Chapter 6: Like Entering a Morgue
Chapter 6: Like Entering a Morgue
Enduring the black water, Anran manages to clean the yellow phlegm off her hands. Gritting her teeth and fueled by a surge of anger, she slowly makes her way out of her room to the doctor's office to discuss transferring hospitals.
As she walks down the hallway, she notices the nurses moving about as if they are floating. What makes her feel even more unsettled is that each nurse seems to have the lifeless, zombie-like quality of the undead. Wrapped in their pink uniforms, they appear as if they are covering rotting corpses, with exposed foreheads showing bulging veins and vacant stares, which is frightening.
Anran leans against the wall, holding her stomach and using the handrails for support, making her way slowly toward the doctor's office. It is evening, and there are only a few doctors on duty. They sit in their chairs, vacant and unmoving, neither working nor reviewing patient files, simply sitting there as if unsure of what to do.
Suddenly, it feels like the entire obstetrics department has turned into a morgue. The atmosphere is inexplicably eerie.
Anran’s heart begins to race. Pressing her face against the cold wall, she moves step by step toward the doctor's office. Her postpartum shoes are soft and warm, almost silent.
When she finally looks clearly, she is utterly shocked. Every doctor’s forehead is covered with bulging veins, just like the nurses outside. Since doctors don’t wear masks in their office, Anran sees that each doctor appears to be suffering from some uncontrollable illness, drooling from the corners of their mouths.
What is flowing from their mouths isn’t clear saliva but a thick, yellowish, sticky liquid, similar to the yellow phlegm on Anran’s medication bottle.
The instinct of higher intelligent beings to avoid danger makes Anran suddenly turn around. Ignoring the discomfort of her side incision and the feeling of her internal organs being stretched, she braces herself against the wall with one hand and holds her distended belly with the other. Moving as quickly as possible without affecting the incision, she hurries to the passenger elevator, heading for the neonatal department on the fifth floor.
She wants to notify the doctors and nurses in the neonatal department that the obstetrics department needs extra help and see if there is any way to get her daughter out of the neonatal department. She can’t stay in this hospital for another moment—she needs to leave immediately.
A lightning bolt shatters the darkness of the sky, and heavy rain suddenly pours down. With the elevator delayed, Anran can’t wait any longer. Summoning all her strength, she uses the emergency stairs to climb. It takes her at least 20 minutes to climb just one floor, leaving her drenched in sweat as if she has been caught in the rain. She is as miserable as one can imagine.
Finally, when she reaches the security door on the fifth floor, she sees through the transparent glass that the neonatal department is overflowing with people. Not only that, but everyone has bulging blue veins on their foreheads, and yellow phlegm is uncontrollably flowing from their mouths.
Among these people, including doctors, nurses, and relatives waiting outside the blue light room, neonatal intensive care unit, and general neonatal department, without exception, it seems that everyone has either fallen victim to some kind of evil or contracted a contagious disease. What has happened?