Chapter 1: The clock

-Gonjiam Psychiatric Hospital, Gwangju-si, South Korea-

2021.04.19, 19:50pm

"Tick tock, tick tock, tick tock"

The sound of a ticking clock fills the cold room where I sit on a bed of white sheets.

In a room as white and cold as snow, it grows louder and louder with every tick and tock.

My ears can't avoid the clock's tick-tocking, it grows much louder with every second that passes and force my legs closer to my body.

They push my breasts to my chest and my arms comfort my legs in tight, icy hug, as if with an instinct to hold on to a thing within reach and cling to dear life.

They bind me firmly and shield me from the cold but are unable to tune out the clock's echoing hands.

My eyes wander the room trying to track down its origins.

They search the room watchful of every "tick-tock" that sounds and echoes, reflecting off the padded walls.

The ticking continues and like a ripple in a calm pool stirrs my once calm mind.

One after the other, voices begin to speak and, as they speak, they ask.

They ask questions that stir my mind until they all muffle together and become indistinct.

The voices overwhelms my mind, radiating heat, heat that warms my cold body, but...

They ignite and cause a flame in the deepest, darkest part of my mind.

The part of my mind where the inaudible call and forever-asking live.

"Have I finally lost it.

There wasn't a clock there yesterday.

Who put it there, why is it so loud....are they trying to kill me?".

My head begins to ache and throb, burning by the heat of paranoid thoughts.

Suddenly, a strange picture appears and illuminates above a lit flame.

As if it were a single piece of a puzzle, it unfolds to creates other picture.

Together they create another and another, and another, and another... and another.

It finally stops to assemble one whole portrait, and like a film, it begins to play.

A group of children laughing freely and cheering happily while they play a game of "Truth or Dare".

They smile at each other, giggling at told-truths and done-dares, laughter echoes loudly.

It is familiar and warm, but it unsettles me because of that same warmth and familiarity.

None of the memories that I have are of the outside world, they are all of this padded ward, everything I know is this ward.

The portrait continues to play until suddenly, I hear something in passing, sounding from behind the illuminated art-styled film.

"Oh Young Joo, wake up".

Like a soft voice riding a fleeting breeze in between the laughter, it calls for me.

Sweet and welcoming, it calls to me.

Just as I widen my lips to answer, the voice is replaced by screeches.

Imstantly it changes and it is...monstrous.

The loud, monstrous screeching tunes out the sweet, fleeting voice that no longer calls to me.

It blows out the ignited flame which no longer illuminates the art-styled film.

The monstrous screeching continues, it roars devastingly.

It rages loudly, almost with the intention to destroy and leave my mind ravaged.

The screeching monster goes on a rampage, filling my ears and blinding my eyes.

It ravages what is now a smoked, empty space, harassing me so much so that I feel as though my head is being smashed in repeatedly.

It pains me to the point of a nosebleed.

Insistent ringing goes off non-stop with deafening effect.

My eyes are bloodied by the shots of excruciating pain driving me to the padded wall, numbing every other sensation.

An aching hurt in the the screeching monster's noise hits me hard, almost like a trigger.

I target the door and ram my head into it to kill the pain along with the loud beast, but it only roars louder.

I continue to assault the door and blood begins to flow from my head down to my feet.

It pains me but I pay no care to it, the torment caused by the monstrous screeches that carry excruciating pain from my head throughout my every muscle in my body is much greater than the physical hurt I cause myself.

"STOP, GET AWAY FROM HER, LEAVE HER, LEAVE HER!!!, SO-MIN!!!, S....!" the monstrous screeching is briefly interrupted by the voice of a weeping little girl, sounding desperate to be heard, but I don't understand what I hear anymore.

" Is it the voice of monster that has been torturing me that shouts out to protect another from a monster worse then itself, or have I simply been driven mad from the pain".

The more I draw questions to focus and try to understand, the harder it is to steer clear.

"Who is "Her" and who is "So-min?".

Both pain and beastly noises work as a duo, persistent in their efforts to drive me mad.

Desperate to separate and dispel them, desperate to kill them I persist toward the door without worry for my own life.

I continue to bash at the door, ramming into it as a killer to his victim.

Blood gushing down from my head forms a pool on the pale, white floor, soaking and staining my feet.

Like a victim that escapes its killer, the door opens and a nurse fits its frame.

She pushes me to the stained floor and rushes in, grabbing my head and shoulder as her knee weighs on me centered on my back.

My chest lies against the floor, with hands holding me tightly.

I struggle to look to her with bloodshot eyes, and by her presence alone, she silences the voice-if only for a moment.

Her appearance radiates a warm and beautiful aura, but her hands are icy cold.

The room grows even colder, as if the temperature dropped to its lowest point as soon as she rushed in.

Silvier Han, that is the name on her tag.

"Stage 3, Mania episode, bring the sedatives!"

She orders the nurses outside to help her.

A male nurse walks in and kneels beside her, he attempts to speak to me, mouthing through the ringing in my ears that rings a little less loudly than before, he says to me.

"Patient 025, can you hea- m-, do you see m-?"

"Snap snap", his fingers meet and part.

"Okay... Calm down, it'll be over soon", his voice is familiar and his words even more so.

Silvier, the nurse, injects the sedatives to calm my "mania episode", through the crow feet vein in my arm.

She strokes my hair, beside her, 'Nurse Nam Do-Il", I see his name on the tag hanging from his white shirt pocket.

The sedatives begin to take effect and my senses falter, but I still hear the ticking sound that echoes in the room, through the passage that only deepens its effect.

My eyes ravage the padded walls looking for the clock that "tick-tocked" me to insanity, only to find it hanging on the corridor wall.

Innocently ticking as though denying its fault in the scene playing before it.

My senses wear thin and continue to falter.

I scrape at the padded floors with a single free arm,trying to tear it down from the from its place.

Its insistent ticking mocks me, belittling my pathetic state.

2021.04.19, 20:00pm, it shows me as its hands continue to move.

"Damn that clock!!", I whisper under gasping breath as my conscience succumbs to the sedatives.

Black out