LSK Chapter 2

“You arrogant wench, an orphan girl like you going to university?”

 

‘Not just university. I even became a professor.’

 

“Try smoking this too. It’s really good for you, I’m telling you.”

 

‘Get that away. How many times do I have to tell you, cigarettes aren’t medicine, they’re poison?’

 

“Patient, patient! Wake up!”

 

Someone was shaking her body violently. Shannon, who had been muttering incoherently, finally opened her eyes wide.

 

“Hah… huh? Where… am I…?”

 

“Doctor! Bed number 2 patient is awake!”

 

“The one who kept rambling nonsense? She’s awake?”

 

At the nurse’s shout, a doctor entered the room and pulled out a chart labeled <Identity Unknown>.

 

“Let’s see. What’s your name?”

 

“Ah… um…”

 

Shannon held her head and trailed off. She felt a high fever, her head was foggy, and she had no sense of reality. It wasn’t just because of the stark white hospital room, the windowless solitary room, or the nurse wearing a cap style long out of use since thirty years ago.

 

“Patient, do you not remember your name?”

 

“I feel dizzy.”

 

Even that, Shannon barely managed to answer. She was sure she had drowned in the river, and this strange reality where she was somehow alive didn’t feel believable or even welcome. Even the stares of the five people watching her were too heavy to bear.

 

Especially the sharp gaze of a stern officer standing with his arms crossed in one corner of the room felt oddly unpleasant. It wasn’t just his large, imposing figure or the beast-like aura, like a lion, that radiated from him. He was staring so intently it felt like his gaze might bore a hole into her face. Because of that, her already aching head throbbed even harder.

 

“Let’s administer another sedative.”

 

The doctor scrawled something on the chart and gave the order to the nurse. Deciding that escaping the officer’s gaze would calm her faster than any sedative, Shannon made a request to one of the nurses.

 

“Where’s the loo?”

 

“Sorry? Where?”

 

But to Shannon’s surprise, the nurse looked confused at such a simple question.

 

“Restroom. The first door to the right outside.”

 

Unexpectedly, it was the officer who answered. Since she’d been found nearly drowned after falling from a bridge, he must have been waiting for her to wake for questioning. She figured his bad mood must be from the long wait, but then suddenly realized the real reason why this officer had been glaring at her so murderously. The warmth she’d felt just before losing consciousness had definitely been from his lips.

 

“Thank you, officer.”

 

Realizing her mistake, Shannon avoided his gaze and fled into the restroom. It was those terrifying, slicing eyes that drove her there. Strangely enough, once she was out of his line of sight, the headache eased a little. Letting out a heavy sigh, Shannon suddenly noticed the outdated restroom facilities.

 

She was dumbfounded. Did a place this old-fashioned still exist? Her dazed eyes took in the thirty-year-old style tiles and faucet. Even the nurse had been wearing an old-fashioned nurse’s cap.

 

Something felt off. Even in this situation, her occupational habit of gauging the age of hospital facilities made her laugh hollowly.

 

“Phew.”

 

Looking at the woman in the mirror, so pale she looked like a ghost, Shannon took a deep breath. She had to prove to that officer that what she’d done wasn’t intentional, that it was a ‘mistake’ made in a semi-conscious state after nearly drowning. Only then could she get out of this hospital unscathed. After such a harrowing, near-death experience, all she wanted was to go home and sleep like the dead.

 

But that officer… she couldn’t shake the feeling she’d seen him somewhere before. A vague, almost-familiar sensation lingered in the back of her mind. While she was hovering in that space between recognition and forgetfulness, a rough knock and the nurse’s voice came through the door.

 

Bang, bang!

 

“Patient! Are you alright?”

 

“Yes, I’m coming out!”

 

When Shannon returned to the hospital room, she came face to face with the doctor. Contrary to her desperate hope that the officer might have returned to the station, he was still standing there. The doctor administered a sedative and asked matter-of-factly as Shannon staggered, supporting herself against the wall but stubbornly walking back to the bed.

 

“Now, I’ll ask again. What’s your name?”

 

“Shannon Sherwood…”

 

As the officer’s searing gaze struck her once more, the headache she had barely calmed flared up again, and Shannon clutched her forehead and managed to give her name. The officer, still with his arms crossed and staring at her, let the corner of his mouth twitch up ever so slightly. As if to say, ‘So the shameless molester’s name is Shannon Sherwood, huh?’

 

“How did you end up in the river?”

 

“Someone pushed me off the bridge…!”

 

In the chaos since being rescued, she had forgotten! Shannon suddenly realized that her clothes and bag were gone and frantically looked around.

 

“Where’s my bag?”

 

Her gaze landed on the officer. Even with her face gone ghostly pale, he remained composed. No, he actually sneered.

 

“We pull you out of the water and now you’re demanding your bag too?”

 

And your lips too, while you were at it.

 

He didn’t say it out loud, but his expression made it obvious.

 

“Patient!”

 

Even though he was clearly mocking her, Shannon leapt out of bed and charged at him. Even in the face of this sudden uproar of a madwoman lunging at him, the officer didn’t flinch an inch. Before Shannon could grab hold of his collar like a lifeline, she was seized by the nurses, flailing helplessly.

