Yes, I am Human (2)

***

Clack—

The lobby of Castrato Hospital.

Deserters from the 1st Infantry Division—better known as the Forward Division—had torn through daily life and seized the building. Looking down at the civilians trembling before their gun barrels, the soldiers found themselves thinking the same thing: where exactly did it all go wrong?

1st Squad, 3rd Platoon, 2nd Company, 1st Battalion, 15th Regiment, 1st Infantry Division.

Known informally as Sergeant Kim's squad, their day began, as it always did, with the blare of the wake-up horn. They'd rise with a sense of helplessness that had long since grown familiar, and the mechanical routine of military life would begin. Roll call, meals, the occasional training exercise...

Monsters called Entities or Echoes had been unleashed upon the world, but the soldiers' daily lives hadn't changed all that much.

According to rumor, the neighboring company's commander had cut training hours short to drill his men hard on these so-called Echoes—an hour of entity-response training every evening, and orders to memorize the online galleries and wikis.

But the commander of the company these men belonged to didn't believe Echoes existed at all.

Their commander had no patience for wasting energy on "nonsense" like studying Echoes. He'd rather wring a little more labor out of his men with that time. Training, and training alone—that was what made a true soldier, he believed.

Thanks to him, while other companies escaped the heat with indoor instruction, his squad was out under the blazing sun, repeating individual combat drills as if nothing in the world had changed.

"Goddammit, that company commander bastard, seriously!"

If they'd known the world was going to turn out like this, he would've been secretly combing the galleries during personal maintenance time, studying Echoes. The corporal ground his teeth as he grumbled.

"What the hell is Capital Defense Command even doing that we have to be the ones deployed?"

"They said the whole command got resonated, sir."

"Bullshit. Does that even make sense? The entire Capital Defense Command?"

The moment an Echo swallowed Yongsan without warning, Sergeant Kim's squad was thrown into the field on emergency orders. No preparation. No briefing. They were handed rifles and loaded onto trucks, and that was all.

When they arrived at the scene, what spread out before ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠them was not the battlefield they'd imagined, but an unfamiliar fresco of hell.

And in that hell, there was none of what they'd braced themselves for—no stench of blood, no screaming, no smell of something burning.

Instead, ordinary citizens laughing and chatting away their daily lives suddenly transformed into monsters and began falling upon them.

Had the Entities raged openly, they could have simply shelled the whole area flat. A clear enemy, a clear front line—soldiers were good at that kind of thing.

But the Entities were cunning. Some hid themselves perfectly inside daily life, while others imposed normalcy on people. There was no way to tell who was human and who was a monster.

Entities that had resonated with people hid among innocent civilians and quietly eliminated them one by one. There was no telling when the comrade beside you—or a passing citizen—might turn into a monster.

‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠

Entities that had resonated with places and objects forced their idea of a normal daily life onto the people around them.

And when the two combined, a true hell began: a grotesque parody of everyday life in which no one could trust anyone.

"We got out... we got out..."

The place Sergeant Kim's squad was deployed to was a park in Yongsan.

Contrary to the reports that Yongsan had gone up in flames, the park's entrance looked peaceful. Citizens strolled leisurely, children laughed and played.

But it didn't take Sergeant Kim long to realize the truth.

The soldiers deployed before them were hanging from every tree in the park like piñatas, being beaten by the "children (?)." Whenever one of the corpses gave out, its resilience spent, and viscera spilled from within, the children would squeal with delight.

In the fountain filled with red liquid, couples laughed and splashed each other. Every time they kicked up the water, the smell of iron flooded the park. On a bench, an old man was reading a newspaper. None of them had the courage to ask what that newspaper, bound in unfamiliar leather, was made of.

The platoon began fleeing the park without so much as a backward glance.

Fortunately, one member of the squad knew something about Echoes.

"In a situation like this, you have to play along with the daily routine as much as possible. Match the routine of the place if it's a location-type Entity, and treat it like an ordinary person if it's a person-type Entity. Never point out anything strange, and never show that you're startled!"

The squadmate who'd explained all this couldn't act his way out of a paper bag, and ended up becoming one of the park's art installations.

Still, thanks to his sacrifice, the squad found a way out alive.

