Red Dot - 30

Chapter 30

“The physical examination is done, so put your clothes back on and come to the nurse’s office later. I’ll redress your wound and give you painkillers if you need them.”

“Thank you.”

“There’s no need to thank me. I’m just doing what I should. Oh, and keep it a secret from others that it’s a bite wound.”

Hyunje whispered as he neatly wrapped the bandage around Junseong’s hand.

“All done. I’ll go ahead and prepare a place for you to rest.”

That strange look in Hyunje’s eyes from earlier—it must have been Junseong’s imagination. Now, he looked just as cheerful as when they first met. With that bright expression, Hyunje left the hospital room.

As Junseong buttoned up his shirt, he glanced down at his right hand. The bandage Hyunje had wrapped was neater and tighter than the one Hanseo had done before. Was this the touch of a professional?

‘Is he just another nurse who happens to have the same name? But what are the chances of that happening?’

The man had stolen another person’s name, uniform, and ID badge. On top of that, Junseong had never seen him in any of his dreams before. Just like when he first met Do Hanseo in real life.

‘What the hell got messed up this time?’

Junseong could only feel frustrated, wondering what butterfly effect had caused this situation.

After Hyunje left, Hanseo entered the room.

“How’s your hand? Is it okay?”

It seemed Hanseo had also been concerned about the bite wound on his right hand.

Junseong, lost in thought, gave a small nod. Hanseo quietly stood by his side, waiting patiently until he spoke first.

“I don’t know what changed to make things turn out like this.”

“You mean that nurse?”

“The nurse, and the people left on the seventh floor.”

At this time, when he reached the seventh floor and opened the door, there should have been more than twice as many people as there were now—if this were the dream. The six people he saw now were exactly the ones he had seen in the dream’s seventh-floor lobby.

“Where did the rest of them go? They should have evacuated here properly.”

Junseong pressed his fingers to his forehead. The future he had personally experienced for two months was gradually falling apart. At this rate, even the choices he had memorized and the information he had gathered might become useless.

His mind grew more and more chaotic. He was starting to doubt whether he could really trust the information from his dreams. Would it be better to just erase everything from his memory?

At the same time, another part of his mind replayed the various crossroads of his dreams. The futures that had changed depending on his choices.

‘But if everything’s just going to change like this, what was the point of it all?’

His mental state was already worn out to the point that he thought his two months of dreams might as well have never happened.

“Did I… do something wrong again?”

Junseong pressed his bandaged hand against his forehead. The wound was supposed to feel hot with fever, but his forehead was even warmer. Maybe he had been thinking too much.

“If something I did changed the future, that must be why this happened. But what was it? What did I do to make the hospital situation, which was always the same, suddenly change?”

He couldn’t figure it out. Should he have used a car earlier instead of halfway through? Was it because he saved Taeju? Or maybe because he took too much time resting at the motel? Or…

The more he retraced his steps, the more endless the possibilities became. But most of those actions didn’t seem like things that could affect the hospital itself.

“Junseong.”

As his mind became overwhelmed with thoughts, Hanseo’s calm voice reached him.

“You didn’t do anything wrong. Instead of worrying about that, just focus on what you need to do.”

Hanseo suddenly wrapped his arms around Junseong’s thighs and lifted him up effortlessly. Since Hanseo was quite tall, Junseong’s view was raised so high that he instinctively grabbed Hanseo’s shoulders.

“Whether things changed or not, your goal is still the same.”

Without hesitation, Hanseo gently placed Junseong down on the hospital bed. Then, he started buttoning up the parts of Junseong’s shirt that he hadn’t finished.

With each button Hanseo fastened, Junseong’s mind slowly became clearer.

‘That’s right… My goal hasn’t changed.’

The memories of the past two months’ dreams, which had been tangled together in his mind, started organizing themselves.

‘What I need to do is follow the path of that day and get my hands on the solution to this disaster. Last time, I died right after getting it. But this time, I have to survive and take it with me. That’s the only way I can go back to the past.’

