The world spun around her. Mai Mingle instinctively grabbed at a white blur beside her, but it wasn't enough to steady herself. She collapsed onto the cold tile floor with a hoarse groan.
'Oh no, did I break a bone?'
Mai Mingle's vision swam from the pain. She couldn't even tell which bone it was that was about to be the death of her—as if a single fall was all it took to make her fall apart, scattering into a million pieces.
A fall like this, the caregiver should have rushed her to the hospital no matter what. But after she caught her breath, the caregiver who should have been hurrying over never came. No one asked, "Are you all right?"
'What's going on?'
Mai Mingle squinted, trying to get a better look, and froze.
...This wasn't her room.
The room was dim and hazy. By the sliver of white light seeping in from under the door, she could vaguely make out that it was a very large room. In front of her and behind her were empty, narrow beds. What she had grabbed, she now realized, was the corner of a bedsheet.
She let go of the sheet and looked around.
A row of hospital beds on wheels, a small bedside table next to each, and privacy curtains... This was clearly a hospital room. She'd been hospitalized several times and recognized it at a glance.
'Strange.'
'How did I get to a hospital room? The caregivers must have brought me, right?'
How could she have completely forgotten the process of the caregivers bringing her to the hospital? It was as if it never happened, or as if a black hole had opened up in her memory.
Fighting back panic and pain, Mai Mingle tried to remember, but the last thing she could recall was smashing into the television. She remembered the world tilting amid excruciating pain, and the next second, she had fallen onto the hospital room floor.
It was as if she had fallen directly from her home into the hospital—but that was impossible.
'Did I pass out? Is that why I don't remember?'
"Is anyone there?" Mai Mingle called out hoarsely. "Nurse? I've fallen..."
In the cold, silent hospital room, her cry for help was like a shard of ice sinking into a frigid river, as if it had never existed at all.
She shivered uncontrollably, whether from the pain or the cold she couldn't tell. If this continued, something bad was bound to happen. She had to call a nurse right away—that's right, there was usually a call button on the headboard of the bed.
Mai Mingle struggled to push herself up, trying to stand, but the pain in her leg was too much. Her limbs were weak and unsteady; she slipped and almost fell again.
Left with no choice, she began to crawl toward the bedside table. Bracing herself on its edge, she stretched her arm out as far as it could go, her fingers just barely brushing the call button.
"If I were you, I wouldn't press that button."
The sudden male voice made Mai Mingle's heart leap into her throat. Blood rushed to her head, feeling as if it would burst her blood vessels.
She steadied herself through the dizziness, turned toward the voice, and only then discovered there was another hospital bed behind her.
The bed's curtain was drawn, but not completely, revealing the feet of the patient in the next bed.
The feet were bare, deathly white as if caked in thick powder. The toes were curled slightly, perfectly still.
Mai Mingle couldn't help but feel a sense of relief—thank goodness, there was someone else in the room.
"A-Are you a patient here too?" Her breathing was still uneven as she spoke. While talking, she reached for the call button again.
"You really want to call a nurse?" the patient behind the curtain asked in return.
"Yes... I've fallen. I have to."
If it were something minor, she wouldn't call a nurse in the middle of the night. Mai Mingle could understand the other patient's concern.
She pressed the call button, but no sound came from the room.
"Well, look at that. You pressed it anyway."
The patient in the next bed knew, though. He began to laugh. It was a stiff, flat sound, as if produced by consciously contracting his diaphragm in precise, evenly timed bursts.
Mai Mingle pulled her hand back and slowly slumped to the floor, her body limp and weak. But she secretly glanced at the curtain out of the corner of her eye.
"You just won't listen... People really do get more stubborn with age. I was only trying to help you."
"What... what do you mean?"
The person laughed again in those same stiff bursts, but didn't answer.
'Something feels wrong,' she thought, 'but I can't put my finger on why.'
