Yes, I Am Human (3)

"Mmgh…"

I let out a long, weary sigh as I scrolled through the patient's record on the tablet, the EMR glowing softly against the dim light of the ICU.

"He's going to be fine. His life is not in danger."

Withdrawing my gaze from the chart, I turned to the soldiers standing at the bedside.

"The bleeding was heavy, but the damage was managed well and the anastomosis took cleanly. His shock has stabilized, so he should regain consciousness before long."

I looked down at the Private sleeping soundly in the intensive care bed.

A patient who had no idea that the professor of psychiatry was an Entity — a man who had taken a bullet through the thigh trying to cover for him.

It had been a genuine emergency, but the fact that it happened inside the hospital — where rapid intervention was possible — was sheer luck, and nothing less.

"You two should get some rest as well. I'm sure you understand, but given the state of the hospital, please stay inside the ICU as much as you can."

I explained the course of the surgery to the Private's fellow soldiers.

The first Private listened with his head hanging low, standing there like a dead man. His eyes were swollen and rimmed with red.

The other one was crouched in a corner of the ICU, face buried in his knees.

Emotional numbing. Social withdrawal. Learned helplessness.

Classic negative symptoms of PTSD.

Normally, patients like these would have been referred to Professor Kim for a psychiatric consult.

If I had requested a psychiatry referral for suspected PTSD the way I always used to, the professor would have come looking for me afterward and said something like this:

"Jeong-uk. It's been less than a month since the incident. You're going to diagnose PTSD already? What did I lecture you to call it in this situation?"

"I'm sorry, Professor. I was busy, and acute stress disorder slipped my mind for a moment."

"You knew that, and you still wrote that diagnosis? You're an internal medicine professor now, so you've decided you can just sloppy-diagnose psychiatric conditions? That hurts my feelings."

He was a professor I'd been close with since my medical school days. We'd competed in tournaments together on the basketball team, and I'd once tagged along on his weekend volunteering trips to the slum neighborhoods.

Above all, he was the mentor who had given me free psychoanalytic therapy back when depression was crushing me.

And now that man had become a monster.

Damn it.

Watching the hollowed-out soldiers, Professor Kim rose unbidden in my mind, and my chest grew heavy.

Why did a man like that have to resonate?

No — that's not it.

It was because he was a man like that that he resonated.

He was too devoted, too perfect, too burdened by responsibility. His sense of mission — the conviction that patients must be healed — was too strong. That narrative of his must have been what called the Echo.

I forcibly cut off the spiral of dark thoughts and started walking.

Moping wouldn't change anything.

For now, I needed to get back to the cardiology department and sort out my—

Just then, one of the Privates called out to stop me as I was leaving the ICU.

"Um… Professor?"

"Yes?"

I stopped and turned around.

"Was there something you wished to ask?"

"I… I'm truly sorry."

The Private with the bayonet at his chest bowed his head deeply. The other one, who had been crouching in the corner, scrambled to his feet and bent at the waist in a rigid ninety degrees.

"Just now… we must have gone completely insane. Once this situation is over, we will take full responsibility. In whatever form that takes—"

"What on earth are you talking about?"

I cut him off.

"You're the ones who came here to protect this hospital, aren't you?"

"…What?"

"That's at least how I remember it."

I smiled gently at the two half-witted soldiers.

"You fought for your lives at Yongsan, and then ran here in a hurry to secure the safety of our hospital. It was inevitable that you'd arrive armed, wasn't it?"

"…"

"I can't tell you how reassured I am. Thank you for everything you've done."

"…"

The two of them pulled their caps down low over ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠their faces.

I could see droplets sliding down their cheeks, but I chose not to point it out.

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

Song-woo and I returned to the department office together after leaving the ICU.

He'd kept his mouth shut the whole walk through the corridor, but the moment the office door closed behind us, the words he'd been choking back came pouring out.

"That fog outside the windows… we're completely trapped, aren't we?"

"That's right."

Trapped. One look at those ominous clouds of fog that had appeared out of nowhere to ring the entire hospital made that much clear.

"You remember the fogged-in lodge from horror movies? It's going to be something like that."

"What happens if we go out there?"

"Beats me. I don't have a clue."

I cast my mind back to the contents of the Entity encyclopedia.

To say it again: I really, truly don't know.

I vaguely remembered another doctor-Entity document containing a record of 'a patient bearing a striking resemblance to the missing agent' being treated by a physician — but it had never been officially confirmed, so I couldn't be certain.

