The transition from memory to reality was too fast. Maybe a little too fast that she couldn't even stable herself. It was like a violent, jarring thrash like a slap across the face that sent her spiraling into deep, freezing water.
A strange warming and then numbing cold washed over her ears, followed by a muffled, high-pitched ringing that pierced through her skull. Se-na flinched, a hiss of irritation and pain escaping her as she pressed a hand against her ear, struggling to keep her eyes on the man on the gurney. The world felt like it was tilting on its axis.
"He's that famous doctor, isn't he?" a voice murmured behind her.
Se-na looked back over her shoulder, her gaze blurring. A man stood there, phone held high, recording the chaos with a detached curiosity.
"Yeah. Do Ra-ik," the man replied absent-mindedly, his thumb adjusting the zoom on the unconscious, pale figure on the bed.
"What happened to him?" woman beside him whispered again, her eyes wide with a mix of horror and excitement.
"I'm sure it was suicide," he replied back casually, not even lowering his phone. "You see…those perfect types! always snap." He switched a proud knowing glance from woman back to his phone.
"Suicide?" Se-na breathed the word, the syllables feeling like ash in her mouth. She shook her head, a frantic, desperate denial rising in her throat. "Ra-ik? Suicide?! Don't be ridiculous."
She turned around, her eyes flashing with a sudden, sharp venom and disgust as she faced the couple. "You ignorant people will believe anything," she spat, her voice trembling with a rage she couldn't bottle. "A man like that doesn't just... break. He's probably just exhausted from being everyone's hero. This is a PR stunt. Or a mistake. But it is not that. It's not even him!"
The man didn't look at her, he was too focused on his phone. The woman on the other hand, pouted, her face darkening. "Mind your language, lady... and …"
Before she could finish, the man shoved se-na aside with his arm, uncaring. "Excuse me, get aside, please," he muttered, pushing past Se-na to get a closer shot, his lens zooming for the tragedy.
The force of the crowd kept pushing Se-na back, throwing her out of the center of the swarm. It felt as if someone had suddenly yanked her out of the freezing water and back into reality out of her nightmare.
yes it was a nightmare for her, afterall she was still refusing to believe what she had seen, refusing to let the image of a broken Ra-ik settle in her mind she turned away.
She began to walk back toward her office. Her heels struck the floor with their usual, rhythmic click, but the sound was hollow now. Her hand gripped the corridor rail, using it to drag her weak, shaking legs forward. Her heart was hammering against her ribs in an erratic, clumsy rhythm that made her feel physically sick.
Suicide? The word was chasing her down the hall like a predator. The sun doesn't just decide to stop shining. Not him. Never him. It just cannot be HIM!
"It's just a joke," she was whispering, the words a thin, fragile shield against the rising tide of panic. "A celebrity rumor. I'll go back to my office, have some tea, and in an hour, his agency will release a statement saying he's fine. It's probably a viral marketing campaign. Nothing something new"
She tried to force a smile but then suddenly, the Chief of the Cardiac Department sprinted past her, followed by a nurse. Their faces were masks of pure, unfiltered terror. They didn't even notice her. Moments later, the Hospital Director followed, taking a call, his usual composed gait replaced by a frantic, desperate run.
And then it happened.
Something snapped.
And se-na began to run toward the cheify. She moved past the Director, breathing heavily, and caught the senior nurse by the arm with a strong grip.
"Why are you panicking?" Se-na demanded. Her voice sounded strange, warped and distant to her own ears, like it was coming from the bottom of a well. "It's just a patient. Act like a professional, for God's sake!" She was yanking at the poor nurse. But the nurse didn't even blink at the reprimand nor did she argue. She simply ripped her arm free and disappeared into the roar of the Emergency Wing.
Se-na stood there, alone in the middle of the hall. She wanted to turn and flee to her office, to her house, to anywhere far away where someone would catch her and tell her this was just a hallucination brought on by exhaustion. But her body betrayed her. Her legs began to move, pulling her back toward the emergency she had just escaped. It was a primal instinct maybe, a magnetic pull she couldn't resist even as her mind screamed in protest.
She wasn't running anymore; she was drifting, like a ghost drawn to the scene of its own death.
I'm just going to see who it is, she lied to herself. I was too tired to see clearly the first time. It's a mistake. A doppelganger. Someone with similar hair. YESS!!! It must be a mistake!!!
Her body was in a battle. It's Do Ra-ik, Maeng Se-Na! her heart screamed. No, it can't be! How could it be! her brain shrieked back.
I'll go back, I'll recheck, and then I'll laugh at them, she thought, her eyes wide and glassy. I'll humiliate them all for being so dramatic, for thinking the great Do Ra-ik could be brought down like this.
But deep in her heart she knew she was lying. She knew every word was a frantic, pathetic fabrication. But she clung to that lie because the alternative was a reality that would shatter her.
How could a man so great so brilliant, so perfect choose such a cowardly silent escape?
Even though not accepting her mind was contemplating.
As she neared the ER again, the atmosphere was same just a little more anxious. It had been exactly 3 minutes and 26 seconds since she had turned her back on the chaos, the air was still heavy, but now it felt stagnant like a funeral held before the actual death. The junior residents were pinned against the walls, their faces drained of color, looking like they were witnessing the end of the world.
"Sir, Do Ra-ik, male, 30s! Found unresponsive! Multiple drug ingestion! Heart rate is thready we've lost him twice in the rig! Dr. Choi is on the call" a nurse screamed into the telecom, her voice cracking as she reported to the incoming call.
The Director appeared then, breathless and gray-faced. He was the one the nurse had been calling for.
At that moment, the shock broke, replaced by a cold, frantic desperation. She shoved people aside with a raw, violent strength until she reached the center of the storm the very storm she had just tried to flee earlier.
"Out of the way," she whispered, though the words felt like they were being strangled in her throat.
She reached the gurney.
The man lying there was not clearly the "Nation's Healer." He wasn't the idol with the perfect hair, the designer glasses, and the soft, reassuring smile. He was a gray, limp shell. His skin was the sickly color of wet ash, his lips were blue and parched, and his eyes the eyes Se-na had traced on her screens were rolled back, revealing only the haunting, sightless whites.
His chest was static. It wasn't moving. And an irritative tantrum came over her.
"Dr. Choi!" a resident shrieked, pointing at the monitor.
"CLEAR!"
The paddles hit his chest.
"SHOCK!"
Ra-ik's body arched violently, a hollow thud echoing against the mattress, but the line on the monitor remained stubbornly, hauntingly flat.
"CLEAR! SHOCK!" Choi cried again, his own hands starting to tremble.
She stared at his hand the one that had once held strawberry lollipops for her. It was still hanging off the side of the gurney, pale and lifeless, swinging slightly with the rhythm of the useless shocks.
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