CH 4

The person scrambled backwards with a complete lack of grace, flattening himself against the opposite wall. “Are-Are-Are you a human or one of them?”

QiLeren looked at him blankly, deciding to have a little fun. “Well, I’m not human, that’s for sure.”

Unfortunately, the person evidently hadn’t lost all their brain cells just yet, letting out a quiet sigh of relief upon the sight of QiLeren’s shadow. “Don’t scare me like that, you… You look kind of familiar, actually – have we met before?”

“We met only a few hours ago, Dr Got-My-PhD-At-Twenty-Four-Been-Working-For-Three-Years-Never-Got-A-Girlfriend Lu. Surely you’ve not forgotten me already?” QiLeren joked.

Dr Lu awkwardly brought a hand up to his nose. “Oh, yes, greetings, um- Hello again, Mr…?”

“Qi, QiLeren. And please, no need for the title.”

Interestingly, Dr Lu did not offer his own name in exchange, instead pulling QiLeren into the ENT room behind him. “Come on, Leren, we need to exchange some information. I’ll start: I woke up inside the office. The door was locked, there was fog outside – way too much fog, actually, definitely more than normal,” he babbled. “I obviously went to look for the key, except the draw where we keep the keys was locked as well, which was more of a tip-off than the fog outside now that I think about it. Anyway, all this made me think of horror movies since I watch a ton of those, and then this weird notification popped up? I looked up at it and that was when I saw a ghost reflected in the mirror on the desk.”

Dr Lu’s experience sounded quite similar to his own, QiLeren noted as he nodded along to the recount. “And then?”

“And then I forced myself to not turn around,” Dr Lu blanched. “I smashed open a window to the hallway and climbed out from there. Cut my hand on some glass while I was at it too. I’ve never been any good at sports…” At this, he held out a bandaged hand and continued in a small voice, “Something caught me from behind and I whipped my hand back to hit it by instinct. I remember feeling it slapping something solid and – basically I managed to push the ghost away. I’ve never managed to hit something so hard in my life!” He looked in awe of his own badassery. “It’s probably just because of the blood on my hand though.”

QiLeren thought back to the bloody chainsaw, nodding in agreement.

“The notification told me to survive until dawn after I got out,” Dr Lu continued. “I bandaged my hand as fast as I could and left pretty much straight after. I didn’t really have a destination in mind, so all I could do was to avoid obviously haunted places like the OB-GYN and operation rooms, which brings us to here! It’s not like I’ve had much bad luck in my life, but thank god I only saw one ghost. It wasn’t even very strong.”

“Good luck indeed. I saw a few on my way here from A block, but they moved slowly enough for me to outrun them,” QiLeren said, before paling. “But there’s something more important I need to tell you. I saw a chainsaw-wielding murderer in the outpatient lobby. He killed a person.”

“M-Murderer?!” Dr Lu’s face drained of colour. “Oh god, don’t tell me…”

“Do you know about him?” QiLeren immediately asked at the violent reaction.

“I heard it from some nurses gossiping at work this morning. Apparently there was a serial killer who got moved here from prison because of his self-harming tendencies…”

“Self-harming tendencies?” QiLeren tried to recall the adrenaline-filled encounter. Despite his tension, the murderer’s face left a deep impression upon him. “I remember his face having quite a few fresh wounds. Maybe they were his own doing?”

“According to my years of experience watching horror films from all over the world, we’re done for,” Dr Lu said with despair. “The situation we’re in is kind of like the one in Silent Hill – easy at first but gradually increasing in difficulty until we’re faced with swarms of ghosts that all have insanely high attack power. Since this hospital has more people than just me, maybe it’s got something to do with the fact that we were both on that ambulance?”

As Dr Lu paced around the ENT room, QiLeren thought back to the truck that had seemingly appeared out of nowhere. Was it truly an accident?

“So,” Dr Lu began again, “the people who are confirmed to be here are: you, a survivor of the accident sent here to receive treatment; me, an ordinary doctor working at this hospital, and; the murderer, sent here from prison also to receive treatment. So far it looks like anyone present at the hospital has the possibility of being sent here, but we don’t know if they pick people randomly or if there’s some sort of pattern to it… Aah, this is so stupid. I want to go home!” Dr Lu sat down with a huff, an expression of annoyance on his young face. He looked more like a high school student stressing about an exam than a professional two years older than QiLeren.

QiLeren slowly downed his water, retelling his story between sips. The only thing he omitted was the peculiar S/L card, since Dr Lu hadn’t mentioned anything about cards either. He did have the same slotted belt though, so perhaps this card was not given to every player? QiLeren had not yet let down his guard, especially since he could feel Dr Lu doing the same. Their situation was a bizarre one, and nobody knew for sure whether the person he was talking to was human or a…

Better safe than sorry.

“Is there anything we can use as a weapon here? I’m not sure how well we can survive unarmed,” said QiLeren.

“Yeah, surgery department should have a few chainsaws and scalpels and stuff. The murderer probably got his from there. It’s in A block though, and I don’t really want to go towards the murderer,” panicked Dr Lu. QiLeren compared his short legs to the long ones of the murderer, nodding in agreement.

“I’ll be right back, just need to go to the bathroom. I think I drank too much water,” he said, reaching for the door.

“Uh, are you really going to go to the bathroom in a haunted hospital?” Dr Lu asked behind him with a hint of laughter.

QiLeren froze in his steps.

“There’s a big pot plant outside, why don’t you take care of your business there? Safety first,” Dr Lu suggested sympathetically.

QiLeren left stiffly, returning no more relaxed after a few minutes. Dr Lu changed the topic, completely understanding his awkwardness at the unfortunate circumstances. “I actually just thought of a place that might have some weapons, let’s go look for it.”

“Where?”

“The electrical room and the carpentry workshop, both in the corner of B block level one. Maybe we can obtain the ‘Physics Holy Sword’ (just a crowbar) from there, c’mon,” he joked.

A knowing smile sneaked onto QiLeren’s face. Looks like Dr Lu was an avid fan of horror games as well. Departing from the ENT department, the pair were making their way down the hallway and towards the staircase when Dr Lu suddenly stopped in his tracks. “We’re walking towards the OB-GYN section right now, do you want to around it instead? There’s a big abortion room…”

QiLeren understood immediately, turning around with not a second to waste. “Alright, let’s go around.”

They didn’t get to walk far before a series of heavy footsteps rushed towards them, accompanied by pained moans. A person stumbled out of the doorway, holding her belly as she slumped into the wall.

Hold on, this was the girl he sat next to on the bus!

The girl looked at them with a pained expression from her position against the wall, clammy face pallid and unhealthily ashy as she cried out to the pair. “Help me…”