Mai Mingle hesitated, wondering if she should ask again. Just then, a high-decibel broadcast shattered the dead silence of the hallway outside—an electronic female voice filled the air, echoing loudly enough to vibrate through the door panel: "Bed 03 in Ward Three is calling for a nurse. Bed 03 in Ward Three is calling for a nurse!"
Startled by the broadcast, she clutched her chest, which felt like it was about to burst. She was relieved that someone was coming, but at the same time, she couldn't stop a new doubt from rising.
...'That's strange. Normally, does pressing the call button trigger a broadcast? And so loud, in the middle of the night? Aren't they worried about waking people?'
'Is this some new hospital rule?'
The broadcast stopped.
In the silent room, only Mai Mingle's trembling breaths remained.
"Attention," the broadcast suddenly blared again, just as shockingly loud, making her jump. "A figure pretending to be a nurse will arrive at Ward Three in five seconds. Countdown: five—four—three—"
Mai Mingle froze.
'My eyes and ears must be failing me,' she thought. 'I must have misheard. There's no way the broadcast said "a figure pretending to be a nurse," right?'
The patient in the next bed started chuckling again, his laughter chopped into segments.
"What the broadcast just said..."
Before Mai Mingle could finish her question, there was a sudden BANG! The hospital room door was slammed hard against the wall. The deafening, soul-shaking sound made the dull ache in her chest flare up again.
As the door flew open, white light from the hallway flooded in. Silhouetted in the light stood a tall, slender black shadow, its head obscured by the doorframe.
The shadow twisted its right shoulder, stepped forward with its right foot, and took a lurching step into the room, as if its limbs and joints were misaligned and stiff. Its head remained outside the door.
'That can't be a nurse.'
The thought intensified the waves of pain radiating from her left chest, spreading outward. Her entire left arm felt as if someone had grabbed her tendons and was trying to rip them out. Soon, she found she couldn't breathe.
"Oh? So this is what showed up?"
The patient in the next bed laughed, his chest heaving, but the deathly white feet outside the curtain remained motionless.
"I'd say you're unlucky, since what you summoned isn't a 'resident'. But I could also say you're lucky... except you've chosen this exact moment to have a heart attack, so you're not going to make it either way."
The shadow twisted its left shoulder, stepped forward with its left foot, and its head scraped woozily along the wall as it entered. It tilted its body and took another step toward Bed 3.
From the open doorway, someone shouted angrily from a distance, "Who's close by? Get to Ward Three and intercept it! Don't let the one who pressed the button get away! How dare it steal our stuff!"
'...What is happening?'
'Will I even survive the day?'
The shadow was backlit, and no matter how much Mai Mingle squinted, she couldn't make out its features. It walked with its right arm and right leg moving in unison, then its left. It seemed to take only two or three steps, yet it was already at the foot of the bed, trapping her between the two beds.
She wanted to ask who it was, but she couldn't speak.
Someone was running down the hallway. The THUD THUD THUD of footsteps grew closer, and she could almost feel the floor vibrating. The shadow paid no mind to the commotion outside, swaying unsteadily as it approached Mai Mingle.
'Is... this a person?' she thought vaguely, on the verge of death. 'It can't be, can it?'
'My life is over before I even understood what was happening.'
The shadow slowly bent down toward her.
Though her consciousness was fading, Mai Mingle finally got a clear look at the first face she had encountered since arriving at this hospital.
Beneath a shock of tangled hair, extending from its neck, was an oval, smooth, hard mirror. Below the mirror, there was only pitch darkness.
It wasn't that someone was wearing a mirror on their face.
Where a face should have been, there was no contour of features or bone, only a mirror that had taken its place, growing out of the surrounding flesh and aimed squarely at Mai Mingle.
Her own withered, aged face was reflected in the mirror. For a moment, it was as if Mai Mingle herself was the one bending down toward her.
'Am I in a dream? The mirror face, the heart attack... It must all be a dream.'
'To see something so... bizarre... right before I die.'
