Staring intently at the fallen corpse, the hospital lobby suddenly fell completely silent—so quiet you could hear a pin drop.
However, after a brief moment of silence, piercing screams erupted throughout the lobby.
The onlookers finally realized what had happened. The crowd exploded like a pot boiling over as panic spread.
Some stumbled backward in a panic, knocking over nearby directional signs. Others stood frozen in terror, their faces deathly pale. A few, unable to accept the reality before them, even tried to step forward to check.
In the blink of an eye, the lobby devolved into utter chaos.
"Sumimasen! I've disturbed everyone, I'm so sorry!"
The man kneeling on the ground straightened his posture. Ignoring the corpse right in front of him, he looked around at the crowd, his face full of utmost sincerity as he continuously expressed his apologies.
The people who heard his apologies only felt an indescribable muddiness well up in their brains, as if something was stirring around inside their skulls.
The movements of the few people closest to Aizawa Yuuma were the first to stiffen. Their expressions shifted between horror and bewilderment as a viscous, blood-streaked white paste slowly oozed from the corners of their eyes, their nostrils, and their mouths.
In just a few short breaths, more people became victims.
Only a sparse few suddenly remembered the dissolving urban legend circulating in the hospital. They hurriedly covered their ears, but a small amount of brain matter still leaked from their nostrils.
Mamiya Yuka's stomach churned violently. She hurriedly jabbed her elbow into the elevator call button. As the elevator doors slowly opened, Aizawa Yuuma in the distance also took notice of this peculiar woman.
"Sumimasen! Please don't go! I beg you! Please accept my apology! Sumimasen!"
Aizawa Yuuma clambered to his feet. Raising both hands high, he chased after Mamiya Yuka while shouting his apologies.
Mamiya Yuka felt entirely creeped out. Before the elevator doors had even fully opened, she squeezed through the gap and forcefully elbowed the 'close doors' button and the floor button.
The elevator doors, having just opened, began to slowly close again. Through the narrowing gap, she watched Aizawa Yuuma drawing closer and closer, while more and more people collapsed around him. The heads of those convulsing on the ground continuously leaked brain matter from their orifices.
"Hurry! Hurry up!"
This bizarre and horrifying scene made Mamiya Yuka urge the doors to close, unable to hold back. She could practically hear her heart pounding against her ribcage.
Just as Aizawa Yuuma was mere steps away from the elevator doors, they finally shut tight, cutting off that face completely covered in apologetic fervor.
Mamiya Yuka leaned back against the cold wall of the elevator and slowly slid down to the floor.
She gasped for air. With her ears stuffed with tissues, she could only hear her own heavy breathing and the sound of her racing heart.
"H-How horrifying!"
Mamiya Yuka muttered to herself, still visibly shaken.
It wasn't that she hadn't encountered supernatural incidents before. Senior Nozaki from the newspaper office had a female companion, Miss Higa, who was a psychic, and Mamiya Yuka herself had witnessed Miss Higa's exorcisms firsthand.
But this was completely different!
The supernatural incidents Miss Higa experienced and the supernatural incident unfolding before her eyes had two entirely different vibes.
One was a stream of consciousness; the other was a B-movie splatterfest.
The elevator stopped at its destination floor. The moment the doors opened, Mamiya Yuka immediately dashed out, sprinting wildly down the corridor.
She violently shoved open the door to the Hospital Ward. Amamiya Rin was still lying on the hospital bed. Hearing the door open, he struggled to lift his heavy eyelids to see the guest outside, but he could only make out blurry double images.
"Mr. Amamiya! That apologizing man you just mentioned! Aizawa Yuuma! He's downstairs!"
Mamiya Yuka hastily rushed to the bedside, abandoning all politeness as she forcefully shook Amamiya Rin's shoulders.
"Aizawa Yuuma?"
Amamiya Rin's brain was in a groggy haze. It took him a good moment to process what Mamiya Yuka had just said.
"Why would he be here?"
Amamiya Rin's eyes snapped wide open as he shot up into a sitting position.
"I was just about to ask you."
Mamiya Yuka's brow furrowed with panic. She didn't want to die young, which was precisely why she had come up to find Amamiya Rin.
"Could it be..."
Curses attract one another? Is that really how it works?
Amamiya Rin didn't have the spare mental capacity to overthink it. He rolled out of bed, pulled open the nightstand, and took out a can of black coffee. Yanking off the tab, he chugged the bitter liquid in one breath. He then dragged out a backpack and a sword bag from under the bed, slung them over his shoulder, and stood up, leaning on a crutch.
"There's no time to explain. Let's go!"
They couldn't stay in the hospital any longer. Amamiya Rin didn't want to gamble on whether Aizawa Yuuma would make his way up to this floor.
Furthermore, following the annihilation of Morita Hospital, Toto General Hospital was now about to face its own devastating disaster.
Amamiya Rin highly suspected that whenever he stayed in one place for too long, he ended up attracting terrifying curses to that location.
"You're too slow. I'll help you."
Seeing Amamiya Rin's unsteady footsteps and difficult movements, Mamiya Yuka took action immediately.
She yanked Amamiya Rin's backpack off him and strapped it onto her own back. Then, grabbing Amamiya Rin's arm, she draped it over her shoulder, half-supporting and half-dragging him out of the Hospital Ward.
Amamiya Rin wouldn't refuse to help others, nor would he reject the help of others.
He didn't stand on ceremony with Mamiya Yuka. Leaning his body weight onto the woman's petite frame and exerting force with his own legs, they quickly left the ward and arrived at the elevator doors at the end of the corridor.
However, not a single one of the four elevators was stopped on their floor; they had all gone down to the first floor.
It was glaringly obvious that the elevators were unusable. Mamiya Yuka gritted her teeth and dragged Amamiya Rin toward the emergency stairwell.
In the dim stairwell, the emergency lights provided the only faint source of illumination. Leaning against the handrail, Mamiya Yuka supported Amamiya Rin as they stumbled their way down.
Amamiya Rin's condition was absolutely dreadful. The dizziness brought on by severe sleep deprivation crashed against his consciousness in waves, much like an ocean tide.
Within his field of vision, Mamiya Yuka's profile, the pale gray walls, the narrow stairwell—everything was slowly twisting and distorting.
He forced himself to stay alert, moving in tandem with Mamiya Yuka's pulls. He spent almost all his remaining energy fighting against the darkness threatening to swallow his consciousness whole.
After walking an unknown number of steps, Mamiya Yuka suddenly stopped in her tracks and released Amamiya Rin's shoulder.
"Sumimasen!"
Astoundingly, Aizawa Yuuma had appeared at the corner of the second-floor stairwell just ahead. It was as if he had been waiting there all along. Upon seeing Mamiya Yuka and Amamiya Rin, a joyful expression bloomed on his face.
Then, that joyful expression warped into an almost devout look of apology, his gaze locking intently onto Amamiya Rin.
Mamiya Yuka clamped both hands tightly over her ears, her body curling up defensively in overwhelming unease.
At the same time as he lost his support, Amamiya Rin pitched forward, about to tumble down the stairs.
However, in the exact moment he was about to fall, he instinctively adjusted his stance, turning sideways while violently slamming his arm against the wall to steady himself.
____
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