Here I Lie // ATEEZ ✔

- 12 -

The nurse yelps before reflexively ducking and reaching out her hands, protecting herself from the flying metal tray. The tray hits the wall, denting it, before falling with a clang to the floor. The show isn't over as two more objects follow; plastic utensils and packed porridge. It looks like a storm has raged inside the room, with the curtain being ripped off from its railing halfway through and the bedsheets bunching up at the foot of the bed. In one corner of the room, the patient is screaming, flailing his hands around trying to prevent whatever he's seeing from coming close to him. The nurse shouts for help outside of the room, before other nurses come to her aid, and it takes three of them to restrain the patient from acting out. The patient is too strong for them, as it seems that they are the ones being dragged around instead of the other way.

"Nurse Na, go and grab the sedative! We need to sedate him!" With the instruction from her fellow nurse, she dashes out of the room, running past curious onlookers.

"They are out to get me; they're going to kill me!" the patient howls, still fighting back against the nurses. "I need to run or they will kill me! Please let me go," he cries, putting in effort to hug himself. He fails to do so as the nurses are holding his arms back, pinning them to the wall. When it seems that he's starting to become less violent, they loosen their grip but tightens them again as he wails and points towards the door, "Look at that, he's smiling at me! Once you leave me alone in this room he's going to kill me!"

"No one will kill you, Mr. Choi. Your room is guarded and we will make sure that they won't lay their hands on you," one of the nurses says, although he has no idea what he's actually convincing him with.

He has heard the incomplete news of the three patients admitted yesterday morning, about how their trip has gone down a sinister road, but even so he doesn't know the full story and he can't make a judgement. As compared to his other two colleagues brought to the hospital with him, this one, Choi Jongho, is the most affected and difficult one. Sometimes he's too quiet and unresponsive that he looks like the walking dead, while sometimes he turns violent and thrash about, convinced that there is someone out there is going to kill him. Now is the latter case, considering how he's determined to tear the whole room apart.

"He's there, look at him standing at the door! Why is no one arresting him?" Jongho utters. He jabs his finger towards the door. The nurses don't look at the direction of the door, refusing to entertain him. They believe that he's only hallucinating, fuelled by the acute pressure he was said to experience.

The silver-haired man stands under the doorframe, observing the chaotic scene. His face remains expressionless, but there is a twinkle in his eyes hinting that he's amused looking at how Jongho is behaving. The youngest is currently pointing at his direction, desperately trying to make everyone believe that he's not crazy and there is someone at the door. However, no one does take his words.

Ah, what a sight. This definitely brings back memories, Choi San thinks to himself.

The nurse that was sent on an errand to grab the sedative returns, runs past him without giving a second glance and goes straight to uncapping the syringe. She plunges the needle intravenously, taking part in controlling the patient by pinning down his legs and waiting impatiently for the sedative to take effect. Counting down the minutes the patient finally collapses, his system dampened.

Jongho whimpers as the nurses carry him over to the bed, not completely blocked out from the world yet. With mild force, the nurses have to take drastic measures by tying his hands to the railing of the bed, afraid that another episode will occur. He complies, his vision getting cloudy while the drug courses through his body, adrenaline blocked from being passed on through his nerves. While they are bending over him, grumbling over the mess he has made, he sees San looking over their shoulders. San shakes his head, as if distressed by what he has become.