After going to the cafeteria and eating what little food I got, I decided to go and look for Olbert. I couldn’t get started on my day’s directions if I did not, after all.

But no matter how much I tried, I wasn’t able to find him. He was in none of the rooms that I had seen yesterday. That, of course, suggested that he had either left the hospital, which was unlikely, or that he was in one of the jammed rooms. That was considering that he wasn’t dead, because if he was, then I was too.

The problem was that I had no idea how to open those doors. I wasn’t strong, and neither did I have any tools to break the doors open. I had to resort to the last thing that I would ever want to do in a place like this. Ask the doctors.

I found one who had seemed relatively calmer, even in his expressions, yesterday, and approached him.

“Hey, I needed to find a friend of mine? He was moved to the emergency rooms, but I can’t seem to find those.”

He grunted, “Go check the bottom floors. I handle this one, not the others.”

And then, he pushed me aside and walked away towards some room.

Not as friendly as I had expected him to be. That was totally on me.

Anyways, I headed to the lowermost floor of the hospital. There were five in total, and both of us had been on the fourth one until Olbert was moved.

Once there, I checked all the rooms once more, and found nothing. The only option left was to ask another doctor on this floor, in hopes that they wouldn’t get angry like the last one.

In the corridor, I saw a female doctor talking to a girl, so I decided to go and ask her. I don’t know why, but the way both of them talking made it seem like it was pretty friendly. Maybe they wouldn’t mind me joining in and asking a small question.

I got to them, and cleared my throat to get attention. Both of them scowled and turned to me with frowns on their faces.

The girl, especially, seemed really annoyed with me. I tried my best to sound humble and asked, “Could you please let me know where the emergency rooms are? I asked someone upstairs, and he asked me to come down here.”

The doctor sighed and turned towards the stairs, “I’ve told him so many times before, and he still keeps sending people here.”

Instead of answering any questions, the doctor pushed past the both of us and went up the stairs, presumably to give a shouting to the person I had talked to.

“Do you know how long it took me to get her to talk to me?” The girl shouted at me, but it did not seem antagonizing.

As she shook her head with frustration, her hair got all over her face, jumbled. She sighed and pushed it all back in a rough manner. She did not look good at all like that, but I don’t think that’s what she was focused on in that moment.

“Argh!” She stomped her foot and started walking away.

I was about to consider asking someone else, when I suddenly heard her voice from behind me, “Try the underground floors.”. Before I looked back, she had already started walking away from me.

Underground floors? This place had those?

“H-How do I get there?” I ran behind her to ask.

She did not stop, but continued to answer, “Turn back and go the third room on your left. There’s an entrance there.”

And she was gone.

If she wanted to help out anyways, then what was the point of getting angry before? It was just going to leave me with a weird impression. I tried not to get too engrossed in that, however. There was no telling what she was really like. Every single time, I needed to remind myself about that.

I thanked her in my mind and went to the room that she had mentioned.

It was a regular room which had patients in it, but once I went inside and properly checked it, the stairs in the corner were pretty obvious. Just like everything else, they weren’t really trying to hide these things. By the time I had gotten to this floor yesterday, I had began considering all the rooms to more or less be the same. But that clearly wasn’t the case.

I went down the stairs.

I hadn’t thought that the condition could get worse than what it was in the floors above, but that was the third thing that I had been wrong about today. The underground floors were much, much worse.

First of all, was the very obvious lack of windows. There was no light other than the occasional candle that they had put up in random places. It left some places with two candles, and a lot of light, and some with large stretches of darkness. The entire place was a total mess to get around in.

Second, was the stench. I wasn’t sure what it was of, but the entire place carried a really horrible smell that made me want to run back up the stairs. Not only was it unpleasant in general, but also seemed to burn the inside of my nose and throat every time I took a breath. And this was supposed to be the place where the more dangerous, emergency cases were handled.

Third, were the screams. I tried my best not to pay too much attention to them, but there was no denying their existence. Every now and then, painful screams echoed throughout the corridors of these floors. They were the kind which gave you goosebumps, the pure idea of someone going through terror. But there was nothing I could do. I needed to remember that. All I could do for now was play the role that I had been given.

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I made my way through the rooms one by one, and eventually found Olbert in one very deep in the corridor.

“Hey! Looks like you came to see me!” Olbert excitedly raised his arms, before wincing in pain and putting them back down.

“Uh, yeah. I was worried.”

He adjusted himself a bit, and allowed me to sit on his bed.

“Well, so what did you want to talk about today? I was thinking about this room, you know? I had always heard about room fourteen of the underground floors, but I never imagined I would actually end up in it.”

“Huh.” I looked around. The place looked almost exactly like the room I was currently in. The only difference was that this one was much dirtier, and had that awful stench all around it.

I turned the conversation to his arm, “That did not seem that bad yesterday. I mean, at least I think so.”

“Oh, you’re right!” He raised his arms once more, and then winced again, “The doctors gave me some medicine for the poison, and that’s apparently working right now, which causes intense pain. There’s quite a courageous battle going on in there, if you think about it.”

“Yup.” I nodded. I wasn’t sure if the people over here knew about white blood cells and the like, but I didn’t want to go in that direction. He would probably want to know more, and I wouldn’t be able to answer, since I didn’t know a lot about that stuff either.

