Recap
He was neither bound nor was he dead. Did the straps not exist — or does he not exist?
His thoughts spiraled into a dead end. He stopped thinking too much. The only choice was to adapt.
Between the first and second beds, he found two patients with eyes shut tight, refusing all communication.
Having learned from bitter experience, Shen Ji dared not speak. With no clues inside the ward, after careful thought, he decided to step outside.
The freshly painted white walls still carried the faint smell of oil paint. Shen Ji walked down the hospital’s long, empty corridor, lined with tightly shut doors.
This hospital’s structure was unlike any ordinary one. The white walls no longer symbolized purity instead they radiated suffocation and oppression.
Passing door after door, Shen Ji crept to the nurses’ station. The nurse on duty was absent. On the wall behind the station, large characters explained his earlier confusion:
Paradise Sanatorium.
Paradise… Shen Ji vaguely remembered seeing those words before, but he could not recall when.
The display screen showed the time: 11:41 p.m.
He entered the station, rifling through the scattered papers on the desk. The rustle of pages echoed in the silent hall.
The sound grew nearer. Faint footsteps becoming impossible to ignore. Only when they reached the station did Shen Ji realize.
Leaving now would expose him. Whoever it was, the worst outcome would be breaking the rules. Without hesitation, Shen Ji hid under the desk, praying the footsteps would not enter.
He held his breath. The steps passed the front desk, turned into the station. A glimpse of deep-blue trouser legs appeared, then stopped. Above, papers were shuffled.
Shen Ji’s heart pounded like a drum, as though he balanced on a tightrope where one misstep meant ruin.
At last, the blue trouser legs moved away. Nothing happened. Shen Ji exhaled deeply, waited a few minutes more, then saw the display change to midnight. He crawled out.
On the high-hung screen, a shadow stood. Shen Ji thought it was his own — until it moved. He turned in terror, only to see blood-red eyes streak toward him. A care worker in deep-blue uniform lunged, the mangled face no less horrific than any nightmare.
Consciousness tore away. In the third dream, Shen Ji’s stomach was ripped open, and he died beneath the orderly’s violent feeding.
…
Shen Ji awoke, staring at the white ceiling for a long time before closing his eyes, waiting for dawn.
Here, time lost meaning. After an unknown span, the ward door opened.
A doctor in a white coat entered, holding something like a medical chart, as if making rounds.
The patients in the first and second beds kept their eyes shut. The doctor seemed not to notice, asked a few questions, then nodded as if hearing answers, giving instructions one by one.
He passed the third bed without a glance, came to Shen Ji’s. Shen Ji lay still, unable to see the man’s face behind the mask — only that he was male.
The doctor flipped through the chart. “Still dreaming lately?”
Shen Ji said nothing.
The doctor continued: “So far we’ve diagnosed schizophrenia and amnesia. But Dr. Yu told us you can control dreams. You used to be a school psychologist, didn’t you?”
Shen Ji opened his mouth: “Dr. Yu… who is that?”
“You forgot again? Dr. Yu is your attending physician. Memory loss after waking — this isn’t the first time. I’ll record it and report to Dr. Yu on Monday.”
Shen Ji lowered his eyes, ignoring further questions, and asked instead: “Who are you?”
“Today, I am a doctor.”
Shen Ji fell silent.
The doctor gave a few reminders, told him breakfast was soon and not to wander, then left.
Shen Ji lifted his gloomy eyes, noticing the deep-blue trousers beneath the white coat of an orderly. Doubt filled his heart.
Minutes later, a sharp bell rang. The two patients at the door sat up, rose in unison, and shuffled out like zombies.
Shen Ji followed. Outside each ward stood four patients, men and women alike, all moving with mechanical precision, eyes lifeless, neither curious nor self-aware.
They were puppets, marionettes. Shen Ji imagined invisible hands above the hospital, manipulating countless unseen rules, binding everyone’s limbs.
Doctors, orderlies, patients — all were toys of those hands.
The silent procession advanced. At the canteen window, each received a portion of breakfast and began eating mechanically.
Shen Ji sat at a table, lifted a spoonful of soup. His other hand drifted beneath the table.
His fingertips traced rough grooves. Secrets lay hidden there, carved out by fingernails.
He kept his expression calm, but as he ate, he uncovered the secret.
Seventeen scratches, and three lines of writing:
- This is NOT the first time you’ve woken up!
- Do not eat anything!
- You must kill the
orderlydoctor!
The third line was a mess, “orderly” crossed out, “doctor” also scratched. Perhaps the writer’s mind was confused, unable to decide who must die.
Shen Ji was certain: the words were left by himself, for himself.
Today he had awakened with no memory, not even why he was sent here. Perhaps, as the doctor said, he truly had amnesia. But he trusted his intuition more.
This sanatorium was filled with strangeness. He had lived through it many times in his dreams, yet each time he woke, everything was unfamiliar — the place, the people, even himself.
He should have felt urgency, but his subconscious guided him to treat today as any other day. Without struggle, he followed instinct, and instinct led him back to the secret.
If seventeen scratches meant seventeen awakenings, what had he lost each time to end up defeated like this?
Shen Ji raised his head, as if across space and time meeting his past self — a self full of pain, unwilling to surrender memory, failing again and again. Even on the brink of collapse, losing everything, even himself, he refused to give up. The scratches beneath the table were proof.
With his fingertip, Shen Ji carved the eighteenth mark. He himself drew the line under his broken memory. Everything must end today!
___
T/N: 18 marks…? Hm
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