Precautions of a Snakepit - Chapter 65
‘Did they forget to lock the door?’
The religious room opens between 15:00 and 16:00. It was before lunch, so it should be locked now.
“Elder, you can’t go in there. It’s closed now…”
Conscious of the CCTV, Won pretended to try to stop the old man and went inside, leaving her speechless at the sight before her.
A dark, unlit religious room was filled with people. They were all in the same, bizarre posture.
The normal prayer position doesn’t cross arms, but their arms were crossed in an ‘X,’ and their hands were clasped together. It looked like two snakes intertwined.
They all looked this way. The pressure of dozens of pairs of glowing eyes froze Won in her place.
“What brings you here?”
A man, who appeared to be a nurse, asked her.
“Well, I saw the old man go in and wanted to tell him to come out since… it’s not operating hours…”
Won quickly scanned the room, pretending to not know where to look.
There were no patients, just people from the hospital. Among them was Nurse Jung, who glared like she was going to kill her.
While not as vocal as her, the others were just as displeased to be interrupted.
Won steeled her face and asked her question as if she were using it for further knowledge.
“What are you all doing here anyway…”
“This is a time for hospital staff with faith. If you’ll excuse us, we’ll take care of him.”
“Oh, okay.”
Dr. Madison doesn’t seem to be in here. Is he not a believer, or is he just absent?
Puzzled, Won turned to leave the room.
“Goo, goo, goo, goo!”
The old man screamed and began to have a seizure. Won stopped in her tracks. The burly chaperones rushed in and subdued the old man, and the medical staff, who noticed that Won hadn’t left, urged her on.
“Get out, patient!”
With no more excuses to procrastinate, she left the room.
‘What did I see?’
Staff members used the chapel for their own use when it wasn’t open to patients. That, in itself, isn’t unnatural, maybe, but what bothered her was their unusual prayer position.
She never heard of a religion that prayed with their intertwined, unless it was a cult.
‘New Faith Prayer Center.’
Won stopped walking.
What if the position was unique to the cult that had ties to the hospital?
‘I mean, maybe…’
Maybe it isn’t just a connection.
She had wondered what interests might bind the two organizations, but what if her premise was wrong? What if they were one and the same? What if it wasn’t “hospital + cult,” but “hospital = cult?”
What if the asylum was a giant snake pit, founded by a cult, with a majority of its medical staff made up of members?
Won shuddered. She knew this was no ordinary place, but she never imagined this. Even her client, Mr. Kim probably didn’t expect it.
‘I deserve triple or quadruple the money.’
If she completes the mission, she’ll get at least five times the negotiated amount. To do so, she’ll have to avoid all sorts of things, including being drugged and turning into an idiot, brainwashed by a cult, and disposed of by the hospital without anyone noticing, and she; ‘ll have to save Target before he becomes a sacrifice.
‘I can do this.’
Won took a deep breath.
‘I’ll do it.’
Either it was a cult’s lair or it wasn’t.
As she walked back to her room, she heard the door swing open behind her. She turned around to see the old man dragged away by the staff.
‘Another day in the stabilization room.’
Even before Won began to groan, Old Man Gugu was in the CR. The others didn’t know why he was being taken away, but Won, who had seen him in Dr. Madison’s office the day before, had a vague idea.
Unlike the others who went back to their rooms when they heard the high-frequency sound, the cognitively impaired old man would have remained in Dr. Madison’s office. He would have been spotted by the staff and ended up in the CR that way.
In fact, Won was secretly looking forward to that development. She moved the bookshelf to find the safe, put it back, and then left the office in a hurry, not quite cleaning up after herself. If the old man was there, he’d take over, and if there were any weird remarks, she could easily brush it off as him being insane and move on.
It was a bit of a mean plan.
‘It’s a shame that as soon as he was out, he went back into the CR…’
Won was halfway across the hall, feeling sorry for herself and him.
Two staff members walk over.
“Why are you here?”
As she wondered what was going on, they suddenly grabbed her arm.
“Let’s get you to the stabilization room.”
“Why would I-”
“You went to the religious room when it wasn’t open.”
“That’s because I was trying to stop him.”
“Well, you broke the rules anyway. I’m not going to give you much time due to mitigating circumstances.”
“Mitigating circumstances;” he said as if he was a Supreme Court Justice.
The logic dumbfounded Won. No matter how she looked at it, that didn’t seem to be the real reason.
‘I need to pay for seeing something I shouldn’t.’
It didn’t matter how unreasonable they were since she was a patient.
She walked into the stabilization room in the morning, facing the green wall. She thought about how it wasn’t right for her to be there, and then they opened the door for her to leave.
‘30 minutes? 40 minutes?’
She didn’t know exactly how long she was there, but it was less than an hour.
As she walked over, she noticed that the door to the other room was firmly closed. Unlike her, the ringleader, Old Man Gu, probably wouldn’t be released today.
As she was escorted to the nurses’ station, one of the nurses spoke to her.
“It’s up to us to take care of you. If anything similar happens in the future, don’t do it yourself. We’ll take care of it, okay?”
Just as Won nodded in understanding, another voice interrupted.
“Are you a doctor or nurse or something?”
Nurse Jung’s voice sounded eager to argue.
“Nurse Park, please leave this patient to me as I will firmly educate her.”
The female nurse, who was also called Nurse Park, reluctantly agreed with a regretful expression.
“Ms. Jung, please do it in moderation.”
“Patient, follow me for a moment.”
Nurse Jung ordered Won with a cheerful face. The staff who had been holding Won from either side released their grip. Now free, Won followed behind Nurse Jung.
After walking until they were out of sight of the four cells and iron gate, Nurse Jung opened one of the doors to a utility room and stepped inside.
‘What a mess.’
Reluctantly following her, Won gulped as Nurse Jung slammed the door shut, sealing off the space from the outside world. She had a murderous glare.
Won could already feel the fatigue creeping up on her as she realized the reason for Nurse Jung’s animosity.
“Don’t focus on Rock.”
‘That’s right.’
Top Dog is the problem. She needs to bury him.
“You know what? We’re sleeping together. We’re having s*x. Not too long ago, we…”
‘While we’re at it, let’s look around the utility room.’
Won listened to Nurse Jung’s words in one ear and out the other and slowly looked around the room.
It was a space for storing miscellaneous items, and everything was stored in a rather disorganized manner, especially the saxophone that was left to one side.
‘Who plays the saxophone?’
It looked like it had been neglected for a long time. It was dusty and didn’t look well cared for, maybe untouched for years. There were several picture frames that looked old as well.
Among them, Won spotted a portrait. It was a middle-aged man with glasses who looked Korean, but also exotic. A gentle, intelligent-looking man who seemed like he belonged at a desk, reading a book.
‘Is he mixed?’
Maybe he ate a lot of foreign food because Koreans looked strangely foreign when they lived abroad for a long time.
He was wearing a doctor’s coat, so he must have been a doctor at the hospital. He must have stopped working because there are none who look like him.
Won moved her gaze to another frame. This time, it was a picture of a group of nurses. It was a long time ago, and she didn’t recognize any of the faces. Still, she wondered if they hadn’t all left and there might be one or two left, so she looked closely. It didn’t mean much. It was just something to kill time because she had nothing better to do, but…
‘Ms. Yang?’
There was a woman among the nurses who looked like Ms. Yang.
Translator