To end the zombie crisis—the only way to bring about a rapid solution was to deliver that cure as soon as possible and ensure the vaccine research could begin.

‘And…’

Junseong turned his determined gaze to Hanseo, who was looking at him.

‘I have to get Do Hanseo out of here safely.’

He was both the cure and Junseong’s friend—someone who had to escape no matter what, even if they got separated.

Junseong’s eyes shifted toward the hospital room’s door. His attention turned to the suspicious nurse waiting beyond it.

‘But first, I need to figure out what’s going on with this unsettling situation.’

Beep—

“Three more men added.”

Inside the supply room in the nurse’s office, Hyunje spoke briefly into a small rectangular radio.

After a short pause, another voice responded through the radio.

• New arrivals? I thought there were no more ways in because of the zombies, but I guess people are still making it here.

The man on the other end chuckled before his voice turned serious.

-How’s their condition? Are they useful?

“Two are in their twenties, one is in their thirties. All of them are clean and healthy.”

-Good. So should we get all three of them ready for the process?

Hyunje thought of the six evacuees who had rushed out into the hallway and made a troubled expression.

“We don’t have time, so let’s just get rid of the rotten ones and take the good ones.”

-Oh, right, the helicopter is coming at 4 o’clock, huh? Five hours… Yeah, that’s a tight schedule to process all of them.

“Take them out one by one and send off the ones we can work on first. Then, we’ll put the healthy ones on the helicopter.”

-Got it. The ones we’re working on now are almost done, so send them down anytime.

He was about to end the radio call but then paused.

“But something feels off.”

-What do you mean?

“The three who just arrived.”

-What’s strange about them? I mean, with the number of those zombie bastards increasing, I didn’t think anyone besides the ones left on the 7th floor would still be around.

“That too, but…”

Trailing off, Hyunje furrowed his brows in deep thought.

“The door on the 5th floor. Are you sure there was no alert at all?”

-If there was an alert, I would have called you first.

“That’s what’s weird.”

Hyunje ran his fingers along his jaw, his eyes filled with doubt.

For efficiency in “the process,” his teammates stayed on the 5th floor, where the operating rooms were.

To hide them from the evacuees and block entry to the 5th floor, they forced everyone to stay on the 7th floor, using excuses like conserving backup power and the availability of many patient rooms for resting. Meanwhile, they set up alerts at every emergency stairwell door leading to the 5th floor, ensuring that any attempt to open the doors would trigger a signal on their devices.

If someone new and fresh opened the 5th-floor door, the teammates would immediately capture them and take them to the operation table. If they weren’t fresh, they would signal Hyunje to send them up to the 7th floor instead.

But since there was no alert, that meant the three newcomers hadn’t even tried to open the doors on the 5th floor while passing through.

“It bothers me that they went straight to the 7th floor.”

-Maybe they were hoping for a rescue from the rooftop.

“No, if that were the case, they would have gone straight up to the rooftop at the end of the emergency stairs.”

-Hmm…

The man on the radio soon spoke again, sounding annoyed.

-Oh, who cares? Maybe they’re just lucky. It’s not like it matters. Why are you stressing over something so small?

Hyunje’s face twisted in frustration at the man’s words.

-I’m busy with the process, I’m hanging up.

Hyunje stared at the now-silent radio with displeasure.

Then, he sighed and relaxed his face.

‘Am I just overthinking something pointless?’

Like the man had said, it wasn’t even that important. There was no reason to waste energy worrying about it. After all, those newcomers were going to end up on the operation table anyway.

As he placed the radio back into a supply room drawer, he suddenly froze as a certain face popped into his mind.

‘Hmm, no matter how I think about it, he looks too similar…’

He kept tilting his head, recalling one of the three men from earlier. If he had a composite sketch or even a photo, he could compare, but all he had were vague descriptions and an overall impression.

‘Maybe not? Well, the guy the boss saw in ‘that dream’ wasn’t here in the hospital today, so it must be someone else.’

Convincing himself that it was just someone with a similar appearance, Hyunje brushed the thought aside.