A pain that throbbed through every nerve cell had settled into his body. A pendulum swung in his head, oscillating between the past and the future. The ticking sounds echoed endlessly inside his skull, and not even when witnessing a patient's final moments before death did Meyer flinch. He was seized by a strange, chilling feeling. A kind of uncertainty spreading from his fingertips across his entire body heralded a fire that scorched every inch of him. He asked himself—repeatedly—if it was because of the countless hours spent behind the wheel. But there was only one answer. It wasn't. The pain came from the terror and dread of the future, breathing in his scorched flesh, drowning him in a thousand shades of death. The marks on his belly had begun to sting, like dagger wounds deepening without pause. It felt as if a nail had been mercilessly driven into his abdominal tissue and left there with a cruelty refined over the years. Every breath he took ripped a piece from his soul.
He saw that voice, the one called the Devil Chip, that robotic, emotionless source, take form in his dreams; and when he woke, he breathed heavily, like someone who had just seen a demon beside their bed. Jennie, who stood at his side, kept stroking his forehead and told him he didn't look well. Meyer wanted to open his mouth and tell her about the traces he'd seen. Sometimes he couldn't find the opportunity; other times he simply withdrew and waited for his wounds to be treated—just like a criminal.
Sometimes, he awoke from seeing himself in a pit of lava or stabbing someone with sharp knives. He struggled to walk under the fractured sting of betrayal that struck dead center in his heart.
"Turn left here. The hospital is 100 meters ahead!" said the navigation system's automated voice. Meyer turned the steering wheel in full control and avoided eye contact with the nurse beside him. She'd been assigned in place of the departing paramedic and was a pleasant-looking woman. With pink lenses and light blonde hair, she looked like an all-American beauty. Her name was Emma. She appeared to be around 28 years old, and Meyer, with his mental arithmetic, kept arriving at that same number.
"You're new," he said as the initial assessment on the patient in the back continued.
"Yes," Emma replied in a firm voice. That familiar healthcare-professional tone had birthed a kind of monster within her. Her feminine firmness was carved into her sculpted body. She continued, "You look like someone who's been doing this a long time…"
"Five years," said Meyer. "Though I guess that's not that long."
"Pulse is low!"
"He's got a severe neck injury. Connect the ventilator."
The voices interrupted what had seemed like a pleasant conversation. That's when Meyer thought perhaps it had never been pleasant to begin with—that it was only his perception. Not a bad idea. They both fell silent as if in agreement, entering the kind of quiet that reminded the patient of how close death was.
"Well... I got used to this job. What about you?"
"I was just assigned," Emma said calmly. Her voice had not softened in the slightest. She seemed perfectly content using that tone as a form of defense. "And honestly, it's not like we've never seen things like this in life. Don't you think?"
"I think... the answer isn't that simple," Meyer said, and as they neared the hospital gates, he felt the activity in the back pulsing through his skin like a heartbeat. His eyes twitched as though a loved one were on board. "We see it, yes, but how closely? Do we feel the pain of the dead as a wound in our own hearts? Or is this just another form of witnessing? Is it social media that makes us believe we know everything?"
Emma crossed her arms and waited for the approaching vehicle to stop at the Emergency entrance. She and Meyer exchanged a brief glance. Emma opened the door and walked stiffly to the back, joining the rush to prep the patient for transfer. As Meyer stared at the gurney wheels sliding on the floor, he felt a strange tingling in his chest. A vague pain from deep within caused a brief numbness in his legs. Movements passed before his eyes like reflections in a mirror—distorted and blurry. The hardness in his gaze melted for a moment, growing warm and slippery.
A new email pinged on his phone. Ding. Earlier, he had left a message on social media asking someone at an address about their shop location. Meyer took a deep breath, opened his inbox, and adjusted his glasses. The sender was the pest control website he had visited—the email was carefully written, not at all careless.
"Hello Mr. Meyer,
I'm Justin. My shop is on Gerisson Street, right across from the fountain. I'll be waiting for you. I'm as sure as your name is yours that I have every kind of insect spray you might need."
After reading the note, a question formed in his mind: Could they possibly have an antidote for spiders?