"I'm curious myself, honestly."

I said it with a playful grin.

"How about you tie a long rope around your waist and go check it out for us?"

"Professor? You're joking, right?"

"Of course I'm joking."

I had no idea what the fog actually was.

The only thing I was sure of was that nothing good would come of walking into it.

"Haaaah…"

Song-woo's shoulders sagged. He collapsed into a chair like a man completely spent.

"I should have handed in my resignation a month ago…"

"Then you should have quit faster."

I had warned the entire country, clearly and repeatedly.

If you wanted to live a safe, unremarkable life, stay away from places thick with narrative. Hospitals above all could turn into Entities at the drop of a hat, I said — so handle your own risks accordingly. I told them again and again.

Unfortunately, medicine happened to be one of the few professions in South Korea worth shouldering that kind of danger, so very few doctors actually took my warning seriously and walked away.

"I never dreamed it would be our hospital, though…"

"Tell me about it. Why us, of all places?"

Seoul alone had any number of major medical centers. Five flagship hospitals, plus a whole row of venerable old institutions. Why did it have to be Castrato Hospital?

"Wouldn't that just be proof of how many sincere doctors we have here?"

"Those sincere doctors all look primed to turn into monsters, if you ask me."

"Fair point."

Just then, the office door burst open and a crowd of people shoved their way in roughly.

It was the Department Chair, fresh off ward rounds, with Soyeon — a third-year resident — trailing at his heels.

The two of them came back drenched in cold sweat, breathing hard and ragged.

The Chair flung open the refrigerator, pulled out a water bottle and shoved it into Soyeon's hands, grabbed one for himself, and gulped it down in great swallows.

"Haah… Saved…"

"Chair?"

"Holy shit! Fuck!"

Both of them spasmed and choked, spraying water everywhere.

Soyeon's legs gave out and she sank to the floor where she stood.

The Chair leaned back against a chair, clutching his chest, and glared at me.

"Hey! Make some noise when people come in!"

"We were here first, though?"

"Argh, you little— then at least say hello!"

Greeting him would have produced the exact same reaction either way, but I refrained from pointing that out.

Instead, I put my finger on why the two of them were reacting so violently.

"Did you run into an Entity on the way back?"

"Yep. You?"

"I did. We managed to talk our way past it somehow. Sounds like you got through safely too, Chair."

"I did. A pregnant woman had some heart trouble, so I went for a consult — who the hell knew Obstetrics had turned into some kind of demon realm?"

"I'm sorry, what?"

"Huh?"

The Chair and I locked eyes.

"Obstetrics?"

"Hey, why are you reacting like that. Don't tell me—"

"Uh… mine was the professor of psychiatry?"

"…"

"…"

A silence settled over the room.

Then, without anyone needing to go first, the two of us muttered it at the same time.

""The E-R-M.""

"I just checked with the other professors in the CV group chat,"

the Chair said, setting his phone down on the desk.

"Looks like nobody in our own department has resonated."

"One blessing among the calamities."

It truly was. As long as our department remained safe, it meant we had a stronghold to operate from.

"So, to sum up: apart from our own department, we have no idea which departments are normal and which have resonated. Is that about the size of it?"

"That's exactly right, Chair."

Regaining his composure, the Chair nodded gravely, absorbing the situation summary I'd laid out for him.

"Then we'll have to be careful when we do ward rounds from now on, too?"

"Yes, we will."

By its very nature, cardiology had to move between many different wards.

And it wasn't just cardiology — internal medicine as a whole had no ward it didn't visit. Consultation requests came in constantly.

The problem was that every time we set foot in another department, we would now have to keep in mind the possibility that it had resonated.

Even if Psychiatry had resonated with the Happy Relieved Hospital, it was entirely possible for Obstetrics to have resonated with some completely different Echo.

"We can't just refuse consultations, though, can we?"

"Then the Entities will stop treating us as doctors."

To an Echo, there were only two kinds of people in a hospital.

Staff, and patients.

Which of the two ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠was safer went without saying.

The Chair, grasping the full weight of the situation, muttered with an expression of pure incredulity.

"I mean, seriously — does it actually make sense for every haunted-hospital ghost story in the country to pile into one university medical center?"

"Narrative attracts narrative, Chair. It's like how someone with a bad heart tends to develop bad kidneys too."