 

“I have to find it! In there, in there!”

 

Shannon slumped to the floor. It was hopeless. She had lost the pendant necklace and letters, her only clues about her family.

 

“In there?”

 

At Shannon’s intense reaction, everyone in the room focused on what she would say next. What’s in there?

 

But Shannon knew better than anyone that starting off with ‘Well, I’m an orphan…’ and explaining from there would only make things worse. They’d just drag out the examination to check whether she was mentally sound. The prejudice against orphans was still terrifyingly real. Swallowing down her bitterness, Shannon finished with a sigh.

 

“…There’s money in there. And my ID too.”

 

“We’ll let you know if we find it.”

 

The officer spoke with an expression that said he’d toss it straight into the trash even if he did find it. Dragged back in front of the doctor by the nurses, Shannon weakly answered his next question.

 

“What’s your address?”

 

“75 St. Dominic Street.”

 

“Pardon? Where?”

 

The doctor asked again. Oh, she’d forgotten to mention the district.

 

“District 5, 75 St. Dominic Street.”

 

But the doctor still looked puzzled.

 

“Patient, you live in Oaklow, correct?”

 

Where else would this be if not the capital, Oaklow? Shannon stared at the doctor in utter confusion. District 5 was the university area, and anyone unfamiliar with St. Dominic Street was practically guaranteed to be a foreigner new to Oaklow.

 

Then Shannon’s eyes happened to catch the doctor’s chart. Not only did he not recognize her address, he’d even written the wrong date. Her trust in the doctor plummeted in an instant, but she did her best to keep a straight face.

 

“Doctor, you’ve written the wrong date.”

 

“Isn’t today April 7th?”

 

Adjusting his glasses, the doctor asked. The nurse beside him nodded.

 

“The year’s wrong.”

 

Shannon patiently clarified. The ‘today’s date’ written on the chart was 1837. A date from before Shannon had even been born. Not by a year or two, but by thirty years, and no one had noticed?

 

But rather than correcting the date, the three medical staff exchanged grave looks and grew tense.

 

“Patient, today is April 7th, 1837.”

 

“…What year did you say it was?”

 

Before anyone could answer Shannon’s stunned question, there was a knock at the hospital room door.

 

“Chief Gray, a word if I may.”

 

At the unexpected voice from outside, everyone’s attention turned toward the door.

 

“Carry on.”

 

The officer, who had been intently watching Shannon, instructed the doctor to continue examining her, then stepped out of the room to speak with the subordinate who had called for him.

 

“Patient, are you currently taking any medications?”

 

It was only then that Shannon realized things were turning dangerously wrong. She didn’t know why it had taken her so long to notice, but this wasn’t just any hospital.

 

A solitary room with no windows, an eerily empty ward, the doctor’s suspicious eyes, and the nurse’s pitying expression.

 

This was a psychiatric hospital. The kind of place that could turn a perfectly sane person into a patient.

 

‘Goddamn it.’

 

Whether the date was right or wrong didn’t matter anymore. In fact, if it was actually 30 years ago, the situation was far worse. Psychiatric wards, no, asylums, thirty years ago were absolute hell.

 

And remembering how she’d been mumbling about being a professor and the dangers of smoking just before waking up made her skin crawl. Thirty years ago, women couldn’t even set foot in universities, let alone become professors, and it was still an era when everyone believed smoking was good for you.

 

Worst of all, by failing to understand what the doctor had said earlier, Shannon had basically confessed with her own mouth that she wasn’t in her right mind.

 

“Oh… no! I must have been confused. Silly me, I thought it was 1836 for a second.”

 

Thinking quickly, Shannon mentioned a year one earlier than what the doctor had said, forcing a casual smile. But it was already April, not January, making it a poor excuse for a mix-up. The doctor still seemed unconvinced. Shannon hurried to add:

 

“Falling into the river must’ve rattled me. And my address isn’t in Oaklow, it’s in Rodek. Rodek District 5, 75 St. Dominic Street.”

 

“I see.”

 

Fortunately, the doctor seemed to accept that. Not many people would know offhand whether there was a St. Dominic Street in the small provincial town of Rodek, far from the capital. Meaning, neither did this doctor.

 

But even as she narrowly avoided one crisis, Shannon’s misfortune was far from over.

 

The moment she glanced at the wall where the sharp-eyed officer had stood moments ago, a horrifying realization struck her.

 

Wait. Gray? Gray… Chief Gray??

 

“Um… that man just now, what was his name?”

 

Pointing toward the door the officer had exited through, Shannon turned her head toward the nurse like a creaking wooden puppet, her tongue frozen in shock but somehow forcing the words out. Praying, begging, it wasn’t true.

 

“That was Chief Killian Gray.”

 

But of course, the world was as merciless as ever to Shannon.

 

A chill ran down her spine. That feeling of having seen him somewhere before had been right. She’d seen his face in an old, faded photograph.

 

Killian Gray, a man who once wore a police officer’s badge, quietly biding his time, then thirty years ago had thrown the capital into chaos before vanishing, one of history’s most notorious serial killers.