The hospital door rasped open with a dry squeal when Dathweet pushed it.
A long corridor revealed itself—straight and endless, flanked by dozens of small rooms.
Each door held a frosted glass pane, behind which pulsed red lights in rhythmic bursts, like a heart beating.
His steps were heavy.
Boots thudded on damp tiles in silent rhythm.
No voices.
Only the muffled hum of machines
and the sharp, burning scent of half-charred meat in the air.
Room One.
Through the glass: a man bound to a metal table.
His skin pale, mouth gaping in a scream that echoed only silently.
Behind him stood a figure draped in black, wearing an iron mask, sawing patiently through the man's calf with a rusted handsaw.
Each cut precise.
Each slice slow.
Blood sprayed across the mask like dark ink splatters.
Dathweet opened the door—
no sound.
His shadow slid in like a thin mist.
The masked figure didn't turn in time—
an arm slipped swiftly around his neck,
the other pinned hard at the nape of his head.
A single twist.
Crack.
The body spasmed once, then stilled.
Dathweet gently lowered him.
Silent.
Barely a sound.
The bloody saw teetered on the table's edge.
He took it, said nothing.
For a moment, he glanced at the victim—
unconscious from agony and blood loss,
a thin crimson trail trailing to the floor.
But he moved on.
The door clicked shut behind him—as though no one had entered.
Room after room after room…
In one, a girl was bound mid‑air from her chair, forced to face her severed hands.
Her blood dripped into a white porcelain bowl…
She was being forced to eat herself.
Next, a bloated body cracked like an overinflated balloon, seeped over and over with foul, viscous fluid.
Another: a man skewered through the abdomen with a metal pipe, still sucking air with glassy eyes.
Elsewhere, only dull clacking sounds—
on closer look, someone was sewing layer upon layer of skin into a body, patching flesh like grotesque collage art.
Dathweet said nothing.
He didn't scream.
He didn't vomit.
He walked that hallway like one already dead.
Driven by reflex, not feeling.
His grip on the saw remained firm.
His body coiled tight like a steel cable.
Because he knew…
the horrors within wouldn't stay lifeless forever.
His steps echoed into a distant void as each door's red glow bounced dimly behind frosted glass.
Scenes of torture repeated endlessly—a looping nightmare.
Then—something changed.
A single door stood ahead.
No red.
White.
Pristine, chilling, silent.
He reached for the handle.
Slowly.
He pushed it open.
Inside, there were no screams.
Just… an impossibly clean office.
A neat desk. Two chairs. A gentle lamp at dusk's hue.
A shelf without dust.
And not a single drop of blood.
Just as he stepped in, a deep voice spoke from his back:
"Hello, Edie… Please take a seat."
He froze.
A small ache flickered in his chest—
like some shutter in his mind had cracked open.
He turned.
An older man stepped forward from the shadows of the corridor.
In his fifties, silver-haired, bearing the serene calm of an old-school physician.
Yet his eyes…
they pierced right through him, as though examining every cell.
His white coat was immaculate.
No crease. No stain. No trace of blood.
He sat down, poured a cup of tea,
and regarded Dathweet as if brushing an old patient from memory.
Dathweet (quietly guarded):
"What is this… game?"
Elias (soft, unhurried smile):
"No game. Only conversation, Edie."
Dathweet:
"Don't call me that…"
Elias (still calm):
"Why not? Today's topic is your memories."
The air seemed to chill around him.
Dathweet froze.
Eyes narrowed in suspicion.
His lips pressed tight—almost wanting to ask "Who are you?"—
Yet he sensed the answer wasn't necessary.
This room felt sealed from the rest of the hospital's chaos.
Fluorescent lights flickered ominously.
Ceiling mottled.
The harsh white glare felt bleached of feeling.
On the desk:
An hourglass.
Sand dripped steadily—each grain a frozen drop of memory—
cold… unmoving… merciless.