Related Entities tended to be generated clustered tightly together.

Physically close meant narratively close, so it was obvious — obvious, but still.

At my explanation, the Chair pushed his lips out in a pout.

"Wow. I had no idea our hospital had this many sincere doctors. So why is it that our department hasn't resonated? No one's more sincere than us."

"Probably because of me?"

Where in the whole wide world was there a narrative like a doctor who cures Echoes?

No matter how hard our cardiology department might try to resonate, thanks to the foreign body in its midst — me — we could all but consider ourselves fully immune.

"Relax. There's no chance of you resonating, Chair."

"Well, that's a comfort."

Our gazes drifted, entirely naturally, to the blackboard.

Drawn across it was a chart divided into four colors — red, blue, green, and yellow — and in each column, every department in the hospital was listed in dense, cramped writing.

Green: permanently safe. Our cardiology department.

Blue: safe for now.

Emergency Medicine and Trauma Surgery fell here. The shot-up Private had made it through surgery safely, so as of this moment they hadn't resonated.

No telling what the future held, but for the present they could be counted safe.

Yellow: unknown. Departments whose status — resonated or not — had yet to be determined.

The overwhelming majority of departments crowded into this column.

And finally, red: resonated. Currently, Obstetrics and Psychiatry were confirmed cases.

It meant that anyone going on rounds in those departments would be wagering their life to do it.

"I'll send a photo of this to the other cardiology professors for now."

Our hospital's reigning social butterfly — the Chair — snapped a picture of the classification chart and fired it off to the rest of the cardiology faculty.

Anyone with even a lick of sense would look at it and figure out how they needed to behave.

With the situation wrapped up, the Chair turned his body toward me.

"Oh, right — Jeong-uk. That WINy app. Isn't this exactly the moment for it to earn its keep?"

The national Echo evacuation guidance application — WINy (Who Is Entity).

A government-driven project launched after I mentioned it on the broadcast.

From the look on his face, the Chair was hoping I'd use WINy to organize and command everyone inside the hospital.

The government had collapsed, so he wanted someone to take up the reins of command in its place.

But there was one crucial fact the Chair didn't know.

"I never actually built the app."

"…What?"

The Chair's face froze.

"Hold on, it's been a whole month, hasn't it?"

"Yes. And in that month, I did absolutely nothing."

The project had languished in limbo; I hadn't even hired a single person.

Forget an app — I hadn't even managed to staff the basic wiki editors.

"Then what the hell has the government been doing for the past month?"

the Chair demanded, wearing an expression of utter disbelief.

"The politicians just took photos with me and went on their way. The budget… well, let's just say it probably went toward their company dinners."

"Ah, my tax money."

The words shot out of the Chair's mouth on pure reflex.

"So what are we supposed to do now?"

"Um…"

Just then, one particular tool flashed through my mind.

Not one I was eager to use — but there was no alternative.

"Uh… um… there is one way to substitute for WINy, actually…"

"Oh ho, from that reaction, our Jeong-uk's got an idea up his sleeve after all."

"Um… hnngh…"

My hesitating fingers fumbled across the phone screen.

And at last, I opened a certain app.

The Paranoid Institute Gallery.

I never imagined I'd be the one turning to the very gallery whose claims I'd publicly dismissed as unbelievable.

But the government had broken its promise and never built the wiki, so this was the only tool left.

I logged in with one of my old accounts right away and began writing a post.

Hippocrates.

The username I'd created back when I was consulting on the game — the Director had told me to use it to interact with his fans.

And yet, once I'd made it, I never once posted under that name.

But now was precisely the moment to dust this ID off.

"…"

Or so I thought — until a voice flashed unbidden through my mind, and my fingers, which had been rattling away at the keyboard, went still.

Shiho's warning, replaying in my head.

"That Hippocrates fellow? The world isn't going to let him be."

If the world truly did collapse —

if even the barest semblance of law vanished, and a world began in which the only thing left to trust was people's basic humanity —

then the username 'Hippocrates' could very well become a poison.

After much deliberation, I logged out of the 'Hippocrates' account and created a brand-new one.

"Chair, let's just wait a—"

Before I could even finish the sentence, a comment came in.

I fished out my medical license and my professorial appointment letter, snapped photos of them, and uploaded the verification shots.

And then, five minutes after the photos went up —

the gallery's servers crashed under the load, and I found myself kicked out, entirely against my intentions.