On the walking paths they pretended to be park-goers enjoying the scenery, and at times they beat their tree-hung comrades to death alongside the "children." Passing the crimson fountain, they dipped their hands in and washed their faces as if it felt refreshing—all while barely suppressing the screams clawing up their throats.

By the time they escaped the park, everyone in the platoon except Sergeant Kim's squad was dead.

"Anyone here can drive a 2.5-ton truck!?"

"I... I can drive, Sergeant!"

When Sergeant Kim shouted desperately, one soldier managed to answer with shaking hands. The moment they fled the park, they abandoned their mission and chose desertion.

"Isn't this a violation of military law?"

"Fuck off with the rulebook! What military law, in this situation? Call it a zombie outbreak! No—it's way worse than that. Didn't you see back there? How the hell are we supposed to fight those things?"

Having lived through that park-turned-hell, Sergeant Kim had come away with one certainty.

Society was going to collapse.

There was no way humanity could hold out against things like that. No matter how powerful the weapons, if you couldn't tell enemy from ally, you couldn't win. The proof was Yongsan, overrun in an instant. Capital Defense Command, the police—helpless, all of them.

"If we don't move now, we're the ones who die!"

One stroke of luck: Sergeant Kim had a rifle in his hands.

Any other civilians caught in a disaster like this could at best loot convenience stores for food. But their squad was different. Armed soldiers with live rounds. Trained combat personnel. They faced this catastrophe with a far better hand than anyone else.

"If you want to live, follow me. First we ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠get out of Yongsan. Then we go as far away as we can."

"Get out and go where, S-Sergeant Kim?"

"We drain a gas station for fuel first, then hit a supermarket."

A world had begun where military law no longer meant a thing. Starting with Sergeant Kim, the squad members began accepting reality one by one—or rather, they had no other choice. The squad's corporal made a careful suggestion.

"Shouldn't we hit the ammunition depot first, Sergeant? Bullets aren't exactly unlimited."

"You're right. Let's grab as much ammo as we can carry. Grenades too. Everything we can take."

The army was an organization accustomed to orders. Once the two highest-ranked men in the squad agreed, the hesitation evaporated.

Raiding an ammunition depot in a half-paralyzed unit was easier than they'd expected—nobody could even tell who was who in the chaos. Looting gas from a gas station whose owner had been killed by an Entity posed no difficulty either. Clear away the corpses, and that was that.

Then, as they headed for a large supermarket to secure food, a private who'd kept silent the entire time finally spoke up.

"Uh, Sergeant? In the movies, it's always antibiotics and painkillers that run out first, isn't it?"

"Oh, nice one, Gyu-geun. Now that I think about it, yeah. Medicine is essential. Then the hospital first."

There was no hesitation left in them anymore. The moment the first line was crossed, crossing the next was astonishingly easy.

They assumed the hospital would be just as easy to strip—everyone would have fled by now, same as everywhere else. With the world falling apart, how many people would still be inside a hospital?

But the moment they set foot in the hospital lobby, they realized their math was wrong.

Outside Yongsan, the situation hadn't yet been properly understood.

The soldiers had experienced firsthand what kind of hell Yongsan had become—but the Yongsan delivered through the news was a different story. On the appropriately edited broadcasts, Yongsan looked like manageable chaos.

Even when rampaging Entities were caught plainly on camera now and then, the footage never conveyed the overwhelming terror of a national crisis. If anything, the message that the military had things under control came through louder.

It was only after the Human-Faced Tiger—the thing bullets couldn't kill—was caught on camera that citizens began to grasp the gravity. Until then, people simply waited with the vague expectation that the army would clean the whole mess up.

"What do we do, Sergeant?"

"Do? We strip the place, obviously. We can't back out now."

But it was already too late to turn back.

They had entered the hospital armed, and they'd committed far too much pillaging on the way here. And above all, deep down they already believed it.

The apocalypse was coming. Inevitably.

Bang!

The sergeant fired into the ceiling and roared.

"Hands up! H-hand over the antibiotics and anything useful—now!"

Anything like morality or basic humanity had been left behind in that park in Yongsan a long time ago.

"What are you looking at! Where do you keep the meds! You there, Professor! You're giving the tour!"

One of the gun barrels that had crashed into the hospital swung toward me.

I sidestepped slightly, wondering if he'd meant some other professor—but the barrel followed me.

Ah. So it is me.

Why me, of all people?

There are plenty of people in this lobby. I'm hardly the only one in a white coat.

