Chapter 8: Sent to the Death Room
Trigger warning: suicide
He realized he would soon die.
He knew even himself that the disease inside his body was mercilessly eating away at his lifespan.
When he realized he would die in the hospital, strangely, he felt a sense of relief. After being diagnosed with terminal cancer and enduring the painful medication, he finally felt liberated.
And yet,
“From today you’ll be moved to the basement floor.”
The doctor who had been looking after him for a long time cruelly told him that he would be moved to the basement floor, known among patients as the death room.
A room with no sunlight.
It was the graveyard where those abandoned by the hospital, such as terminal cancer patients like himself and those with other designated incurable diseases, ended up.
“I’m so sorry for lacking the skills to help you.”
To his shocked self, the doctor in charge asked for forgiveness in an apologetic tone.
No, is that really the case?
Wouldn’t it be more meaningful for the hospital to abandon this terminal cancer patient and instead treat patients who have a chance of recovery?
Is it his fate to be abandoned because just because he’s showing no signs of getting better nor dying no matter how long time passed?
That’s just wrong.
“…………”
He was moved to the back of the basement floor, where he slashed his own throat with a scalpel he had hidden, and died.
This scalpel had been dropped by a nurse, without anyone noticing. He thought about picking it up and returning it to the nurse, but the scalpel probably never expected that it would be used as a suicide tool.
The connected instruments emitted a shrill warning sound. It was only a matter of time before his life would end.
I will curse this hospital, I will curse it, I will curse it!!
A hospital that neglects its patients should be shut down!!
He spat out his resentment and anger towards the hospital in his heart, and then he lost consciousness.
In one of the hospital rooms on the basement floor, a terminally ill cancer patient committed suicide.
The silver scalpel slipped from his hand and hit the linoleum floor, making a thin noise.
–Kashan. kashan.
☆
At the end of the darkened corridor is the door to the morgue.
Now that she knows the secret of the morgue, she can no longer see it with normal eyes. It used to be a hospital room where a terminally ill cancer patient was hospitalized and attempted suicide with a scalpel he had apparently hidden.
Kashan, kashan.
It is likely the sound of the scalpel slipping out of his hand during the suicide and slamming into the linoleum.
“Are you going to eat it?”
“Of course I will.”
The high school boy with silver hair and red eyes – Yuiru Enen – answered Houzuki’s question right away.
“What the ghost in the morgue thinks is irrelevant to me. I don’t feel sorry for him.”
“That’s true, but…”
“A terminally ill cancer patient cursed the hospital. That curse will be the perfect spice.”
Yuiru’s red eyes sparkle as he walks towards the morgue.
His pure silver hair stands out vaguely in the dimly lit corridor. His black stand-up collar blends into the darkness, so only his head seems to be floating in the corridor.
When his hand touches the unrefined door of the morgue, that sound comes again.
Kashan, kashan.
Kashan, kashan.
“Houzuki, you’re going to see something interesting.”
“There’s nothing interesting about it.”
Yuiru beckoned to Houzuki, who was standing in the corner of the corridor with a look of genuine enjoyment on his face, and Houzuki followed him to the door of the morgue.
Yuiru pushed the morgue door open just a little.
With the sound of hinges creaking, the unlit morgue could be seen through the gap in the door. Just like when he had seen it during the day, there was a pedestal on which deceased patients were placed, and then a large, almost empty room.
In one corner of the morgue, there it was.
Kashan, kashan
Kashan, kashan
An emaciated patient lying on a bed, connected to instruments, with an IV stand next to him.
The patient was holding a shining silver scalpel in his hand, which slit his own throat and slipped out of his hand.
The scalpel was thrown over the side of the bed and fell to the floor, and that sound was heard.
Kashan, kashan
Kashan, kashan
The patient commits suicide over and over again.
In despair at being sent to the basement floor known as the Death Room, he was driven to the point of slitting his own throat with a scalpel.
With only resentment remaining, the suicides were repeated over and over. Dying had become like a chore.
Watching the repeated suicides of the emaciated patient, Houzuki wonders,
“…………What will become of him after doing all of that? He’s already dead.”
“He probably doesn’t even realize he’s dead. That’s how it goes with some ghosts.”
He slits his own throat with the silver scalpel, and as it slips out of his hand again and again, that sound is played.
Kashan, kashan.
Kashan, kashan.
Kashan, kashan, kashan, kashan, kashan, kashan.
What does that patient, who doesn’t die despite all of that, think?
“If he wants to die that badly then my method is to let him die.”
Yuiru takes out a silver knife and walks up to the patient who keeps trying to commit suicide.
The patient stops trying to kill himself as the high school boy with silver hair and red eyes approaches. His sunken black eyes stare at him as if to say, “Who are you?”
Pressing the silver knife to the patient’s throat, Yuiru says with a smile that seems genuine joy.
“I ta da ki masu.”
–Now, it’s time for the meal.
