I work at a top-tier hospital, but my patients aren’t human.
Locked in my desk drawer is a medical manual that belongs to no department. Its cover is yellowed, its pages turn by themselves, and its pulse matches the red dot on the back of my hand. The manual is written in five different hands. The first four correspond to four types of cases, each with a standardized treatment procedure.
First case: Room 13 at the end of the emergency corridor. At two in the morning, the room number vanishes. When I open the door, the space inside is ten times larger than the outside. The floor is warm, and cold white light seeps out of the walls, though there is no light source. The manual outputs a set of rules, but the speed at which they are overwritten keeps slowing. The exit conditions are covered by ink halfway through.
The previous person with a red dot was called Zhao Min. Before she disappeared, she said, “It’s counting me.”
The last page of this medical manual has my own name on it.
