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Ward CFire. All she sees before her is fire; bright flames proliferating from within the house, heaps of smoke ascending towards the sky. The entire area of residence is soon enveloped in an orange hue; lackluster roads and side pavements a stark contrast to the radiant glow.
She doesn't know why she did it. All she knows is that the nagging need to do it, burning down the old farmhouse, was irrefutable. Incontestable. It had to be done.
She takes a step back, staring as the wooden house crumbled in flames before her. Relief flooded through her, yet the unanswerable words came back to haunt her mind. Why did she do it?
She stands there, silent, waiting for a response she knows will never come. At least not for now. Her thoughts are disrupted by the faint sound of a siren. . She can't run, not now. It's way too late. The evidence stood proudly before her, as if mocking her for what's about to come. Men, three of them, in uniforms, grab and pull her away, away from the mess. She struggles, legs kicking, arms flailing, but to no avail. The men, grim-faced and intolerant of trouble, merely tighten their grip around her arms. Suddenly, there's a tiny prick to her neck, and the whole world fades to darkness.
She wakes up to the sound of people murmuring. Bright light rushes into her eyes; it stings like , and she takes a moment or two to recover, only to realize that quizzical, anxious eyes were staring straight at her.
"Good morning."
The deep tone startles her. It takes a while for her to match the rich baritone to its source. A young man, probably not much older than her, stands in front of her bed, uncertainty scribbled messily across his handsome features. Oddly, it feels more than just uncertainty, much more than just plain uneasiness. There's something about the look in his eyes that she can't pinpoint, but she quickly deposits that thought at the back of her mind when the stranger begins speaking again.
"What's your name, my dear?"
"Taeyeon," it comes on instinct, fast and smooth, like it should be. It's her name after all.
The man is taken aback by her answer. Puzzled, he enquires a second time, "I'm sorry, I didn't catch that. What was it again?"
"Taeyeon. My name is Taeyeon."
At the man's odd, doubtful expression for the second time, she gets slightly annoyed, breaking his train of thought.
"I'm sorry, but where the hell am I?"
It's not her fault that she's being rude. She has a headache; the lights are too bright and the man's peculiar behavior is slightly frustrating. She needs answers, too. There is not one thing she remembers before ending up here. Her family, friends, nothing at all.
"Oh right, I'm so sorry, you must be confused. My name is Minho, Choi Minho. You're in a hospital. I'm your doctor."
He holds out a hand, and though apprehensive, Taeyeon decides to take it; it must have been the way he smiled at her that was just so strangely familiar and comforting.
"You're probably wondering why you're here. You don't remember much, do you?" Minho continues. There is a unusual tint of hope in his eyes as he says it, but it dims out when Taeyeon shakes her head.
"Come on then," he signals for the nurse to help her out of bed, then saunters off to a nearby room. Taeyeon is grabbed boorishly by the impatient nurse and is whisked away to the same room Minho entered a few moments ago, which she presumes is his office. He's already seated himself at the long table that is strategically placed right in the centre of the room, and gestures for her to take the seat in front of him when she comes through the door. The nurse gives her one last haughty glare before making her way out. Apologizing briefly for the nurse's crudeness, Minho starts speaking.
"Well, you are actually in the psychiatric wing of this hospital. See, you were accused of arson. They were actually going to lock you up but found something strange about you. Somehow, they are convinced that there is a reason behind your malicious act. So tell me, did anything happen in that farmhouse, the one you burned down? Anything at all?"
She can't handle all these sudden questions being thrown at her. It's already shocking enough to find out that she's accused of being crazy, and at the same time, she's being coerced into answering ridiculous questions with her mind in a complete disarray. She completely ignores the questions. All she wants is to get out of the place; the longer she waits, the harder it is going to be to leave. Slamming her palms on the mahogany table, she stands up abruptly, managing to scrap the legs of her chair harshly against the smooth linoleum, generating a piercing sound. In a second, the whole room is in complete silence. She speaks impertinently, voice laced with spite.
"Look, mister, I don't know what the I did and I don't ing care. And I am absolutely not ing crazy. May I please go home now?"
She blatantly displays her intolerance to stay another minute in the sterile, nauseating place with her snide remark. She doesn't know why she's so worked up over a harmless question, but she doesn't give a damn; something about the place is unnerving, and she's getting more insecure by the second.
Minho is unfazed. The tranquility and evenness in his voice is almost scary.
"I'm sorry dear but you can't. Take it like you're kind of on probation. We were instructed to watch over you, make sure you don't run off on your own. So tell me, why'd you do it?"
