Chapter 7
When I woke up, my senior took me to get a local SIM card and then helped me get familiar with the hospital environment.
The wards were crowded with patients and the hospital, severely understaffed, was extremely busy.
I followed my senior, moving from one ward to another. Seeing my face pale with fatigue, my senior understood that because I was new and tired, she kindly told me to
take a break.
Just as I was catching my breath, a woman came running toward me, her face full of panic. From what I could make out from her, there was a patient in critical
condition.
Without thinking, I followed her.
However, as soon as I entered the room, I felt a sharp pain at the back of my neck. A cold liquid was injected into me.
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As a result, my leg went weak, causing met to collapse to the floor. Through my daze, I thought I saw the masked man who had kidnapped me before.
When I regained consciousness, I was horrified to find myself stripped bare while a man was looming over me.
I knew him. He was the same mask man from before.
In his hand, he was holding a camera, ready to take my picture.
I felt so ashamed and angry. I tried to push him away, but my body was too weak to muster any strength.
I also noticed that my body was marked with evidence of intimacy.
The man sneered and shoved the photos in my face, then said, “Sandra, do you think James will still cherish you after seeing these lewd pictures? This is so funny! That man was so smart but he did not realize that the child that you lost was his.”
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His words, mixed with the madness in his eyes, sent chills down my spine.
“What nonsense are you talking about? You’d better delete those photos and let me go, or my senior will notice I’m missing and call the police!” Sandra retorted.
However, the man only laughed hysterically.
“You’re on the verge of death, yet you’re still dreaming that someone will save you?”
I used all my strength to try to climb off the bed and escape, but all I managed was to tumble onto the floor.
He sent the photos right in front of me with one click.
Then, with a sinister grin, he began pouring gasoline all over the room. With a click of his lighter, the fire began to spread.
“It is a good thing to have somebody to
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keep you company on the road to the afterlife,” he said.
The thick smoke filled my lungs, that it was so hard to let out my cries for help from my throat.
Just as despair overwhelmed me and I shut my eyes, the door burst open.
The man, seeing who had arrived, let out a sigh of regret and drove a knife into his
own chest.
Warm blood splattered onto me as I was pulled into a familiar embrace. “Sandra, I’m sorry. I’m late.”
Hearing the rapid beat of his heart, I finally lost consciousness, my lungs were filled with the smoke.
In the endless darkness, I thought I heard James’s frantic voice calling out to me, “Sandra! Sandra! …. Sandra!”
Each call sounded like a cry of anguish. It was so much like when he had begged
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Luke to stay alive and not to close his eyes when they were trapped under the rubble.
So, is this it? Am I going to die? I wondered.
Memories from the past flashed uncontrollably through my mind.
Scenes of James taking care of me intertwined with his angry shouts.
Even when he looked at me, his eyes always seemed full of disdain.
So when I opened my eyes and saw the unshaven, deeply emotional James staring at me, I thought I was shamelessly imagining things again.
“Sandra, you‘ re awake!” he said.
Even his voice sounded as gentle as before. It carried a tenderness I had only ever imagined.
I closed my eyes and opened them again. I kept telling myself repeatedly that it was just a dream and I needed to wake up.
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“Sandra, are you feeling uncomfortable anywhere? I’ll call the doctor right away,” he said.
The doctor who rushed over was my senior.
She checked me over and breathed a huge sigh of relief.
“Sandra, it’s a good thing James got here in time. If he’d been even a second later…”
Even my foggy brain could understand that if he had been any later, I would have been dead. Every part of my body ached with a burning pain. Each breath felt like agony in my lungs.
When James saw my body drenched in cold sweat from the pain, he looked very helpless.
“Sandra, tell me where it hurts. I ….”
