All Chapters of The Doctor With a Diagnosis System: Chapter 11
- Chapter 20
40 chapters
CHAPTER 11: Code Black ER
The cold tile bit into my cheek. How long had I been lying there? Ten seconds? A full minute? The automated voice over the hospital intercom kept repeating the same two words, drilling into my skull with mechanical indifference. Code Black. Code Black.I tasted sour bile and old copper at the back of my throat. I squeezed my eyes shut, mentally reaching for the familiar, comforting glow of the blue screen. I waited for the digital text to appear, to tell me what to do, to highlight the next objective. Nothing happened. I opened my eyes to empty air. The harsh fluorescent lights burned my retinas. The System was completely dead. I was blind. I forced myself up onto my hands and knees. Every muscle in my body screamed in fierce protest. My gray hoodie was a stiff, heavy crust of Mr. Han's dried blood, sticking uncomfortably to my stomach. I was suspended. My badge was gone. The logical, legal thing to do was to walk out the rear exit, go home, and pass out. But the distant, frantic
CHAPTER 12: The Fatal Syringe
Two hours into the meat grinder. My scrubs and gown were soaked through with sweat. My hands cramped so intensely I had to pry my own fingers open against the edge of a table just to drop a used syringe into the sharps container. The massive influx of patients finally began to slow to a trickle. The frantic screaming faded into low, exhausted moans echoing down the halls. I leaned heavily against the central charting desk, downing a tiny paper cup of lukewarm tap water. My hands shook so hard the water spilled down my chin and neck. Then, the automatic doors slid open one last time. Two paramedics rushed in, pushing a stretcher at a dead sprint. On it was a woman, heavily pregnant, her hands clawing desperately at the white hospital sheets. Her face was chalk-white. The sheets between her legs were soaked in a terrifying, expanding pool of bright, fresh arterial blood. "Thirty-two weeks pregnant! Unrestrained passenger in the rear of the pileup!" the paramedic shouted, completely
CHAPTER 13: Saving Two Lives
I didn’t think. I just moved. My blood-stained, bruised fingers clamped around Dr. Seo Ji-Hoon’s wrist like a vise, stopping the plastic syringe less than an inch from the pregnant woman’s IV port. "What the hell are you doing?!" Seo shrieked, his voice cracking. He tried to yank his arm away, but the sheer adrenaline pumping through my exhausted veins locked my grip in place. "You’re going to kill her," I rasped, my breathing heavy. The air in Trauma Bay One smelled overwhelmingly of fresh, hot iron and the sharp antiseptic tang of alcohol wipes. I looked down at the patient. Her name was Pyeong Yon. Her face was the color of old chalk, slick with a terrifying, cold sweat. Her eyes were rolling back into her skull, the heavy lids fluttering as her brain desperately fought against the rapidly dropping oxygen levels. Beneath her, the pristine white hospi
CHAPTER 14: Coughing Blood
The thick red blood vanished down the clear plastic tubing. The rapid infuser whined loudly. Slowly, agonizingly, the numbers on the screen began to shift. BP: 65/42.BP: 72/48. The deathly pale hue of Pyeong Yon’s face didn't completely fade, but the blue tint left her lips. Her eyelids fluttered open, glassy and unfocused, but she was conscious. The left lateral tilt and the massive influx of volume were working. We had restored the mechanical plumbing of her circulatory system. But it was only a temporary fix. She was still bleeding internally. "Her pressure is holding at eighty-five over fifty," Jo called out, wiping a streak of sweat from her forehead with the back of her wrist. "Heart rate is dropping to one-twenty. She's compensating." "We need to get that baby out right now, or the placenta will c
CHAPTER 15: Facing the Director
The first thing I registered was the smell of stale laundry detergent and old coffee. I tried to inhale, but a sharp, localized agony spiked directly behind my sternum. It felt like a jagged piece of glass was lodged in my airway. I choked, my eyes snapping open as a violent, wet cough tore its way up my throat. "Don't sit up. Stay on your side." A cool, damp towel was pressed firmly against the back of my neck. I blinked against the dim light, my vision swimming until the blurry shapes sharpened into the cramped confines of a surgical on-call room. There was a narrow bunk bed, a metal locker, and a tiny sink. Nurse Jo Hyun-Jung was kneeling beside the low cot I was lying on. She looked terrible. Her usually immaculate bun was falling apart, dark strands of hair plastered to her sweaty forehead. Her scrub top was stained with the same dark, drying blood that coated my own jean