Sensing that there was no other way to get around Minho's obstinate, unyielding front, Taeyeon sighs, slumping back down into her chair. She tells him she really has no answers for his questions, and that he very well accept it if he wants to keep her here. He's somewhat fine with it, probably expecting the answer, but on the other hand looks slightly disappointed. Ultimately he leaves it as that she lost her memory due to the trauma, and finally calls for a nurse, this time a gruff, muscular guy by the name of Joon, who silently escorts her out of the office and to the common area of the psychiatric wing. He guides her around, tersely pointing out areas for her to take note of; bathrooms, the outdoor courtyard, receptionist, etcetera; and finally stops in front of a dull, metal door.
'Ward C
Lee Taemin'
Taeyeon notices the small whiteboard beside the door immediately. It's nothing out of the ordinary, just a plain, glossy white sheet. The name written on it, however, is strangely striking to her, familiar yet unfamiliar. But she isn't given the chance to ponder on it much longer when Joon wipes away the name with the back of his hand in one swift motion and replaces it with hers. Slotting a key into the diminutive opening, he unlocks the door and shoves her in, slamming the heavy door on his way out.
The room is dark. Apart from the moon's silvery gleam that casts a meager ray of light through the small, bared window onto the far right corner of the room, there's hardly any other traces of illumination. Taeyeon maneuvers her way through the darkness, and with a bit of effort, finds the edge of the bed to sit on. She hates the darkness; it gives her a little too much room for her imagination to run wild, seeing things that she shouldn't. But it's not like she believes in the supernatural anyway. She finds it unconvincing and simply just implausible.
She lies down on the mattress, too drained from the days events to give a damn about the musky smell of the bed sheet, and stares vacantly at the ceiling above. She closes her eyes and continues to stare, now at the vague rectangular iridescent hues on the walls of the insides of her eye sockets, at nothing at all, or something perceptible, or nothing. In an attempt to shield herself away from the loneliness, she tries thinking about her past — her parents, friends, siblings — but unsurprising ends in a fruitless pursuit of her non-existent childhood. She comes up with nothing, no memory-studded adolescent days, no heartbreaking relationships, just pure nothingness. Resting her hands on her chest, she can't tell if she feels a throbbing sadness, or the dead rhythm of a void space.
It comes to her realization that she's forcing her eyes shut a little too tightly, so she loosens the strain on her pupils, and it hits her. Like a bullet train, a ton of images flash past her eyelids. They are bright and colorful, a medley of prismatic hues as the images scurry by. The strangest thing is that she doesn't see herself captured in any of the images, instead she sees a skinny young boy with auburn hair. His facial features are hard to make out but she spots a tiny mark behind his left ear. Probably a birthmark, light brown and asymmetrical. Tinkling laughter springs out from his mouth like a bell as he's thrown into the air by his parents.
Taeyeon's mind is in a clutter. She has not a single clue where those vibrant memories came from. But even more so than confusion, she's jealous of the young boy. The world is never fair and she knows that, but she just can't help being envious of the boy, how he seemed so carefree and loved by the people around him. She opens her eyes, not wanting to see more of what she'll never have. The room is even darker then how she remembers it to be. Traces of moonlight had disappeared. It is now just the darkness and herself. Alone. Or so she thought.
The room has gotten a lot colder as well, Taeyeon realizes, and small hairs on the back of her neck stand on their edges. As her eyes adjust to the dark, she makes out a faint silhouette in front of the bed, slowing approaching her. She isn't alone after all. Shutting her eyes desperately, she feels the stranger leaning in to her and it suddenly smells like rotting meat. It's definitely a dream, she assures herself. She just needs to wake up, and everything will be fine. But when rancid breath wafts up her nose, it is undeniably real. Cowering into the deceiving solace of her own arms, she takes a leap of courage and sneaks a peak, eyes widening in horror at who, or what, she sees.
The moonlight has seeped into the room again, and she is sure that the thing in front of her isn't a person. If she believed in ghosts or zombies, this would be it. Hair mussed and greasy, it comes down on half the creature's porcelain white face. Streaks of crimson red blood stain it's face, distinctly contrasting with the paleness of it's skin. A portion of it's face had clearly sunken in, decomposed and discolored. It's eyes are bloodshot, whisking wild, and it lets out a strange guttural growl. When it smiles, it has fangs and Taeyeon has never been more afraid in her life.
She remains stubborn in her wishful thinking, that this is all a dream, and that things will be fine and dandy when she wakes up. But it's the fact that it's not a dream. It's so very real that the reality of the whole thing makes Taeyeon feel as if she's living in reverie. She suddenly feels light-headed when the creature comes in closer, warm breath fanning against her neck. It's not long before she blacks out, mind in a complete daze.