There are three professors visible at that café alone, and there's a resident poking his head out from behind the reception desk over there.

And lo and behold, the family medicine professor is making a run for it. What a guy.

I grumbled inwardly, but nothing changed. They'd chosen me.

"Hey, Doctor! Start guiding, now! You want to die!?"

"Understood. My apologies."

I answered as calmly as I could manage and approached them slowly. Sudden movements could set them off, so I moved very, very slowly.

Song-woo trailed after me. With me singled out, it would have looked strange for him to slip away alone.

"Both Internal Medicine, huh. Perfect. You know your drugs, then."

"Well, technically medications are handled by the pharmacy—"

I jabbed Song-woo in the rear with my pen, hard. In this situation, pointless honesty was dangerous.

"I'll guide you."

Apparently my quick answer and cooperative attitude pleased him, because the corner of the sergeant's mouth twitched upward.

I began calmly leading the way.

"The hospital's medications aren't kept in Internal Medicine—they're in the pharmacy department. Would you like me to take you there?"

"I know that. Don't teach me."

"My apologies."

Song-woo and I led from the front.

Not scared, you ask? Terrified out of my mind. Knowing there was a live, loaded gun trained on my back, my heart was pounding fit to burst and my palms were slick with cold sweat.

I had no plan. Frankly, what can a doctor do against armed deserters with rifles?

And yet I could keep my composure for two reasons. The first was duty.

If I screw up, Song-woo and the patients are in danger.

The other was hope.

What these men want is drugs. Not doctors, not the hospital itself. If I gave them what they wanted, there was a good chance they'd leave quietly. It wasn't as if they seemed in any state to worry about witnesses, so if I cooperated smoothly, it was possible no one would get hurt.

As a professor, and as a doctor—for the sake of keeping the residents and patients from catching a bullet, I had to stay calm.

The drugs? Just give them up and be done with it.

And honestly, if my read was right, resisting these men would be pointless. They'd already crossed far too many lines. Their eyes said as much.

With both hands raised behind my head, I began obediently guiding the soldiers.

"I'll take you to the pharmacy department."

I followed the directional line along the corridor. But before I'd taken more than a few steps, something appeared to block our way.

"Oh, if it isn't Professor Lee?"

A middle-aged man with a round pair of glasses and a beaming smile, cutting us off.

Professor Kim Seok-tae of Psychiatry.

Because his face resembled a certain lunatic alchemist who'd fused his daughter with a dog in a certain manga, in his student days he'd gone by the nickname "Professor Kim (Chimera)."

"Were you on your rounds just now, perhaps?"

Professor Kim folded his hands neatly and gave an easy, eye-crinkling smile.

The nickname sounded a little grim, but in truth he was a wonderful man. Every weekend he went out to areas where suicide clusters happened, counseling and treating people—and heaven only knew how many lives he'd saved that way. Those of us at the hospital who knew his psychoanalytic therapy commanded hundreds of dollars an hour privately called him "the Saint of the back alleys."

That same Professor Kim was now standing squarely in our path.

"Ah—Professor Kim. I'm actually in rather a hurry..."

"Is it because of the gentlemen behind you? Who might they be?"

I almost shook my head frantically—an instinctive please don't provoke them, please step aside.

But the moment I got a proper look at Professor Kim's face, still smiling serenely at armed soldiers, a chill ran down my spine.

And for good reason.

Why does a psychiatrist have a curette in his pocket?

A surgical instrument was shyly peeking out of the psychiatrist's coat pocket.

A curette. A tool with a spoon- or hook-shaped tip, used to scrape out or excise tissue—mainly in neurosurgery, orthopedics, and plastic surgery.

It was a tool a psychiatrist had absolutely no use for. They didn't perform surgery in the first place.

But the coat pocket holding Professor Kim's curette was stained red, and dangling from the slightly exposed hook was a pale pink smear of fatty tissue I desperately didn't want to identify.

That was all I needed to be certain.

Damn it! He's resonated!

Come ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠to think of it, it made perfect sense. Hospitals—psychiatric hospitals in particular—are a staple of horror narratives. Madness, experiments, unethical treatments. Every ingredient was there. It meant a place and a person where an Echo was bound to resonate.

The only problem was that it had to be the psychiatry department of our hospital.

My mind snapped awake. The deserters were no longer the problem.