Dathweet watched—not in curiosity, but to avoid the man's gaze.
His eyes stayed trained on the sand tilting inside.
Elias sat still.
Hands folded.
A face without emotion.
Quiet like prayer.
Elias (soft, measured):
"Edie… Have you ever heard a baby cry… in the rain?"
Dathweet's hand twitched.
In his mind flickered a corridor on a rainy night.
An intercom buzzed.
A door at its end creaked open.
Scent of bleach. Alcohol. And old memory.
Then—black.
His mind snapped shut.
He swallowed.
Dathweet (voice flat):
"You're mistaken."
Elias didn't react.
He set a cup before him.
Inside the tea:
A crimson ripple.
Like blood shining from memory.
Elias:
"Strange. Last week, a girl sat in that same position.
She said exactly the same thing.
Three days later, she leapt from the seventh floor of the maternity ward."
Dathweet tightened his grip on the cup.
His reflection flickered—
a 17-year-old boy, soaked hair, eyes red with tears,
crumpled ultrasound print in shaking fingers.
The room's colors twisted.
No more office.
Just cold black tray under surgical lights.
A scalpel tapping… keng.
Elias (snaps):
"Wake up. You're crushing the cup."
Dathweet blinked.
The cup was undisturbed.
No blood.
No reflection.
Only his lip—bitten hard enough to bleed.
Dathweet (firm, rising):
"I'm done with this."
Elias did not flinch.
He turned a folder, opened a faded ultrasound image—
indistinct infant shape in white void.
Elias (soft whisper):
"If you dream of crying again,
remember it always starts with:
'Daddy… why didn't I get a name?'"
Dathweet turned away.
The door clicked shut—
metal bite on a lock.
He touched the wall outside.
Dry, yet wet—
sticky like old blood, cold like stripped flesh.
And a child's voice—
thin as haunted smoke—
whispered within his mind:
"Edie… what is your name?"
He turned again.
No office.
Only a pale white wall—
with a message written in finger‑stained blood:
"Room 304 – Special Procedure"
Behind that wall…
something thumped.
Slow. Heavy.
Like heartbeat from something not yet born.
Dathweet placed his palm on the cold steel handle of Room 304.
Ice-cold, as though the door sealed buried memories.
Click.
It opened.
He did not walk in.
The odor hit first—
iron, dried blood, spoiled infant milk.
Inside, a pale light.
And standing within… The Baby.
Unmoving.
Still.
Not attacking.
Not roaring.
Just… standing.
Two meters tall.
A swollen, blank head—no face, no eyes—as if never meant to see.
To its left stood Lyun.
Alive. Twisted. Bound to a metal chair.
Face blood-matted, silent.
Eyes open wide with despair—
Her chest heaved, lips parted, but no cry entered the air.
She gazed at him—
terror.
Suffering.
A desperate plea burning in her eyes alone.
To the right: a crib,
draped in thin sheet.
Inside… a faint cry.
Fragile.
As if someone—
waiting to be held.
Dathweet froze.
The Baby's head turned slowly toward him.
No eyes. No mouth.
But the tilt carried meaning:
"Who will you choose?"
No sound.
No motion.
Only suffocating air…
And a baby's cry echoing in his mind like tiny nails drilling cognition.
His blood turned to ice.
Vertigo haunted him.
This was the final gamble of a game with no rules.
Lyun… or the unborn you never got to meet?
One real.
One spectral.
His hand trembled.
No words came.
But inside… he understood:
This is not a game. This is judgment.
He looked at Lyun.
Still breathing.
Yet broken.
Fear clamped her expression.
Chest heaved slowly.
Her throat caught any cry.
She didn't plead.
She just looked at him—
the last flicker of faith in her eyes
placed on his.
He turned slowly toward the crib.
A faint wail emerged—
soft as a wire pulled through paper,
as though calling his name from behind a locked door.
Not loud.
Not desperate.
Steady.