When she wakes up to sunlight pouring through the small, barred opening, everything seems normal. Maybe it was a dream after all, she thinks as she sits up. At the same time, there's a duly sound of a click at the door and Joon walks in. It's already 10am. Without a word, he picks her off the bed by her arm and drags her out of the room to wash up. Taeyeon misses the dirt-stained fingerprints on the bedsheet.
After her wash-up, she is introduced to three other patients in the wing. The tallest of the three immediately scrutinizes her with a condescending glance. He turns away and scoffs, strolling off without giving her a second glance. The second one, a mild girl with long black tresses and extremely huge glasses framing her face, looks nervously at her, stuttering out her introduction.
"S-sorry....about Kibum, he's not usually this rude...t-though he is really snarky. I-I'm Eunsook, nice to meet you." She bows and steps back, pushing the last patient forward — a young girl, probably nine or ten, her childish features and lack of height a dead giveaway. As a sign of politeness, Taeyeon stoops down to her height, smiling and introducing herself to the little girl.
"Hello dear, I'm Taeyeon. I'll be staying here for awhile, I hope we can be friends." Taeyeon holds out a hand, encouraging the shy girl to go on. The girl refuses to say a word, and cowers behind Eunsook. Eunsook hurriedly apologizes again to Taeyeon and reveals the name of the girl to be Junghee, briefly stating that she's slow in opening up to strangers. When silence forms upon the trio, Taeyeon fidgets in the awkwardness until Junghee decides to run away. Eunsook offers Taeyeon a wan smile, then clumsily trails after Junghee. Taeyeon stands there, bemused by the uncanny behaviors of the other patients. She's snapped out of her stupor when she hears her name called out by a deep voice that can only belong to one person. Minho.
She finds herself once again in his office, hearing the same questions over and over. The questions that she has no answers to. She nonchalantly brushes off all the questions with a simple 'I don't know', but feels her heart constrict when she sees the pain and hurt reflected in his eyes. She feels extremely guilty that he actually cares about her, a nobody, an orphan, a psychopath. And so she sincerely apologizes for her discourteous behavior the day before, wanting to start afresh with the only person who can actually help her find out who she really is.
Minho lets out a breathy laugh and Taeyeon finds it cute. He tells her that it wasn't her fault, he understands what she must be going through, dispels some of the tension between them. But after around ten minutes, she's already restless, bouncing her legs at a hundred miles per hour and staring at the handsome man before her. She knows she has been staring at him for way too long when the words that come out of his mouth are muted; she's been busy memorizing the way his plush lips move. She fails to notice wide quizzical eyes staring at her, concerned.
"Taeyeon."
"Taeyeon."
"Taeyeon!"
"Y-yes! I-I'm sorry what did you say?" She quickly recovers and tries to focus.
"You're adorable when you zone out," here, Taeyeon blushes an angry red, "I was just asking if you'd like to have some strawberries, they're your favorite, aren't they?" He motions to the red, conical-shaped fruits in front of her.
Once again, he takes her by surprise. "How did you know that these were my favorite?"
"Well everybody likes strawberries, don't they?" Minho gives her a weird look, but Taeyeon catches the fleeting, flustered look in his eyes. How quickly he changes back into his calm demeanor is fascinating to Taeyeon, and she decides that if there's really something he wants to tell her, he'll do it when he's ready. There's no point in asking awkward questions to ruin the mood. They continue talking, about light subjects, Minho telling Taeyeon about his childhood days. When it comes to the subject of love, though, Minho's eyes turn vacant and listless. He tells her that he indeed loves someone very much, which Taeyeon has to admit leaves her feeling a little disappointed, but that the person is suffering from a disorder and can't remember him. When the look in his eyes grows more and more pensive, Taeyeon thinks it's time for her to leave. She slips in a simple 'see you' before exiting his office and starting to walk back to her room, but when the neon green exit light in the distance catches her attention, and the fact that the orderlies are not around, she gives in to temptation.
Tiptoeing the whole way, she barely makes it to the exit door without being too indiscreet, tripping on herself a few times along the way. After warily scanning her surroundings, she reaches out gingerly for the door handle, heart pounding in . Click. It's unlocked. She slowly pulls open the door, cringing inwardly when it squeaks. The lift is there, right in front of her in the next hallway. She's almost halfway there. So close yet so far to freedom. She's taking a step out of the psychiatric wing when a large, calloused hand clamps tightly over . Screaming is no use as she's hurled violently back into her ward. The door slams shut and she's stranded in darkness again. Hot tears runs a race down her face as she clambers into bed and gazes into the darkness. She's horrified when her blanket is pulled away from her by an invisible force, and looks up, only to see the same disfigured creature from the night before staring at her through the door window, deranged smile gracing it's lips immediately etched into her memory. Again, she shuts her eyes and wills herself to believe that it's a nightmare.