Which Echo is it?

There were four types of Echo known to latch onto psychiatrists.

From the clues at hand, I couldn't yet tell which Entity this was. But I did know the rules that held true in front of all four of them.

Never, ever give it grounds to decide that I was a "patient." And never point out anything strange about Professor Kim—never provoke him.

It kills me that I don't have any items on me.

With the kind of overwhelming force or specialized items the containment agencies carried, identification alone would settle it—then you burned it, subdued it, or treated it. But without them? The only way to survive was to humor the Entity and play my role to perfection.

Licking my dry lips, I acted—naturally, the way I'd talk to a colleague on any ordinary day.

"With the situation in Yongsan so serious, they're saying our hospital right next door could be at some risk too. These servicemen have come to protect us, so I was just guiding them."

I performed the kind answer I'd have given any other day.

Professor Kim returned an equally kind answer, just as he would on any ordinary day.

"Ah, I see. Very commendable. I noticed signs of Anxiety in the gentlemen behind you, so I wondered whether perhaps my 'surgery' might be called for."

"No, Professor Kim. They're not patients—they're guests."

"Ah, I see it was my mistake, then."

Fortunately, to Professor Kim I was still an equal—a fellow "doctor."

For now.

So my persuasion seemed to have landed.

If I can just ease away naturally now...

But the world refused to flow that easily.

"Who the hell are you!"

The sergeant suddenly swung his barrel toward Professor Kim.

Professor Kim gazed placidly at the gun aimed at him and slowly tilted his head.

"I'd say that confirms the Anxiety, wouldn't you? Violent tendencies on top of it—clearly he needs my counseling. Or my surgery."

Damn it, this oblivious sergeant bastard.

"He's fine, Professor Kim. He's just come straight out of combat, so he's a little on edge. Please forgive him."

"Then that's textbook acute stress disorder, isn't it? Proper intervention is needed before it develops into PTSD. Allow me to help."

Professor Kim beamed with what looked like heartfelt concern at the soldiers.

I racked my brain desperately, but my knowledge didn't run deep enough to out-argue a psychiatrist on mental illness.

Then it happened. A gun barrel swung around behind us, leveling at Sergeant Kim's back.

"Sergeant Kim! This ain't right!"

A private, unable to bear the extreme of the situation, had turned his gun on his squad leader. Sergeant Kim's barrel snapped toward the private in an instant.

"What the hell's wrong with you, punk!?"

"Professor Lee's the man who treated my mother, that's what!"

Apparently the private came from one of the neighborhoods where Professor Kim did his volunteer work.

"He's the one who stopped me... and my sister from killing ourselves! This ain't right, I'm telling you!"

But the private's plea didn't seem to reach the sergeant at all.

"Hey! What's with the goody-two-shoes act now? It's already too late! And this hospital was your idea, wasn't it!"

"I didn't know it'd be like this!"

Between the private and the sergeant, barrels leveled at each other, the other soldiers scrambled in panic. Some shifted toward the private, some toward the sergeant, muzzles swinging at their own comrades.

The squad had split in two.

"The gas station and the ammo depot were empty, but this place isn't! I never wanted any part of this!"

"You little punk! We don't have time! If another unit finds us, we could die! We grab the drugs fast and get out—that's the plan!"

"I'd rather die as a human being! We haven't even decided where we're going! How are we any different from the monsters at this point!"

"GODDAMMIT!"

A hair-trigger moment. Unable to endure the tension a second longer, Sergeant Kim pulled his first.

The bullet tore through the private's thigh.

"Gaaaagh!"

"What—what the hell are you doing!"

The moment Sergeant Kim actually fired, even the soldiers on his side panicked. None of them had truly believed he'd shoot a comrade.

"You don't die from a leg wound! It was just a suppression shot!"

No. He can die.

The femoral artery runs through the thigh, and it's a place where bleeding is notoriously hard to stop—people die from it all the time. Damage to the femoral artery can kill within minutes from blood loss alone. There is no such thing as the "non-lethal suppression shot" you see in the movies.

But the sergeant, educated by cinema, seemed to genuinely believe a through-and-through to the thigh was a safe way to subdue a man.

"Leave this punk and move, now!"

Apparently he couldn't bring himself to finish the private off; sweating, he urged me to get moving.

"Hey! Where'd the doctor go!"