“Anyways, I was about to tell you about this room. Number fourteen. I heard about it from my great-great uncle, who was obviously the husband of the aunt I told you about yesterday. This is where she was born, you see. And this is also where her last victim died before telling the guards her name.”

Right. He was still talking about his serial killer great-great aunt. I wondered if these people had detectives to handle things like that, or if the general guards had to do that too.

“So, when she was eventually caught, she fought back against the guards in what is known as the Battle of Illithen. That’s my village’s name. It’s the only big fight which ever happened there, so they gave it that name. It was my aunt against ten soldiers, and she managed to kill five before she was injured by them and brought to this room for being treated.”

“They treated her, even after all of that?”

“Hmm, that’s right.” He nodded with what seemed like pride, “During that fight, the remaining soldiers really started to respect her abilities and strength, so they did not want to kill her. Even now, she is locked up in Ambrasia Castle along with my great-great uncle.”

“Your great-great aunt is still alive?” I asked, “Also, your uncle too?”

“Ohh sorry. I jumped quite a bit, didn’t I? I was going to get there in a while. When she was brought to this room and healed, she started attacking all the doctors here. They panicked and ran. The guards came here, sad that they had to kill her, but then my uncle’s love did not allow him to watch this go down normally. So, he joined her and started killing the guards too. Together, they massacred fifteen of them in this room! And then, they were both given sedatives by a doctor, who became the hero of this place.”

“And…how do you know this?”

“When my father took me to the Ambrasia Castle to meet both of them, they told me their story. Of course, my father intended for me to learn the folly of killing from their story, which I did. But isn’t it really amazing what love can make you do!?” He started laughing before abruptly stopping and wincing, holding his hand.

“Hey, are you fine?”

“Yeah, hmm. I’m great. The medicine really seems to be working.”

I was starting to grow unsure if the medicine really was medicine, or if it was some kind of extra poison.

Right then, a group of three doctors entered the room. One of them came to us and asked Olbert his condition. He told him about the pain, and was assured that it meant the medicine was working. Then, along with the two other doctors, he went to the man who was on the bed opposite to us.

It was an old man, who still seemed quite fit and healthy. Unusual for this place.

He talked to the doctors very happily for some time, until one of them bent down and whispered something in his ear. The man’s face changed.

His eyes dropped, and his hands began to move violently. He put them on his hairs and started pulling on them, groaning. Two of the doctors put their arms around his shoulder and helped him to stand up. They were smiling as they looked at each other.

The man turned to look at all the other people in the room and began to scream in an incomprehensible language. He stopped after a while, with a confused look on his face, and then started shouting once more. The doctors pushed him forward while his hands turned towards the others, as if calling for help.

I reflexively founded myself standing up, but Olbert put a hand on my shoulder. I looked at him, and he shook his head. His expression was serious. I hadn’t expected to see that on his face anytime soon. But he clearly did not want me to interrupt this right now.

The other people in the room too, either ignored the screaming entirely, turned away trembling, or looked at him with sadness. However, nobody helped him.

And then he was gone. His screaming slowly grew lower and lower, and then disappeared.

“What just happened?” I looked at Olbert, who seemed to be back to his usually excited expression and looks.

“I’m sure the doctors just told him about his next surgery. A lot of people have weird reactions to knowing the specifics of treatments. That happened to my father once.” Olbert laughed a little before stopping and looking me in the eyes, “We should try not to focus on these people too much.”

“There’s clearly something wrong with this place.” I spoke as seriously as I could.

“Of course, there is. I just told you of the violent history of this room, didn’t I? To think that something like that could happen in this hospital. I could continue on for longer, but I feel really sleepy, so I must. Otherwise, I would have loved to continue about the story of the hero of the hospital, and how he too met his demise in this cursed room. To think that I actually ended up in such a significant place. Crazy!”

What exactly were his directions?

He was clearly acting, and it was obvious from all of his expressions and reactions. But what was he being forced to do right now? I wasn’t sure if the story of his great-great aunt and uncle was even true, or one he made up to fit his character. Maybe they didn’t even exist anymore.

I stood up and bid him goodbye for then. Hopefully I had finished my directions for the day. I would consider us friends.

But still, I looked at him and asked, “Hey, Olbert. Would you call me your friend?”

Olbert laughed and nodded, “Of course, Ryworn. You have listened to my stories for so long, and with such interest. You’re a true friend!”

I smiled and left the room. I was going to live for the day, at least.

But the day didn’t end there.

I went back to my room, and to sleep, and was ready to wake up with new direction for the next day.

However, I felt myself being shaken. My sleep broke and I heard a lot of noises all around me. The lighting confirmed that it was the middle of the night, but the hospital seemed to be more active than it was in the days. I had never heard it be this noisy before.

I looked up and saw Olbert’s face staring at me with a slight smile, “Hello, Ryworn.”

“Uh…hi?”

“Good, wake up. It’s nice to meet you.”

“What do you mean?”

“The real you. And hopefully you'll feel good meeting the real me.”

“What do you mean? This is the real me. Always has been.”

Was he trying to get me into trouble by talking about our 'real' versions?

“Don’t.” He pulled me up and said, “Stop with the act. All of us can stop with the act. For now, we’re free."