She wakes up, whipping her head from left to right, ensuring she's alone in her room. It's a relief to find out that she is and that the room is void of other people. Or things. Why she's being plagued by these nightmares, she'll never know, but she does think that they have something to do with her past. Or maybe she is a mental case after all. It's way too early for her to think deeply into the matter anyway. She wanders out of her ward and bumps into Kibum. He's even more pretentious than she remembers, frantically brushing his clothes at areas they made contact with each other. Partly due to her lack of proper sleep, it easily gets onto Taeyeon's nerves – the way he carries himself with so much arrogance – so she speaks up for herself.
"I don't get what's your ing problem, alright? Just ing stop acting like you're the ing king of this hospital."
He lets out a laugh, one so void of humor that it sends chills down Taeyeon's spine. "Get on your way, princess, you don't want to mess with me. You won't see me around for very much longer, anyway, I'm getting out of here today. It's a pity you still have a long way ahead of you. Ta-ta!" He's already prancing his way to Minho's office before Taeyeon can say anything. Turning back, he sends her a last derisive smile, then disappears into the hallway. Taeyeon gathers up her frustration with the guy and storms off, finding herself in the courtyard with Eunsook and Junghee, who are more than startled to see her. Figuring she could use a little bit of fresh air to calm down, she seats herself next to Eunsook who's in the midst of drawing something.
"Kibum?"
Taeyeon nods, and Eunsook silently sympathizes with her.
"Hey...I think I heard him say that he's being released from here. That's great news isn't it? For us, I mean." At this, Eunsook fashions spherical eyes.
"What? But you can't leave this place...once you're here, there's no way out..." she drifts off, lost in thought, eyes distant.
"Wait, what do you mean by that? That's there no way out? I'm pretty sure I saw him entering Minho's office," Taeyeon questions numbly.
"That's new...well I'm not sure." Eunsook shrugs, pausing momentarily, then suddenly asks, "Hey, can I draw you?"
"Y-yeah, sure..." Eunsook's sudden request is unexpected, but Taeyeon doesn't mind being her model, so she agrees. She follows Eunsook's instructions and ends up in a rather silly pose. It's all fun and smiles, and Taeyeon decides, for the umpteenth time, that having a friend in this lonely place is somewhat comforting. Bored after spending ten minutes or so in the same pose, she sneaks glances around the courtyard, noticing that it's rather huge for a hospital. She catches two unfamiliar people, probably a couple, staring wistfully at her through a large window from where she recognizes as Minho's office. She feels slightly pressured by their unyielding stares, and tries asking Eunsook about the strange couple.
"Who?" Eunsook briefly looks up from her masterpiece, but the couple has already moved away from the window and are out of sight.
When the ubiquitous sky starts turning the color of a fresh bruise, Taeyeon can tell that it's getting late. Eunsook finishes up her drawing and Taeyeon marvels at how detailed and beautiful the final product is. Eunsook tells her that she plans to go to college if she's ever released from the hospital, and that she really wants to major in art, which makes Taeyeon feel sick by the fact that the hospital is keeping her from her dreams. It leaves her questioning the true intentions of the hospital, and she's really not getting a good vibe from it. She resolves to taking a shower to wash away her uneasiness, and allows the soothing water to stream down her body. She closes her eyes and drowns out her thoughts; all she wants is to relax now.
There's a sudden tap on her shoulder and she starts to hear sounds of heavy breathing amidst the running water. It's not surprising that she starts hyperventilating even before she turns around to see who it is. She already has an idea who it is anyway. Refusing to turn around, her feet stay rooted to the ground, body eliciting short, breathless gasps. She can't even scream when the creature loops a bloody, bruised arm around her neck, cutting off her airways. The only thing she can do is bite down hard on the arm, releasing it's tight hold. Not taking any chances, she grabs a towel and runs off immediately, not looking back once. She feels dirty again.
Taeyeon bursts into Minho's office, hysterical, body convulsing violently. Minho rushes over to her, worriedly trying to calm her down. When she stops feeling like she's going to have a heart attack at any moment, she demands to know if the hospital is haunted, because she's sure as hell that it is. Hearing her vivid nightmares involving a "ghost", Minho is unusually silent, discernibly at a loss for what to do. He quietly tells her that no such "ghost" exists, and that she must have been hallucinating. Taeyeon is thoroughly unconvinced; she doesn't think she can go another day in this place without turning completely crazy. She breaks down in tears, pleading for them to let her out. A rueful look falls upon Minho's face, as if he wants to do something but can't. He crouches down to the wailing mess and stabs a needle into Taeyeon's frail arm. Her wails slowly quieten into small, broken sobs, and soon, she's completely knocked out by the drug in her system.
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