It was an absurd threat, but any normal person would have cowered and backed down. Won bit her lip in exasperation.

“I’ll let you through the metal detector with the rest of your belongings and that watch on your wrist, but next is a pat-down. Take off your watch and walk through.”

Won did as she was told. The metal detector immediately responded.

“It says you have something on your chest.”

The man peered at the monitor and turned to Won.

“Take off your clothes.”

“… You want me to take them off in front of you?”

For the first time since entering the ward, Won was dumbfounded. She had been informed this wasn’t a normal facility, so the man’s high-handedness and threats were within her expectations.

Unlike most psychiatric hospitals with normal operations, there are some rogue psychiatric facilities that refuse to discharge patients in order to take advantage of the money received from the Health Insurance Corporation. Each hospitalized patient received about 1.5 million won per month in subsidies.

To prevent such abuses, the Mental Health Act limits forced hospitalization to six months, but there are ways to get around that. Patients who are eligible for discharge review can be admitted to other facilities they partner with and be sent back to the system. It’s called the “revolving door” policy. Psychiatric hospitals of this caliber usually come with inhumane treatment, abuse, and poor facilities.

While this place seemed to be more of a facility for those in authoritative positions to exercise superiority rather than be blinded by money, Won had a suspicion that it wouldn’t be much different from the revolving door hospitals… Until she was asked to undress in front of him. Until that point, she realized she hadn’t thought much about what could happen to her.

“I need to see what you’re hiding, don’t you think?”

“Get a female employee.”

“Why are you making me repeat myself, Ms. Lee Won?”

The man strode over, his white coat flapping with the breeze, and put his hand on her shoulder.

“Since you’ve entered this protective ward, Ms. Lee Won, you listen to me. If I order you to take medication, you’ll drown in it. If you try to refuse me, you’ll be chained up so you can’t even lift a finger.”

The man’s fingertips lazily slid along the line of her shoulder. Won felt like a bug was crawling all over her.

“Do you know what it means to be held in compulsion? I’ll tie your feet together while you’re pinned to the bed. Then, I’ll tie your hands behind your back. You’ll be bound from around your chest to under both armpits; it will be so tight you couldn’t even bleed… you’ll be unable to move. You can’t even go to the bathroom on your own, so we’ll have to put a catheter in you or a diaper.”

‘He must have some kind of absolute power.’

The man was crazier than she imagined. It would have been less alarming if zombies had roamed the ward, but that’s fantasy stuff after all. Real life is always more unpleasant.

“Please, we’ll untie your hands first.”

Won lifted her bound hands and showed them to the man.

“Ah,” the man let out an unintelligible exclamation and undid the binding.

“It’s such a shame, you look better bound.”

‘What a bunch of bullshit.’

Stepping away from the metal detector, Won moved her freed wrists around a few times before grabbing her shirt. The man had an amused look on his face, then haughtily shook his head as if questioning if she wanted him to take off her clothes for her.

‘Crazy.’

Resisting the urge to punch the man and escape, Won took off her top and bra. Surprise flashed across the man’s face as he watched like a member of the audience.

“I never would have thought you had such an unusual sexual preference.”

With a smile that made his cheeks hollow, he stepped closer and tugged on the chain. Won frowned at the pain from her nipple being pulled.

“What an obscene nipple piercing. Why did you put a chain on it? Is it so I can tug on it like this and can stimulate both nipples at once?”

He hooked his fingers around the chain that connected both nipple rings and jerked them forward again.

“Mmph.”

“I like you more and more.”

Won made a mental note to herself to endure it at least three times.

“As much as I’d like to let you keep it on, I can’t. You aren’t allowed to bring things like this into this place. I’ll confiscate it, but I can return it anytime you like.”

She felt the man’s hand on her nipple. Won tightly closed her eyes, but the humiliation didn’t end there.

“Now it’s time to take off the bottoms.”

“…What?”

“I have patients who hide things in there, so I need to check them out. I need to see what is there and what’s not.”

The man opened a drawer, pulled out a glove, and slipped it onto his right hand. Won clenched her teeth to hold back her anger.

After the humiliating physical, Won was given her room assignment. A single room on the second floor was where she would live from now on. Before changing into her patient’s clothes, Won headed to shower, desperate to clean herself right away…

After confirming there was no hidden CCTV inside the shower, Won stuck her finger in her mouth. She slowly pulled the thread out of her molars, fighting back the rising urge to vomit. What she had hidden in her mouth had slid down her esophagus, but she managed to get it out of her mouth.

