Hope? (Part 1)
That single line gleamed ominously within my despair-clouded vision.
Fix this? This absolute shitshow? No, it was past being a shitshow—only ashes remained.
I squeezed the pressure bag harder. Reason and common sense screamed inside my head.
That guy is just a lunatic. A megalomaniac who couldn't snap out of it even in death. Not even God Himself could save this patient now.
I looked away from the forum screen and stared at the monitor. Right then—
Beep, beep.
The blood pressure readings on the monitor began to fluctuate ever so slightly.
55... 60... 65...
"Blood pressure is rising! It's up to the sixties!" Lee Min-jae shouted, his voice thick with jubilation.
The Type O blood they had just transfused was miraculously starting to take effect.
"Oh, thank god!"
The frozen air in the Resuscitation Room thawed for a brief moment. Clinging to a newfound sliver of hope, everyone began moving like mad.
"Get another IV line in! Hurry! We have to secure it while the blood pressure is holding!"
"Prepare the next blood pack! Make sure we can swap them out immediately!"
"Where is that portable X-ray?!"
But that hope was as fleeting as a mirage.
"Where the hell is Trauma Surgery?! The patient's going to die at this rate!" Lee Min-jae screamed at the intercom.
The patient's blood pressure hovered precariously in the sixties, refusing to climb any higher. The volume of blood being pumped in was nowhere near enough to offset the torrent gushing out.
It was still like pouring water into a shattered urn.
At this rate, either the blood bank would run dry, or the patient's heart would stop first. The situation had improved marginally, but it was still catastrophic.
Still clutching the pressure bag, I made my decision.
Let's do it.
It was a gamble. But staying idle meant a hundred percent chance of death. Even if it was a gamble, if there was even a one percent chance, I had to take it. And I had already done it once before.
The memory of that horrific laparotomy. That bizarre sensation of my body no longer belonging to me.
But in the end, the patient survived. And I had very thoroughly drilled some manners into him, warning him not to ruin my life... So surely, he wouldn't do something as insane as speaking casually to my seniors again.
I desperately tried to comfort myself with that thought.
I closed my eyes. All the noise around me faded into the distance.
Possession. Scalpel God.
In that instant, all the light in the world vanished.
Blackout. Absolute darkness. A void where neither sound, sensation, nor the flow of time existed.
Just as the fleeting thought Am I dead? crossed my mind—
Light flooded back in.
Yeah, I really shouldn't be getting used to this, but the feeling was horribly familiar. Damn it. My life was definitely heading down the wrong path.
I could see through my own eyes, but I felt entirely stripped of control. I was watching the world through my own eyes, but I wasn't the one moving my pupils.
The stage: my body. The director: Scalpel God. The lead actor: Scalpel God. The audience: me.
What the fuck is this?
My fingertips twitched minutely, completely independent of my will.
This time was different. Last time, Scalpel God had been caught off guard by the sudden possession. This time, however, he was fully aware that I had summoned him.
The crucial difference between this possession and the last: without a single second of hesitation, Scalpel God's consciousness seized absolute control of my physical form.
And there was one more, even more critical difference this time.
Honorifics. Polite speech.
Please, let polite words come out of that filthy mouth of yours, you damn ghost.
Whether my desperate prayer was answered or not, Scalpel God's first movement using my body was astonishingly calm. He slowly lowered my hands, which had been squeezing the pressure bag. Then, he swept his gaze across the entire Resuscitation Room. His eyes scanned the beeping monitor, the blood-soaked abdomen of the patient, and the panicked faces of the medical staff in turn.
Good job. At least he didn't immediately start barking casual slang like last time.
And then, my mouth opened.
"Where is the REBOA kit?"
...Wait, you crazy bastard.
"...I mean, where is it, please?"
Scalpel God awkwardly tacked on the polite ending, correcting himself. At that clumsy attempt at politeness, the inner me wept tears of blood while sighing in relief.
Yes, well done. You socially inept ghost. At least you've equipped the bare minimum of manners.
But upon hearing that question, Lee Min-jae's face contorted into an expression that clearly said, This guy has finally, truly lost his mind.
"Hyeon-jae? REBOA? Where did that come from out of the blue? Don't tell me you're planning to do it?"
REBOA. Resuscitative Endovascular Balloon Occlusion of the Aorta. It was a last-resort hemostatic procedure where a balloon catheter is inserted through the femoral artery to block the aorta from the inside. In essence, it acted as an internal tourniquet to halt massive abdominal and pelvic hemorrhaging.
