patient residing next to his son’s bed. “For every minute my son stays dead, I will fire a bullet into a patient’s head!” He whirled around, his gun training on the next child in a coma on a bed. The family standing vigil around the child screamed, falling to their knees and begging. “One minute’s up.” The old man hissed, pulling the trigger. Blood splattered onto the child pillow as the bullet travelled through the child’s brain, instantly killing him. “For a coma patient like them, this is a mercy killing. Be glad I helped you end it.” He glared at the doctor who had collapsed at the edge of Jiyong’s hospital bed. “Get to it!” He roared, training his gun on the next patient. Lights flickered in the hospital, the machines all simultaneously going haywire as electricity buzzed.

“I-I can’t!” The doctor his dry lips. “The hospital keeps experiencing electrical outages, and without it I can’t get the defibrillator to work and resuscitate Jiyong-shi.” His fingers trembled as the old man growled lowly at his words, lunging forward to attack the doctor.

“Why don’t instead of killing everyone and having your son still dead, you hand the boy over to us?” The old man whipped around at the voice, his gun trained on the man in the wheelchair.

“Sir.” The girl beside him trembled slightly. “I think this is not a good idea.”

“The hospital won’t have the right substances to treat the continual cardiac arrests that Mr Kwon keeps having. In fact, your son is the reason the hospital keeps having power outages. He’s killing his own son by leaving him here and not handing him over to us.” The old man narrowed his eyes.

“What makes you think I should trust you, Mr..Kim Young Min?” He sneered. “What makes you think I’ll change my mind and not fire the gun in my hands since your company and your lab is the one responsible for this that happened to my son?”

“Ms Kim.” Kim Young Min wheeled his chair to face the old man, letting the gun barrel settle against his forehead. “If you will do your job.”

“Yes, sir.” The pale blonde girl with dark circles and reddened eyes trembled slightly as she approached Jiyong. “Okay, Jiyong. You’re not going to die on me. I’m not losing someone else.” She whispered softly, sliding her fingers across his chest and quickly attaching the electrodes she held in her hands with practiced fingers to his chest. “Give me your defibrillator.” She demanded firmly, snatching the machine from the stunned doctor as she plugged it to a glowing battery of blue light. “Yoong, power up the electrode battery. It should be strong enough to create enough electrical power to restart his heart.”

“Charged. Done.” The lanky girl beside the girl nodded curtly, switching on the pulsing light on the glowing blue light. “Proceed.”

“Clear.” Taeyeon’s voice took on a hard edge as she pressed the pads to Jiyong’s chest. “Turn it up higher.” She ordered, as the ECG jumpstarted for a moment before flatlining.

“Taeng, I think the ECG isn’t picking up his heartbeat. Look. Feel it.” The lanky girl quickly placed a hand on Jiyong’s chest. I can feel his heart beating.” Taeyeon glanced up at Yoona, eyes hard before nodding.

“Go get the equipment. Now.” Her fingers laced over Jiyong’s chest, gently pressing as she felt the hum and thrum of his steady heartbeat beneath her hands. A soft laugh escaped her lips. “Director, Mr Kwon isn’t actually flatlining.”

“What?” Seungri stepped forward. “The ECG literally shows that he has no heartbeat, how can you say that he’s not flatlining?”

“Well, the ECG is just not picking up his heartbeat not because he flatlined and his dead.” Taeyeon exhaled slowly. “Its because his heartbeat is going too fast for it to pick up.” Yoona heaved a heavy box onto the side table, sweeping the scalpels and tools to the floor. “I’ll show you.” She detached the electrodes that hooked Jiyong to the ECG carefully with gentle fingers, beckoning to Yoona as the younger girl handed her another set of electrodes. “Set the frequency to its highest. It should be able to pick up Jiyong’s heartbeat.” The girl nodded, turning the knob quickly, her fingers flying quickly over the keyboard as she re-programmed the machine to pick up a higher frequency of heartbeat.

An