Yet it crashed inside his mind like ice.
He squinted through illusions—
fractured. blurred. painted in dried blood streaks in the skull.
He gritted his teeth.
Took a step back.
Glanced at Lyun again.
His heart throbbed off-kilter.
Not from fear.
But rage.
Rage at ambiguity.
At this vile mental test demanding he choose
between half-formed memories.
One side: someone he could still reach, still call name, still maybe save.
Phantom though it was, it felt real.
Other side: a nameless dread.
A wound he never dared open.
He bowed his head.
And he made his choice.
He felt… disgusted.
Not with The Baby.
But with himself—because even now, at this very moment, he still wasn't sure if he had done anything wrong.
Dathweet screamed, his voice raw and cracking:
"What the hell do you want from me?! What sin do I need to atone for?! What the fuck did I do wrong?! Just fucking say it!!"
No one answered.
There was no judgment.
Only silence. As if everything was already clear—and he was the only one still in denial.
He punched the wall.
Once.
Twice.
Three times.
His knuckles split open. Blood dripped down in streaks, soaking into the dusty filth on the wall.
He collapsed. Sweat mixed with blood stuck to his forehead. His breathing came in broken bursts.
He didn't know if he was crying—or about to pass out.
Noesis was only a simulation.
But it was starting to feel so real…
…that even he couldn't tell where the illusion ended.
"Noesis is just a simulation…"
He mumbled—not as a denial, but as a bitter truth he could no longer escape.
"I… choose Lyun."
He didn't apologize to the cradle.
He didn't close his eyes to block out the imagined child's gaze.
Because… he had never held it.
Never called it by name.
Never gave it a chance to be someone.
And that—was the cruelest truth of all.
The Baby didn't speak.
It simply lifted its weapon—a blade born not of steel, but from a raw, wordless hatred.
Squelch.
Just one slice.
Lyun's body was torn in two.
No scream.
No resistance.
Only the sound of flesh ripping—slow, wet, drawn out.
Blood sprayed into the air like a fine red mist.
It fell across Dathweet's shoulders like rain.
He didn't move.
His heart didn't break.
It went silent.
And then… The Baby charged.
A storm of primal fury—born of rejection, grief, and ancient rage—burst forth like a cyclone.
There were no more cries.
Only a wordless roar, like the soul of Dathweet itself had been ripped free and left howling in his place.
Dathweet braced himself, yanked the blood-stained saw from the cracked wall, and stepped forward to meet the beast.
The Baby stood tall in the ruined hallway—over two meters high.
In both hands, it held rusted blades longer than its legs, crooked and jagged like bones pieced together by someone who didn't know how anatomy worked.
No scream.
No signal.
It lunged.
CRASH!
Dathweet gritted his teeth, swung the saw sideways—
SHLICK!
Black blood exploded like ink, splashing the walls. The Baby staggered back a half step…
…and smashed its blade down.
SWIPE!
Dathweet's right arm dropped like dead wood.
He screamed—
Blood sprayed.
But even as he howled, he lifted the saw with his left hand and jammed it upward into The Baby's lower jaw.
Teeth cracked against steel—metal against bone.
The Baby reeled… then twisted its blade—
STAB!
Straight through Dathweet's abdomen.
A thick spurt of blood erupted from his back.
He staggered, trembling—
But he laughed.
His eyes burned with hatred.
"I won't die… not until I see you kneel."
He leapt, swinging the saw like an axe.
CHUNK!
The blade lodged deep into The Baby's right shoulder—between bone and meat.
It screamed for the first time—
A broken, mangled wail, like a baby being strangled inside a grown man's throat.
It crashed to the ground—
A long, wet smear of blood trailing beneath it like a field dressing ripped open.
Dathweet collapsed to his knees. Blood pooled beneath him.
One arm.
A gaping hole in his gut.
But it—it was the one lying down first.
He dragged himself forward, footsteps scraping through his own blood.