But by the time he found me, I had already seized Song-woo by the scruff and put more than enough distance between us and the sergeant.

"Hey! Get over—"

The sergeant never finished the sentence.

Because Professor Kim had slid soundlessly between us.

"Severe anxiety disorder accompanied by violent tendencies. It appears you require an Emergency Amygdalotomy."

"Now what the hell are you!"

"No need to worry. You'll feel better very soon. Hmm-hmm."

"Wh-what are you—why are you coming closer. Stay back! Stay away from me!"

Bang! Bang!

The panicked sergeant pulled the trigger.

But neither of the two shots stopped Professor Kim's stride.

One in the chest, one in the throat. The flesh torn open by the bullets wriggled and regenerated. Like a tape rewinding, the wounds sealed themselves in reverse.

Watching Professor Kim regenerate, the soldiers on the sergeant's side broke into open panic.

"It's a monster!"

"Why is there an Entity in here!"

"No! No!!"

At their screams, a crack appeared across Professor Kim's once-serene face.

Not a figure of speech. It was genuinely cracking.

"How unpleasant. I am a doctor."

The Entity had begun to punish those who refused to play along with its narrative.

The split face opened in six directions, and from within them countless eyeballs sprouted. Six eyes, each gazing in a different direction.

Rolling its cluster of eyes like the loupes of a neurosurgical theater, Professor Kim advanced on his "patients."

"I shall now perform an Emergency Amygdalotomy on all of you."

"AAAAGH!"

"I observe hyperactivity of the amygdala. Removing it will alleviate your anxiety symptoms."

The instant Professor Kim, pinning Sergeant Kim down, drove the curette into his nostril, I whipped my head away.

Song-woo hastily averted his eyes too.

Crunch. Squelch. Ghhk. Splatter. Bang.

A symphony of sounds no one should ever hear in daily life unfolded around us.

When that horrific symphony finally died down, I carefully turned my head back toward Professor Kim.

"Heh heh heh..."

Four soldiers sat slumped on the floor. Pale pink tissue of unidentifiable origin was trickling from their nostrils—but they only grinned goofily, utterly unconcerned.

And Professor Kim, looking over his cured patients, wore the smile of a happy man.

"Ah, Professor Lee."

Professor Kim turned toward me.

"How did you find the surgery? Now that it's finished, I plan to begin counseling therapy—would you care to observe that as well? I remember how fond you are of these things."

Licking my dry lips, I tried my best to smile as naturally as I could.

"Unfortunately, there's a trauma patient over there."

I pointed at the fallen private and the two soldiers who'd sided with him.

"I need to see to him."

At the same time, I shot them a look. Play along, damn it.

Fortunately they had at least enough sense to catch my meaning, and they edged toward me warily.

The six-forked eyes gazed at me in silence. Eyes weighing me, judging whether I was a "colleague"—or a "patient."

A voice drifted out from inside Professor Kim's split face.

"But those men also appear to have anxiety disorders?"

A chilling silence fell.

I swallowed hard and spoke with as professional an air as I could muster.

"I judge those to be symptoms of blood loss."

"Hmm..."

"Hemorrhagic shock from the femoral artery injury is what's provoking the anxiety symptoms. Since it's an organic problem, it's properly Internal Medicine's case first. Once the bleeding is stopped and the shock resolves, the psychiatric symptoms should disappear on their own. His comrades are reacting out of worry for their patient—perfectly natural."

Professor Kim seemed to consider this for a moment, then slowly nodded. The split face gradually realigned itself.

"I see. Quite right—psychiatric illness, after all, can only be diagnosed once organic causes are excluded. Mm-hm."

Professor Kim nodded with a placid face.

"You really are Internal Medicine through and through, Professor Lee. Quick to identify the organic cause."

"Thank you."

"Then I'll leave those patients in your care, Professor Lee."

Professor Kim smiled gently.

"Let's have a meal together sometime, Professor Lee."

"Take care, Professor Kim."

And so, having hastily patched up the three soldiers and put distance between us and Professor Kim, I came back to myself to find we were already near the trauma treatment room of the ER.

"Damn it..."

Only when I looked toward the emergency room entrance did I finally understand.

The world outside the hospital was smothered, wall to wall, in a thick, deep fog.

Our hospital has resonated too...

By then, the golden hour had long since slipped through our fingers.