I knew it was one of the most difficult procedures in trauma surgery—one that even most fellows struggled to perform, let alone a first-year resident.
"Yeah."
"..."
"No, no."
My mouth stammered involuntarily. It seemed Scalpel God hadn't fully adapted to using polite language yet.
"Yes. I will perform it."
At those words, Han Jae-eon, who was squeezing the Ambu bag nearby, interjected.
"Are you out of your mind? The patient might meet the indications, but this isn't a procedure you can just pull off. This is completely different from securing an airway!"
She was absolutely right. REBOA was madness. At least, it was for a second-year Emergency Medicine resident.
"This is on a completely different level from just slicing an abdomen open. You have to visualize the blood vessels using ultrasound or a C-arm, insert a guidewire, push the catheter all the way up to the aorta, and then inflate the balloon at the exact location. Are you telling me you can do all that?" Han Jae-eon's voice grew even sharper. "If you rupture the aorta, the patient will drop dead on the spot. Can you actually do it?"
A desperate protest. But Lee Min-jae wasn't listening to her.
"Wait... ah, shit... ha... hold on a second..." Lee Min-jae clutched his head, tearing at his hair. "You... Were you like this when you opened up that abdomen last year too? No, what am I even saying. Ah, fuck... Can you actually do this properly? For real?"
Lee Min-jae was asking me. Not the second-year resident Han Hyeon-jae, but the mysterious entity that had performed that miracle back then.
"Can you do it?"
To that question, an answer flowed from my mouth without a single moment of hesitation.
"...Yes."
In that instant, all of Lee Min-jae's rationality snapped.
"Ah, hell. Okay." He barked at the nurse. "Nurse Nam! Bring the REBOA kit and the C-arm to the Resuscitation Room right now! Hurry!"
"Hyeon-jae."
"Yes."
"I'm not taking responsibility for this, okay?! Seriously! Even if something goes wrong later, I never ordered you to do this! I have no intention of going to prison with you just because you decided to pull some crazy stunt! So from this moment on, I'm just... an active bystander, got it?!"
Was this dodging responsibility or not? On the surface, it was a blatant cop-out, but at the same time, it meant, I will turn a blind eye to whatever crazy stunt you pull.
What a sly bastard.
The atmosphere in the Resuscitation Room shifted once more. The most bizarre operating theater in the world, orchestrated by a crazy ghost, an even crazier second-year resident, and a gambling senior who had resolved to stand by and watch.
The moment Lee Min-jae gave the green light, the Resuscitation Room erupted into chaos again. The radiology technicians moved busily, grunting as they wheeled the massive, C-shaped mobile X-ray machine—the C-arm—into the room. Its heavy wheels rolled in with a loud, rumbling clatter.
Leaving all the commotion behind him, Scalpel God calmly prepared for the next step.
My hands moved. Scalpel God picked up the ultrasound probe, slipped a plastic sheath over it, and applied a generous amount of sterile gel.
"Bring the ultrasound over here."
A nurse wheeled the monitor stand over to the bedside. Scalpel God slightly peeled back the sterile drape covering the patient's right groin, where the femoral artery ran. Then, he pressed the probe against the skin.
A faint, black-and-white image appeared on the monitor, displaying the cross-section of a pulsing blood vessel.
"Position the C-arm over the patient's pelvis and bring up the AP view. Yes, yes. Just like that."
The radiographer adjusted the C-arm's position without a word.
Beside him, Lee Min-jae was frantically tearing open the packaging of the REBOA kit.
"Ah, damn it, why won't this open?!"
The sound of tearing clear plastic echoed with jarring sharpness.
Despite the continuous transfusion of blood, the blood pressure readings on the monitor began to tick downward again.
65... 62... 59...
"Shit, it's dropping even with the blood going in! Hyeon-jae, how much longer?" Lee Min-jae's anxious voice cut through the tense atmosphere.
Right then, Han Jae-eon, still squeezing the Ambu bag, intervened.
"Hyeon-jae, wait! The patient's blood pressure is too low right now. Let's at least get it up to the seventies with the MTP blood before we start. Please."
Her words were logical and textbook-perfect.
Sorry, Senior. But the current owner of my body is a man who used textbooks as kindling decades ago.
"Is the current blood pressure not more than sufficient to meet the indications for this procedure, Doctor?" His voice was ice-cold.
"No, but it's still too dangerous, Hyeon-jae."
"Enough, enough." Lee Min-jae stepped between them. "The decision's been made. Just let him be. Right now, we have no choice but to trust this lunatic."
And just like that, all objections were silenced.
Scalpel God opened his mouth.
"We will begin."