CHAPTER 16: VIP Crisis
"Stop right there," the taller guard ordered, his hand resting heavily on the radio clipped to his belt. "This floor is restricted. You need to turn around." I didn't stop. I lowered my shoulder and shoved my weight directly into the center of the heavy double doors, forcing my way past the guards. The heavy doors banged loudly against the wooden stops, echoing like a gunshot in the massive room. The Boardroom was intimidating. A long, polished mahogany table dominated the space, surrounded by plush leather chairs. Large, floor-to-ceiling windows offered a sprawling, beautiful view of the Seoul skyline as the morning sun began to rise. Sitting at the head of the table was Hospital Director Seo Baek-Ho. He was an older, sharp-featured man in a tailored charcoal suit, his gray hair perfectly styled. Sitting to his right was Dr. Seo Ji-Hoon, looking nervous but incredibly smug. To his
CHAPTER 17: Toxic Drip
The shattered, glitching red text of the System burned directly into my retinas. It didn't float peacefully in the air like before. It flickered violently, emitting a high-pitched, digital screech in my mind that made the physical pain in my fractured ribs feel dull by comparison. [CRITICAL ERROR. COOLDOWN OVERRIDDEN.][Target Acquired: VIP Suite 1][Condition: Unknown Pathogen Detected][Death Probability: 100% within 10 minutes] The plush, mahogany-lined boardroom erupted into absolute chaos. Director Seo Baek-Ho lost all the color in his face. The untouchable, arrogant hospital administrator suddenly looked like a terrified old man. He gripped the edge of the long wooden table so hard his knuckles turned white. "The Chairman?" Director Seo choked out, his voice a frail whisper. "If Chairman C
CHAPTER 18: The Assassin's Mask
"Get your hands off me and step back!" Kang roared, slapping her hand away without looking up. [Scan Complete.][Cause: Acute Synthetic Heavy Metal Poisoning. Thallium-Based Isotope.][Administration Method: Continuous Intravenous Drip.] My eyes snapped away from the dying old man and looked up. Hanging from the stainless steel IV pole next to the bed was a standard one-liter bag of clear saline fluid. It was connected to a plastic tube that ran directly into a port in the Chairman's left arm. To the naked eye, it looked completely normal. But through the cracked, red lens of the System, the clear fluid glowed with a sickly, toxic yellow aura. [Source Identified.] "It's the IV," I gasped, pushing myself away from the footboard.
CHAPTER 19: Concrete Descent
The heavy door slammed shut behind me, completely cutting off the frantic, high-pitched shrieks of the medical monitors. The sudden silence in the concrete stairwell was absolute, broken only by the harsh, ragged sound of my own breathing. The air was freezing, smelling of undisturbed dust and damp cement. Madam Chae stood one landing below me, bathed in the sickly, flickering light of a dying fluorescent tube. The manicured, weeping widow from the VIP suite was gone. The woman looking up at me possessed eyes as cold and dead as polished obsidian. The sleek, black handgun in her grip barely trembled. The thick cylinder of the suppressor screwed onto the barrel looked unnaturally long, a heavy weight that she supported with both hands. It was pointed dead center at my chest. In the corner of my vision, the glitching, blood-red System text violently updated. <
CHAPTER 20: Blind Placement
"Kang! Keep your fingers on his neck!" I ordered, locking my elbows. Kang looked at me like I was insane, but the sheer, desperate authority in my voice made him obey. He pressed his sterile, gloved fingers back against the pale, bruised skin of the neck. I leaned forward, putting my entire remaining body weight onto my hands, pressing down violently into the Chairman’s liver. Hepatojugular reflux. It was an old, brutal diagnostic maneuver. By compressing the liver, I was forcing whatever venous blood was pooled in his abdominal organs upward, straight into his heart, and backing it up into the jugular vein. "Do you feel it?!" I roared, my fractured ribs screaming in agony as I pressed harder. Kang’s eyes went wide. "It's engorging. The vein just popped up against my fingers." "Hit it now!"