After reading Justin's oddly confident email a few more times, he felt a decision had to be made. The radio crackled. A call came in. A small child had suffered a head injury. He headed to the ambulance, put the key in the ignition, and started the engine.
Emma quickly got in, removing her hand from her waist.
As they accelerated into the traffic lane lined with people, the radio message echoed in his head. A small child. The seriousness was clear from the very first word. Sometimes, Meyer wished for things to be clear—and when they were, it almost always meant more pain.
Emma barely spoke. She was absorbed in her phone. Honestly, it seemed like she got this job through bribery. Meyer pushed the thought down.
Strawberry Street. The address was nearby. The sooner they arrived, the faster a life could be saved—if God had guaranteed that. Meyer had witnessed many people die in his ambulance, and he had only cried once. For an orphaned child. He prayed that this case wouldn't be the same. As he drove, reflections of midday sunlight flashed in the mirror. He was relieved when other drivers cleared the way. Sometimes, sudden kindness from people gave him pride—only to remind him later how easily those same people absolved themselves of cruelty with one small gesture. At those times, he turned left. If there was a left to turn to. The shortest paths in an ambulance were always on the left—except for four streets. And they weren't on one of them now.
Meyer stopped the vehicle in front of a run-down neighborhood. There was a commotion, like the panic of a fire. Emma turned her head out the window, slowly slid her phone into her back pocket, and said, "Let's go." Meyer felt that the power lay with her—or perhaps with the chaos outside. They got out. A woman was screaming, throwing herself to the ground. "Tony," she cried. In the distance, a child was lying on the ground. He had been hit by a low-tier, show-off ceremonial carriage. The ritual was over. The child's body was covered in blood.
"Move!"
"Make way!" shouted the medical team from behind. The hurried gurney triggered something like a death siren in Meyer's head. He noticed the mother's torn knees, her dry hands, and the ragged clothes hanging from the balcony above. A miserable family.
They weren't strangers to Meyer.
After the first check-up, the child's breathing was monitored. Devices were connected. Then he was placed on a stretcher and carried through the crowd. People slowly dispersed, like a theater audience exiting after the film had ended.
Meyer looked at the boy's increasingly clear face. His eyelids drooped heavily into their sockets. His cheeks were pale, lifeless. His lips sealed tightly like a lock. The frail body swayed with every harsh jolt of the gurney. That face... Meyer studied it. Death. Another face of death. Cold. Why did these feelings feel so familiar?
"We're leaving," Emma said sharply. Meyer flinched, circled around the ambulance, and sat in the driver's seat. He started the engine the moment she got in. Cold... His body began to burn. From the cold. How could something burn and freeze him at once?
As he turned the corner, an unknown voice rang in his ears:
"Are these memories lies, Meyer? The way your heart beats? The stiffness in your neck? That deviant rage surging through your soul? Madness? That eerie sense of recognition in your blood?"
It wasn't normal. Damn it, it wasn't ordinary. "No," Meyer admitted aloud, remembering the marks on his stomach. Everything now hung wide and heavy like a dead wing. As he turned on the ambulance sirens, it felt as though his own death march had begun. A wave of stress enveloped his abdomen, while Emma casually kept scrolling on her phone. Meyer hesitated. How could she just look at her phone, texting so calmly? He glanced at her and stepped on the gas. Every face feels familiar to me... Except Jennie. She's completely real. Or is she? Am I losing my mind?
From behind, the child's mother sobbed uncontrollably.
His thoughts shattered into sharp, high-pitched fragments.
The ambulance stopped at the main intersection and checked both directions before entering the road.
["Be late!"] a voice whispered. It was the Devil Chip.
What? Meyer felt his breath stab into his chest. He didn't understand anything. He looked at Emma, wondering if she could hear it. She was sitting normally, legs crossed, staring at her phone. His fingers slipped on the steering wheel, unable to grip the leather.
["Be late to the hospital! Don't save the boy!"]
The voice repeated it.
How could this be? What kind of monster—what kind of soulless creature would say that?
A message flashed on Emma's phone screen as her fingers danced across it.
[Serving Code 43: Tony will not survive.]