“Doctor, is there still hope?”
Isabel sobbed as she asked Perl, her voice full of desperate pleading.
“I’m sorry. It’s over.”
Perl’s voice carried no fluctuation, cold and inhuman, not even a sigh. She was merely stating a fact.
Isabel, who had been bracing herself against the iron bed, slowly withdrew her hands and covered her mouth.
Her feet seemed to slide apart as if the floor had grown too slick, and eventually she thudded to the ground, her hands shielding the lower half of her face.
She had fallen into utter despair.
She felt herself plummeting into a bottomless abyss, and what truly terrified her wasn’t the prospect of splattering into pulp at the end—one could even say that was what she wished for now. What she feared was the fall itself, that endless, weightless sensation.
She knew that for the rest of her life, she would keep falling like this, because the one who could have pulled her up, the one who could have lived with her in that shabby yet warm apartment, was gone forever.
“I’m sorry.”
Perl left that hollow apology behind and hurried out of the Emergency Room. But Isabel didn’t care. At this moment, she didn’t care about anything at all.
The ward was left with only Isabel and the flustered young Nurse. The Nurse looked like she wanted to chase after Perl, but also felt it inappropriate to leave Isabel alone. She glanced around anxiously, and finally decided to stand quietly by Isabel’s side.
She stood there for a while, wanting to reach out and pat Isabel’s shoulder, to tell her about the procedures for body handling and Church coordination, but that would have been far too tactless.
Just as she was hesitating, the door swung open. The Nurse turned around with relief, expecting someone else from the clinic to come and help her out of this dilemma. But to her disappointment, two unfamiliar men walked in.
One tall and one short, one thin and one stout—a striking contrast.
They weren’t medical staff or patients; judging by their attire, they looked more like two clergymen.
“Excuse me, we’re also… Helmut’s, yes, also his friends and family.” The man in front flashed an ingratiating smile and leaned toward the Nurse. “Sorry we’re late. I’m Werner. I’ve already spoken with the others at the Hospital. Could you give us some privacy?”
“Is… is that so? Of course, no problem.” The Nurse felt uneasy being pressed by Werner, but staying in this suffocating space was itself a torment. Having an excuse to leave, she couldn’t have asked for more.
With a clatter, the door closed. Now only three people remained in the room.
Werner walked over to Isabel’s side. He gently pressed the deceased’s forehead, made the sign of the cross, and whispered a prayer.
“O God, please receive his Soul, forgive his transgressions, and grant him eternal peace. You said that those who believe in You, though they die, yet shall they live. May he rest in Your embrace, awaiting the morning of Resurrection. Also comfort the family here present, grant strength and hope. May love and memory never be parted, until we meet again in the heavenly home. Amen.”
“Who are you? What do you want?” Isabel didn’t even look at Werner as she spoke flatly.
“Nothing in particular. We just wanted to ask you a few things, and also tell you a few things.” Werner said with a smile.
Isabel furrowed her brow but didn’t respond.
“Do you know the true cause of your husband’s death?”
“…”
“That’s what I want to tell you.” Werner’s voice turned low and slow. “Your husband’s death was entirely caused by misdiagnosis at this clinic. At first, they treated it as an ordinary cold and fever, casually prescribed some fever reducers and sent you home. By the time they realized something was wrong, it was already too late.”
He gently patted Isabel’s back, like comforting a wronged child.
“Then Doctor Perl appeared.” Werner continued, his tone laced with implication. “Have you ever wondered why the best doctor in the capital would make a special house call for Helmut?”
“Because… because the situation was critical?” Isabel’s voice carried uncertainty.
“Do you know how many patients are in this clinic? And there are no small number of patients in more critical condition.” Werner spoke word by word, each one hammering against Isabel’s heart. “What truly attracted Perl to treat you was Helmut’s symptoms. Because no one had ever seen this illness before, Doctor Perl found it interesting, and that’s why she was willing to step in. As for whether he lived or died in the end, she couldn’t care less.”
“…Interesting?” Isabel’s voice began to tremble.
“Exactly. Merely because it was interesting.” Werner’s expression turned serious. “Judging from her attitude after Helmut’s death, isn’t that obvious enough? After all, a corpse can’t react to anything, so there was no point in continuing those experiments. To put it plainly, we are priests investigating the Medical Industry Black Market. There are some matters we can continue discussing in private…”
“Where’s the patient?”
Perl rushed back into the Emergency Room with the chart in hand, only to find it empty, leaving just the Nurse who was cleaning up.
“The Church has already been contacted to register the death, and the body was also taken by the family—huh? Doctor!”
Before the Nurse could finish, Perl had already turned and dashed out. She sprinted down the hallway, completely ignoring the no-running sign on the wall—the one she had written herself.
Outside the clinic, the rain was falling harder. Perl’s footsteps slipped in the puddles. Anxiety surged in her heart, her foot lost traction, and the world tilted into a silent black record, slowly spinning past her ears.
In that tilt, she saw—
Red eyes, like lit lanterns, surrounding her as they chanted a familiar name in unison.
The island in fire, the fire in the sky, thousands of arrows like falling stars, the red-eyed people raising blades at one another and cutting one another down. A figure wielding the Golden Sword, walking toward her from the cracks between fire and blood.
The emperor with Golden Eyes smiled from on high, and behind him, more golden eyes gathered into a lake, and the lake sang in unison: “Heaven bless the Great Calamity, eternal glory for ten thousand generations!”
In that instant, she crashed back to the ground. Water rushed from all directions, and the icy rain and pain pulled her back to reality.
She gasped sharply, pushed herself up from the ground, and shook her head violently. Only then did those hallucinations gradually dissipate like scattered smoke.
She kept running in the rain.
And behind her, on the rooftop of a low building, a pair of golden pupils flickered on and off through the rain curtain.