He clutched at The Baby's bent sword with his remaining hand—barely able to lift it.
Dathweet (gasping, blood leaking from his lips):
"You should die… you sick fuck."
He raised the blade.
The flickering fluorescent lights above glinted across the rusted edge.
The sword cast a glow over The Baby's sewn-together flesh, over its faceless head—
And then…
He froze.
It had no eyes.
But somehow… it was crying.
From the place where eyes should have been, a slow stream of black blood trickled down like tears.
In its open palm…
A message carved in clawed letters—written in its own bleeding flesh:
"12/7"
Dathweet froze.
A pain tore through his brain—not from his wounds, but from something inside him.
Like a lid being pried open after years of being sealed shut.
A memory came back.
He saw himself—
Not as Dathweet.
But as Edie.
Seventeen years old.
Edie ran through narrow alleyways, desperate:
"Where are you? I can't find you anywhere…"
The scene slowed, blurred—like a painting smeared by water.
He saw Loria.
Pale-blonde, frail.
Sitting alone at a sidewalk café.
Eyes red.
Hands wrapped protectively around her belly.
Loria (voice trembling):
"I… I'm pregnant. Four months. I was scared, so I didn't tell you."
Edie stood frozen.
"Pregnant…? You're joking, right? This can't be real…"
Loria bit her lip, tears streaming.
"I don't want to get rid of it. It's mine. I—"
"Get rid of it."
Edie slammed his hand against the flimsy plastic table.
"We're just kids, Loria. What the hell do you think we can do with a baby?
It'll ruin both our lives.
It's July 12. The hospital's open.
Abort it. Now. With me."
Loria sobbed, her head falling into her hands.
And Edie… turned away.
Avoiding even his own reflection.
The present.
The memory shattered.
Dathweet came crashing back to reality—
As if he'd fallen from the roof of a building.
His skull ringing.
His hand numb.
Before him… The Baby.
Its trembling limbs curled inward like an abandoned child.
Still silent.
He dropped the sword.
His eyes were wet.
Dathweet sank to his knees—
Body unraveling as if his soul had been peeled away.
The pain wasn't in his wounds anymore.
"I… remember."
His voice wasn't that of a warrior anymore—
But a survivor, crawling out of a ten-year war inside his own mind.
He touched the floor—
Forehead pressed into his own blood.
Not in surrender.
But in acceptance.
This sin…
It didn't begin with blood.
It began with forgetting.
The Baby staggered to its feet.
Its patchwork body trembled—seams threatening to split.
One leg dragged uselessly across the ground.
Still… it moved.
It bent down.
Picked up the fallen sword…
And took a step toward Dathweet.
He didn't back away.
Didn't raise his guard.
He just stood there—
Face to face with his guilt made flesh.
No fear.
No anger.
Only… a strange kind of gratitude.
That he could finally look it in the eye.
When they were just a few steps apart—
Dathweet stared into the blank space where its face should have been.
And still—
It did not raise the sword.
It paused.
Its shoulders shook.
And though it had no face…
Dathweet knew—it was crying.
It dropped the sword.
Then… it embraced him.
A clumsy, stiff hug—
Like a child who didn't know how to show love, only how to cling to what had once been lost.
And he hugged it back.
For the first time… it felt warm.
Not the warmth of life.
But the warmth of memory—
Of a piece of a soul long abandoned, finding its way home.
Dathweet whispered, so softly it barely escaped his lips:
"…Goodbye, my child."
No one heard it.
No one needed to.
A black mist began to rise from The Baby's stitched body—
Lifting away its scars, its seams, its silent sobs.
It vanished in his arms.
And he stayed there a moment longer—
Holding onto nothing.
But still holding on.
Only when it was gone… did he let go.
Ahead of him—
A door appeared.
No sound.
No light.
Just a plain, simple door.
Like one that opens only for a soul that's finally put down its burden.
— End of Chapter —