I dragged myself up the first flight. Then the second.  My vision began to tunnel, the edges turning a fuzzy, static gray. The coldness started in my toes and rapidly crept up my calves. My body was aggressively shunting blood away from my extremities, desperately trying to keep my core organs alive.  I left a smeared, gruesome trail of thick crimson handprints on the gray cinderblock wall.  By the time I reached the heavy door labeled Level 1 - Main Concourse / Emergency Operations, my legs were no longer functioning. I was purely pulling my body weight upward with my right arm. The siren of the hospital's central fire alarm system blared through the heavy metal, a chaotic, shrieking symphony.  I reached up, my bloody fingers slipping off the metal handle twice before I managed to catch the latch. I pressed my shoulder against the steel and fell forward. &nb

"How..." I wheezed, my voice barely a whisper, broken and raw. "The System... I chose..."Kang frowned, adjusting the oxygen cannula beneath my nose. "System? You're hallucinating from the propofol and the fentanyl. You coded twice on the table. Your heart stopped for a total of four minutes. We poured forty units of blood products into you. It is a profound medical miracle that you do not have severe anoxic brain damage."I stared at the ceiling tiles. I had died. The System hadn't lied; it just hadn't accounted for Kang Min-Jae's absolute refusal to lose a patient on his table. He had literally dragged me back from the grave with his bare hands. "Park," I rasped, trying to turn my head toward Kang. "He shot me... the basement..."Kang’s face hardened. The exhaustion was instantly replaced by a cold, terrifying fury. "I know," Kang said flatly. He reached into the pocket of his scrubs and pulled out his smartphone. He tapped the screen and held it up so I could see. It was a news

She finished her charting, gave me a polite, nervous bow, and hurried out of the room, clearly eager to escape the heavy atmosphere surrounding my bed. I let my head sink into the thin pillow. Two-thirty. Kang had a meeting with the new attending this afternoon. The System had specified an undetectable neurotoxin. It wouldn't be a dramatic stabbing or a suppressed gunshot in a dark stairwell. It would be a drop of clear liquid slipped into a coffee cup. It would be a microscopic smear on a door handle. It would look exactly like a sudden, massive stroke. My eyelids grew heavy. The pain medication Kang had pushed into my IV was a powerful synthetic opioid. It was aggressively dragging my brain into a thick, chemical fog. I fought it, biting the inside of my cheek until I tasted fresh copper, relying on the sharp sting of pain to keep my mind anchored. I couldn't sleep. If I slept, Kang died. An hour passed. The relentless, rhythmic hiss of the ventilator in the adjacent bay became

He reached into the pocket of his dress shirt and pulled out his smartphone. He tapped the screen and held it up for me to see. It was a sterile, white hospital incident report. Time of Incident: 14:45.Location: Surgical Administrative Wing, 8th Floor.Patient: Janitorial Staff Member (Name Redacted).Condition: Deceased. Cause of Death: Suspected massive ischemic stroke/cardiac arrest."A janitor went into my office to empty the trash while I was in the ICU," Kang whispered, his voice tightening. "He found the two cups of coffee Ryuk had left on my desk. One of them was half-empty. The janitor took a sip of the other one."Kang slowly lowered the phone. His face was entirely devoid of color. The flawless, untouchable Chief Resident looked shaken to his absolute core. "He was dead before he hit the floor," Kang said, his voice dropping to a harsh rasp. "The tox screen came back clean. The autopsy showed massive ventricular fibrillation, identical to a sudden, catastrophic heart at

"I am Dr. Ryeong Bin, the new Head of Diagnostics," I snapped, stripping off my suit jacket and throwing it onto a leather armchair. "And if you tap her spine, she will be dead before the fluid hits the vial! She's not having a panic attack, she is in descending respiratory paralysis!""That is impossible! Guillain-Barré is ascending, it starts in the legs!" Pan yelled, stepping back up to the bed. "Get out of my room, you arrogant—""It's not Guillain-Barré, it's Botulism!" I shouted over him. [Time Remaining: 00:02:10][SpO2 Dropping: 74%]I ignored Pan entirely. I grabbed the crash cart positioned by the wall and yanked open the top drawer. "Nurse! I need an endotracheal tube, a Mac 4 blade, and twenty milligrams of Rocuronium! We need to take over her airway right now, her diaphragm is completely paralyzed!"The two nurses froze, looking back and forth between me and Dr. Pan. "Do not listen to him!" Dr. Pan screamed. "Push the Ativan!""If you push a sedative into a patient with