You Can't Save Everyone
Even before the shock of suddenly becoming a married man had fully worn off, my senior and I stood in front of the ward door.
"Will you two really be okay?"
The people worrying about Choi Yu-na and me. They really are kind-hearted folks.
"Is there another way?"
"Can't argue with that."
However, as my senior said, just because the situation wasn't great didn't mean there was some clever solution.
The reason my senior viewed me favorably probably had this kind of background as its foundation.
If it was wrong for those things to be troublemaking complainants, then it was wrong.
The knees of the staff members who'd received hasty emergency treatment caught my eye.
Smashing perfectly healthy knees just to talk about an examination.
True to being troublemaking complainants, they didn't even realize what they were doing wrong to us.
"Shall we look over the response guidelines before we go?"
"Let's do that."
The anesthesiology and pain medicine ward displays distinct characteristics that set it apart from other wards.
All confirmed patients in this ward exist lying on beds inside the patient rooms.
Patients are under drug administration or physical restraint and appear unable to move of their own volition.
To date, no cases have been confirmed in which entities wearing patient gowns discovered in the corridor were the designated rescue targets.
If the rescue target is confirmed to be lying on a bed inside a patient room in patient status, the field response team must not attempt rescue and must withdraw immediately.
The same applies if a staff member has been classified as a patient and left inside a room.
All personnel who had been lying in the rooms died within [REDACTED] days of leaving the hospital, exhibiting [REDACTED] and [REDACTED] symptoms.
Not a single exception has existed so far.
This guideline was established based on loss cases that occurred during rescue attempts.
When moving in the capacity of guardian or visitor, no cases have been reported to date in which corridor-wandering entities posed a direct threat.
However, during the process of extracting the rescue target from the room, the following actions are strictly prohibited:
Screaming
Running or moving hastily
Abnormal gait
Any behavior that could attract the attention of medical staff
When the above behaviors occur, it has been repeatedly reported that nurses or Hospital Public Service Agents who detect anomalies immediately dispatch.
The field response team must fully explain the current situation and behavioral guidelines to the target prior to rescue.
Even if detection makes securing an exit through the room entrance impossible, do not attempt escape via the room windows.
To date, not a single person who attempted escape through a patient room window has returned.
"That's brutal."
"This is actually pretty good."
"This is?"
"No problems or traps right from the start."
Ah, in that sense?
"High-level entities aren't this convenient."
"I don't want to experience it."
Guardian status, not even a regular visitor. Variables were unlikely, but there was no harm in preparing several times over.
"Another routine?"
"Yeah."
"You're like a smartphone addict."
"Too much."
We tossed light jokes back and forth to keep silence from creeping in, but it was time to enter.
Creak.
After being trapped in the Backrooms for a week, some of my senses had grown dull.
The eeriness that came from a familiar scene being twisted, ever so slightly.
The smell of disinfectant lingering in my nose and the spotless corridor.
People in patient gowns strolling the hallway beneath bright lights.
If I hadn't known they all had expressionless faces that never opened their mouths or blinked, I might have believed this was the university hospital near my house.
I glanced back.
In the lobby, a single old light flickered, barely managing to fulfill its role.
Why did the lobby feel more reassuring than the ward that looked far closer to normal?
"Shall we go?"
I barely shook off the lingering reluctance clinging to my ankles and stepped into the ward.
Remember this. There are no patients in the corridors of the anesthesiology ward.
The rescue target definitely wouldn't be here either.
The rescue targets were two twenty-year-old men.
They had come for a university MT and gotten into trouble, apparently.
I'd memorized their faces, so I could grab them the moment I saw them.
I advanced deeper inside, avoiding eye contact with those strolling the hallway as much as possible.
"What do you think?"
My senior suddenly spoke.
Maybe she judged that casual chatter wouldn't draw the medical staff's attention.
"Hmm…."
I let my answer trail off as I looked around, but no one was paying us any mind.
The usual cliché was that the moment you opened your mouth, every single person-like thing would turn to stare.
"I still can't tell. Shall we go further in?"
"Same here."
Right. If the nurses couldn't find them, they wouldn't be somewhere obvious.
"Should we check inside the rooms?"
"For now. The nurses' station carries too much risk."
"Understood."
I answered while dodging a foreigner dragging an IV stand toward us.
They really kidnapped people without caring about gender, age, or even race.
The search would begin with the innermost room.
It was a dungeon rule not to place the loot near the entrance, after all.
Though they probably wouldn't put it at the very end either.
Staying tense the whole time somehow made me feel less tense.
Had my frontal lobe been anesthetized?
"But we don't know where the patients are. Is it okay to just walk into any room?"
"It's fine."
My senior opened the door and said.
"They're only recorded as having entered the hospital. Even they don't know where they are."
It was a six-person room.
But every bed had its curtain drawn.
To find the rescue targets, we'd have to open each curtain one by one.
I pulled back the curtain of the first bed.
On it lay a man in a perfectly straight, no—frozen posture.
A rigid attention stance like a doll.
Perhaps his whole body was paralyzed from the drugs.
"...!"
The moment our eyes met, the man's pupils rolled wildly in every direction like a seizure.
Sadly, the only freedom granted to him seemed to be moving his eyes.
In that expressionless face, only the pupils were alive, thrashing madly.
That desperate look made it easy to guess what he wanted to say.
"I'm sorry."
We couldn't take him.
Even if that man wouldn't live long, he would want to escape this place.
My abilities were far too lacking to risk endangering the two targets waiting for rescue along with the staff who'd come with us.
I whispered so only he could hear.
"...I cannot take you with me."
When I slipped my hand into my pocket, I felt the euthanasia drug I'd brought along.
If I gave this to him, at least this person could close his eyes comfortably.
But I couldn't.
I withdrew my hand, checked beneath the bed, then forcibly closed the curtain.
The moment that man's breathing stopped, it would draw the medical staff's attention.
"Not there?"
"...No."
"Then let's move to the next room. I've checked the rest."
Choi Yu-na grabbed my hand and pulled me out of the room.
Then, in front of the next room, she stopped me from entering altogether.
"Keep watch."
"Suddenly?"
"Just thought of it. If the medical staff sees what's happening inside, they probably won't leave a guardian alone."
Was this her way of being considerate?
"If it looks like things are going wrong, I'll cough."
"Just raise your voice. Coughing might turn you into a patient."
"Understood."
Choi Yu-na entered the room and closed the door.
Less than five minutes later, she came back out.
"You're fast."
"The room isn't big."
"I see."
While keeping watch, I checked the gallery in between.
No useful tips had come up yet.
To be specific, they were all response guidelines or experiences from other wards—things that would likely cause problems if applied here.
There was no need to test things that were worse than doing nothing.
Not long after my senior entered the thirteenth room—
Visiting hours will end in one hour. We would appreciate it if all visitors and guardians please exit the ward within the time limit.
The broadcast announcing the one-hour countdown echoed through the ward.
Since it said to exit the ward, it seemed we didn't need to leave the hospital itself within an hour—just the lobby.
My senior must have heard it too.
"...Senior?"
Choi Yu-na, who usually came out within five minutes, still hadn't emerged after ten.
Wondering if something unexpected had happened inside the room, I opened the door.
What I saw was my senior staring at two men sitting on the floor, trembling violently.
"Found them."
The rescue targets were safe. For now.