She examined the object she smuggled inside. It was a pouch, about the size of a thumb. Her nipple piercings were required to conceal what was inside the pouch. The material would have been picked up by the metal detector and showed the approximate location: above, between the breasts, but below the nipple. She couldn’t hide it using the piercings alone, so she connected a U-shaped chain to both piercings that passed by the stomach area. It was to trick the metal detectors into thinking it was the chain that was the problem.

She didn’t feel like she gave up any dignity because what was in the pouch was worth it. Most of the parts for it could be replaced with plastic, but one piece had to be metal. She thought she would be showing herself to a woman, not a man after all. Hell, even prison strip searches are done by those who are of the same gender.

“Crazy asshole.”

The nurse referred to the doctor as “Dr. Madison.” At first, she thought it was some kind of sick comedy joke because how could a doctor’s name be Madison¹ i think they say this bc shes in korea and “madison” wouldnt be common there?, but as it turns out, it wasn’t a joke and that was really his name. It’s an unscrupulous facility, so it was probably a pseudonym, but even if it is, how can that be their name?

Anyway, Dr. Madison is not a normal man in any way. He’s a maniacal tyrant who wields unchecked power in this closed word. Won made him the first person of interest.

“If you don’t come out of the restroom or shower within 10 minutes, the medical staff will come to check if you’re okay.”

His words played in Won’s head. Toilets and showers are the most common places for hospitalized patients to attempt suicide since there are no cameras. However, locks aren’t on the doors to prevent patients from locking themselves in.

Now that she has accomplished her goal, she cleaned herself up. It’s chilling for her to think about how everywhere Dr. Madison touched her felt like a snake slithering across her skin.

There was no shower head or hose in the restrooms. This is a standard practice in closed wards to prevent accidents. The head could be removed and used for self-harm, and the hose would make it easy for a patient to hang themselves.

Won looked up and saw a sunflower shower head hanging from the ceiling.

‘There really aren’t any tools that I can use as a real weapon.’

The sunflower shower head was the only thing in the shower. She had done her research on closed wards and knew this would be the case, but seeing it with her own eyes was daunting. At least this was a facility with a sunflower shower head, most places would make someone use a faucet to bathe.

Won sighed as she lathered her body with the soap she brought with her.

After almost 10 minutes of washing, the hospital staff came over.

“Are you finished?”

“Yes.”

“Let me show you around the ward.”

The nurse took Won around the facility in the usual way, showing her where everything was. The nurse wasn’t particularly friendly, but after the encounter with the earlier asshole, Won was slightly touched.

“This is the therapy room. We have different programs and we do counseling. Over there, as you may have seen, is the nurses’ station. You won’t be going in there except for if you have to go to the secure unit, which is where patients who are at risk of self-harm or harming others go, and…”

Won listened to the nurse’s explanation and organized her thoughts in her head.

In normal hospitals, there would be facilities such as information desks and outpatient clinics on the first floor, but since this place is only for inpatients, there are rooms on the first floor. The rooms located on the first through third floors are divided into single, double, and four-person rooms. Won needs to figure out which floor and which room her target is on.

The door leading out of the ward, a double steel door guarded by security, can only be reached through the nurses’ station. It was a deliberate arrangement to prevent any escapes.

Once you get through that door, you are in a zone full of motion detectors. If you can get past that, your next obstacle is the fiber optics sensors. Finally, there is the zone of walls and fences, caged in with trenches and razor wire…

Recalling the steps she had taken to get to the ward in reverse order, Won grew a little tired.

“Over there is the playroom. It’s where you can play board games. This is probably the most important area for the patients, the living room, where they gather and socialize.”

As explained, the living room was full of people in patient clothes. Among them, the presence of a man sitting alone on a large sofa was hard to miss. He was leaning on the armrests, almost laying. Won knew who he was at a glance.

‘Top dog.’

There is a hierarchy among the patients in the room. The one person at the top is called the Top Dog. In short, they are the leader of the group.

The more isolated the space is from reality, the more dominant the person on top is. This locked ward is like a prison, so the man’s influence is probably high. Won grows tired from being on such high alert.

‘It’s best to be as inconspicuous as possible…’

Just as she was about to look away, she made eye contact with Top Dog. He didn’t move a muscle; it was only his eyes, yet Won felt the hairs on the back of her neck stand up.

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  i think they say this bc shes in korea and “madison” wouldnt be common there?