Beep.
…
Beep.
The two heartbeats continued.
Neither one matched the other.
One beat steadily, like the heart of someone sleeping peacefully.
The second… hesitated.
It skipped.
It stumbled.
It sounded like a heart that had forgotten how to live.
Kenji stood motionless.
His breathing became shallow.
There was no patient.
No doctor.
No wires connected to the hospital bed.
Yet the monitor refused to stop.
He took one careful step forward.
The room reacted.
The lights flickered.
Not off.
Not on.
Almost as though they couldn't decide which reality they belonged to.
The bed remained empty.
The white sheets were perfectly smooth.
No wrinkles.
No dust.
Someone had been taking care of this room.
Recently.
Kenji reached toward the bed.
His fingers stopped.
There was a depression in the mattress.
Someone had been sitting there only moments ago.
Still warm.
He slowly touched it.
Warm.
His eyes narrowed.
"I'm not alone…"
No answer came.
Only the steady rhythm of the monitors.
Beep.
…Beep.
He looked toward the medical chart hanging at the foot of the bed.
Every line had been blacked out.
Patient Name.
Age.
Diagnosis.
Blood Type.
Everything.
Only one section remained untouched.
Time of Death
Instead of a date…
Only one sentence had been written.
Death was interrupted.
Kenji frowned.
Interrupted?
Not prevented.
Not delayed.
Interrupted.
As if death itself had been stopped before finishing its work.
He turned the page.
The next sheet contained nothing except dozens of signatures.
Every signature belonged to a different doctor.
Every one of them had reached the same conclusion.
Deceased.
Another page.
Another signature.
Confirmed dead.
Another.
No heartbeat detected.
Another.
Pronounced at 3:33 A.M.
Kenji's breathing stopped.
3:33.
The Witching Pulse.
The same time that had haunted him since the beginning.
He flipped to the final page.
Blank.
Except for one question.
Written in fresh black ink.
If he died… who came back?
Silence filled the room.
For the first time…
Kenji didn't have an answer.
A drawer beneath the bed slid open by itself.
No sound.
It simply…
Opened.
Inside rested a small cassette recorder.
Old.
Scratched.
Its batteries should have been dead decades ago.
Yet the tiny red light blinked.
Waiting.
Kenji picked it up.
A label had been taped across the front.
Interview One
His thumb hovered over the Play button.
He hesitated.
Something inside him whispered not to press it.
He pressed it anyway.
Static.
Several seconds passed.
Then…
A man's exhausted voice filled the room.
"Patient refuses to answer to his own name."
Another voice.
A woman.
Calm.
Professional.
"Has he remembered anything?"
Silence.
Then—
"Only the rain."
Kenji's grip tightened.
The recording continued.
"He keeps asking the same question."
"What question?"
The tape hissed.
The doctor answered quietly.
"He wants to know why everyone keeps mourning him…"
"…while he is standing in front of them."
Kenji's pulse hammered.
The tape clicked.
Another recording began automatically.
The date was announced first.
"Interview Number Seven."
A different doctor.
Older.
His voice shook.
"Patient has begun recognizing previous examinations."
The woman sounded confused.
"Impossible."
"We have never met before."
The old doctor laughed.
Not happily.
Broken.
"That's what we said… last time."
The tape suddenly distorted.
Voices overlapped.
Dozens of conversations played at once.
Different years.
Different doctors.
Different rooms.
Yet every interview asked the same question.
"Do you remember dying?"
Kenji ripped the batteries from the recorder.
The voices continued.
His blood ran cold.
There were no batteries.
The compartment was empty.
The recorder had never needed power.
The voices slowly merged into one.
Deep.
Calm.
Ancient.
"You always remove the batteries."
Kenji dropped the recorder.
It hit the floor.
The voices stopped instantly.
He backed away.
His heel struck the hospital bed.
Something moved beneath it.
Not beside it.
Under it.
A hand slowly reached into the light.
Thin.
Pale.
Its fingers curled around the edge of the mattress.
Another hand appeared.
Then another.
Dozens of pale hands emerged from beneath the bed…
…yet none of them tried to grab him.
Instead…
Every one of them pointed toward the far wall.
Kenji turned.
The white paint had begun peeling away.
Behind it wasn't concrete.
It was glass.
A massive observation window.
Someone had been watching this room.
For years.
Behind the dark glass…
Rows of empty chairs faced the hospital bed like seats in a theater.
Except…
One chair wasn't empty.
A silhouette sat perfectly still.
Watching him.
Watching everything.
The figure slowly raised one finger…
…and pointed back at Kenji.
Then the lights went out.
In complete darkness…
A familiar voice whispered only one sentence.
"You've opened the wrong memory."