Crazy Baby

Epilogue

       I place flowers on the grave stone marked and aging. I know o only knew him for such a short time but there was so much about him. So much he could have lived for. So much life he had left to live.
      I shudder from the cold and glance over at the next stone to see the Kim family line. I think it's very insulting honestly that they buried Jin right beside his father. That monster. I'm sure his soul can't be at rest under there. No way. Unfortunately it wasn't my call to make.
       I think back to all the conversations I was able to have with Jin and how everything must have seemed in his mind. To him, this was the lie. He lived in torturous reality everyday by those voices and people. What I was never able to figure out was some of the voices were deceased people he'd never met or heard of while others such as Jimin were never real to begin with.
      Feeling an odd hunch, I run back to my car and head back to the hospital. I skip passed all the security and nurses until I make it to the file room in the basement. Once there, I carefully look up Park Jimin in the database.
      It pulls up immediately. What? I clearly remember that nurse saying they've never had a patient by that name. What's going on?
       He had lived on the same wing as Jin. Why would they lie? I look up Jin's file and find that all the time Jin said he had been kidnapped...there are a few full months of missing files and charts on him. This can't be real.
      Shakily, I look up the doctor Kim Namjoon. Jin's deceased father appears but so does another Kim Namjoon. He worked in a different hospital and was meant to come here but died in a car crash before he could make it. How would Jin know him? Confusion and nausea consume me as I try to make sense of what I'm seeing.
        "You aren't allowed down here."
        I turn and meet the stern gaze of Dr. Min. I look down in shame at being caught. "I'm sorry. I was just checking something about our patient Kim Seokjin." I clear my throat as sweat blooms over my back.
        The doctor tilts his head in confusion. "We've never had a patient by that name, Jungkook." His tone is serious and nonnegotiable.
         I frown. "What are you talking about? He was just here a month ago."
         His eyes light up. "Ah. Seeing and hearing those voices again, Jungkook? I thought we had talked about this? Jin is not real. Just part of your overactive imagination. I see you're paying doctor again." He nods towards my scrubs. What the fuck?!
       "You need to return to your room and take your meds before you get worse." He tuts.
       I step away from him. "I don't take meds."
       A nurse appears behind the doctor with a long syringe. "Now now, Kookie. We know all about your made up fantasy about Jin and Jimin and the others. They aren't real. You've suffered a lot, Yes? Come now." I struggle to fight them off but they outnumber me and the needle is shot into m arm. I black out.

      "Do you think he'll ever get better?" The nurse sighs as she watches her young patient Jeon Jungkook hum in his room, rocking back and forth, playing with a raggedy old doll. No idea where it came from.
       Dr. Min looks on sadly. "I think he's lost to us now."
       "Should we begin the disassociation, sir?" She pauses. "And the experimentation?"
        He nods curtly with a taunt smile. "Yes. Immediately. This shouldn't take too long. Much less time than the others. He's already been broken down quite a bit." He laughs wickedly. "These little games never get old. Perhaps maybe one day our patients will find out the truth. Everything is simply a changeable virtual reality. It's fun playing God." He mocks.
       The nurse eyes him but nods non the less. Yes. It's all just a cruel game developed by the hospitals new system to try out on patients. It drives almost all to insanity and suicide. Such a cruel world.
       Such a...false world. In here, there is no right or wrong. Just an elaborate interchangeable past, present and future controlled by psychotic doctors with the God syndrome. Heaven help that poor boy now. Hopefully he could be the one to break through the ruse and learn the truth.
       He had been oh so close. So close. It could have been the end for them all.

THE END