The time was two in the morning in one hospital. Doctor Lee and his
associate nurse were still busy in the operation room, trying to save a
patient』s life from the hand of Death—a woman had just been ground over
by a truck when she was about to cross the intersection.
According to the witnesses, when the truck knocked against the woman
with a resounding crash, her skirt was swirled into the fast-rolling
tires. Yet the driver didn』t notice at first, thus dragged the woman
along behind the truck for about a hundred yards, leaving a long trek of
the woman』s blood and flesh on the road. The serious abrasion against
the ground had left the woman』s face almost beyond recognition—it looked
more like a piece of badly mutilated pork.
「It』s hard to get her back.」 Said the doctor, with
his hands still fumbling about the woman』s broken head. The nurse
remained dead silent. Not a word had she spoken since the woman was
brought in. Her face was pale and still. Certainly, not too many
people could bear such a bloody sight with an incomplete body lying in
front of you and the thick odor of the blood that was oozing from the
fragmented body. Yet tasks such as this one emerged every night and
often lasted hours.
「I can』t make it…sorry…I』ve tried my best…but…we
still lost her…I』m sorry…」 the doctor confessed to the nurse with a deep
sigh. The nurse said nothing. The doctor turned to the door and took
off his smock. Then he said to the nurse again, 「Well, I think we』d
better leave right now…it』s too late…besides, I』m tired…and so are
you…come on, we』re leaving.」 The nurse did not say anything but just
did as the doctor told her to.
Outside the operation room was a long corridor
with only three dim lights on the wall. Each light was situated quite
far away from one another and thus left long stretches of darkness in
between them. The poor lighting condition of the hospital made the
night even more dismal. The elevator, however, was at the end of the
long corridor, almost completely swallowed by darkness.
The way to the elevator seemed like an endless
journey because you could never see the end of the corridor, which lied
in total darkness. The doctor, with the nurse following behind, still
felt somewhat nervous while their footsteps echoed through the
walls—making the hospital seem even more deserted.
Finally, they reached the elevator. After a few
moments, the elevator door opened and they got in. The doctor pressed
the button for the first floor, their destination. The door closed and
the elevator went down. It went down straightforward, without
stopping. The 4th floor, the 3rd floor, the 2nd
floor, the 1st floor…but… the elevator kept going down…it did
not stop until it reached B2. Then the door slowly opened. A tall girl
with long hair, a white dress, was standing outside the elevator. Her
face was deadly white. She seemed to want to come in. Instead of
showing the courtesy of a polite gentleman in the presence of ladies and
usher her in, the doctor frantically pushed the button to close the door
as if he had seen something unusual.
The door finally closed.
The doctor leaned against the wall of the
elevator, gasping strongly. His face was pale with fear. The nurse
uttered in a strange voice, 「Doc, why didn』t you let her in?」
「What? 」The doctor cried out, 「Didn』t you see
that? There is a plastic band around the girl』s wrist…you know what
that means? That』s the…the… identification of those dead corpses in the
morgue…oh…God…what did I see?」
The nurse turned to the doctor and slowly raised
her wrist,
「Excuse me, doc. Is this what you saw?」