Dream or reality, it was the first time in her life she had witnessed something beyond the ordinary—and it would be the last.
Mai Mingle's face was expressionless, but the old face in the mirror smiled faintly, the kind of smile one makes when there's nothing left to do but laugh at one's own helplessness.
The her in the mirror opened its mouth, lips parting and closing, speaking silently to the Mai Mingle outside the mirror.
If I could live again...
I'd ride the merry-go-round to my heart's content,
I'd travel everywhere and try everything,
...I'd pick more daisies.
Mai Mingle couldn't move a muscle. She didn't know if her mind was frozen or if her old, tired heart, about to fall asleep forever, simply couldn't be roused.
The lips in the mirror grew blurrier and harder to read. The shadow continued to draw closer, finally enveloping her completely.
...If you were given another chance, what would you do to make this new life worthwhile?
A tangle of coarse, black hair pressed against Mai Mingle's forehead. She was plunged into thick darkness, unable to see anything. Two unnaturally long arms wrapped around her body, coil after coil, binding her tight. The grip grew stronger, as if trying to snap every bone in her body—
"Let go of me,"
Just as the air was about to be squeezed from her chest, Mai Mingle finally fought back. She pushed with both hands, but instead of the resistance she expected, she met only empty air.
She quickly steadied herself and scrambled to her feet, only then realizing that the space before her was empty. The shadow had vanished.
'Wait a minute...'
A delayed realization struck Mai Mingle.
She had just jumped up, easily and nimbly?
Mai Mingle raised a hand to her chest. The pain was gone, as if it had never been there. Deep within her chest, there was only a steady, familiar rhythm.
'My hands... they feel different.'
Mai Mingle lifted her hands and found the skin full and plump, the nails clear and healthy, with not a single excess wrinkle to be seen. Looking down, she stared blankly at the legs and feet peeking out from under her pajama pants—they were smooth, toned, and strong.
'I must be crazy.'
'Youth... so this is what it's like. A sweet, fiery illusion, so full and overwhelming it leaves you at a loss.'
For a moment, she forgot everything else and began frantically feeling herself all over: her fingers sank into thick hair; her arms and thighs had the firm muscle she hadn't felt in decades; her back was straight, her posture taller... Mai Mingle let out a shaky "Ha."
A young, clear voice she hadn't heard in at least several decades flowed into the cold air of the hospital room.
From the other side of decay, darkness, and ash, she had somehow been released, born into the world a second time—no, wait, was any of this real?
"Over here!"
A sharp shout came from the doorway. Mai Mingle flinched and looked up.
Her vision was no longer blurry and gray. Even in the dim light, she could clearly see a man burst in through the door, his face a mask of intense vigilance.
"There's a woman here, but I don't see the Illusion."
The man stared intently at Mai Mingle, shouted to his companion behind him, then barked at her, "Which house are you from, Hunter? You have it, don't you? You dare to intercept an Illusion meant for Mr. Westley?"
"What?" Mai Mingle asked, stunned. Her mind was a tangled mess of confusion—the man's nonsensical questions could only just begin to seep through the chaos.
The man was about to step inside when his eyes swept to the side, toward the space beside her, and he froze mid-step.
"Get in here, now!" he yelled to those outside. "There's a 'resident' in Ward Three!"
'A "resident"? What's he talking about?'
'From the way he glanced over just now, there must be something in the room, not far from me.'
Mai Mingle dazedly turned her gaze and saw that the curtain of Bed 3 next to her, which had been empty, was now drawn.
The curtain wasn't fully closed, revealing a pair of feet as white as if they'd been dusted with powder. The toes pointed outward to the left and right, frozen and motionless.
'...Huh? Wasn't he in the other bed just a moment ago?'
'When did he move to Bed 03?'
"It wouldn't be right to call you 'old lady' anymore," the patient behind the curtain said with a laugh. "I should call you 'miss' now. Miss, that thing you just got... it's a rare treasure. How about you let me have a look?"