Charles blinked, and when he came to, he found himself in a brightly lit space.
Wait, where did Shiller say not to go again?
A strong scent of blood wafted through the air, mingled with agonizing moans echoing around him. As the discomfort from the lights faded, Charles suddenly realized he might as well have entered Hell on earth, a sea of blood and wounded all around.
"What are you standing around for? Go find a tourniquet!!!" A furious shout rang in his ear, and Charles paused for several seconds before realizing it was directed at him.
"What? I..."
"Are you planning to stand by and watch people die?! Hurry up and grab a tourniquet from the side! Quick!"
Charles instinctively searched for brainwaves and then found all sorts of chaotic thoughts invading his mind.
[It hurts so much! Help me...], [Urgent hemostasis! Tie it up fast, move...], [Heart rate! Keep an eye on the heart rate!], [Am I going to die...], [Pain, pain, pain...], [It's all over...]
This flood of disordered emotions paralyzed Charles in place for a good while, until someone pushed him, snapping him back to reality.
"Quick, help secure that patient, acute cerebral hemorrhage's got him nearly falling off the bed..."
Charles turned his head, but the nurse who had spoken to him had already sprinted away. Hearing the commotion behind the screen, Charles hurried over and found a person convulsing uncontrollably in bed.
He read the person's brainwaves and found they weren't thinking about anything, indicating the convulsions were an instinctual physical reaction, likely caused by a severe intracranial hemorrhage.
There were only two female nurses here, clearly not the ones from the psychiatric ward; they were struggling to hold down the patient. Charles quickly rolled up his sleeves to help them secure the patient to the bed.
The doctor soon arrived to secure the monitoring equipment. Charles yelled, "I'm a psychologist, bringing me here won't help!"
"Any doctor will do, we've got a pile-up with 6 dead and 12 injured, plus a construction site accident with 9 critically injured. We are the closest hospital; they all must be admitted tonight, hurry up!"
"Hey, this is emergency, the patient's vital signs are stable, with occasional limb twitching, suspect intracranial hemorrhage..."
Charles looked down at the wildly twitching patient, occasional limb twitching?
While pressing down one side of the patient's body, he looked inward, thinking the outside was bad enough, only to realize it was even more grave inside; it seemed all 9 people from the fall were lying in that half of the ward.
One had a steel rod piercing his body, two had already stopped breathing, and the others seemed to have fallen on their comrades and were in a slightly better state, though they likely had objects fall on their heads, resulting in a gruesome scene.
Inhaling the thick scent of blood, Charles started feeling breathless. He took several deep breaths and forcibly shut down his mind-reading ability, fearing he'd flee if he read any further.
At this time, Charles was still too young; he had never been a combat medic and had scarcely seen death. The worst injury he had ever seen was someone breaking a rib during a college football practice; the abrupt descent into this Hell-like scene left him feeling utterly untethered.
"Quickly, over here, the orthopedic team has arrived; get ready to saw the steel rod!"
"Wait, aren't we pushing for ICU?!"
"The last two went in for arm and leg surgeries, no space left! Our hospital isn't equipped for this; come help quickly!"
Charles, somewhat panicked, followed the doctors and nurses to saw the steel rod. Honestly, the scene was almost unbearable; orthopedic surgeons held saws and hammers while other doctors pinned the patient to the ground, making it hard to tell if it was a rescue or a torture.
The intensity of the situation overwhelmed Charles so much that he didn't immediately think to anesthetize the patient.
Halfway through the sawing, he realised that even if he truly couldn't be of much help, he could at least alleviate some of the patient's agony; so, bracing against the disruption, he activated his psychic ability to help the patient block out the pain.
But once the patient stopped crying out, the doctors and nurses all panicked. The one sawing the steel instantly stopped, while the others checked the ECG and blood pressure monitors. Charles then remembered that any sound here meant the patient was alright; silence often meant they were close to death.
Charles could only manipulate the patient to cry out a couple of times so the emergency surgery could continue.
"Don't move!!" A scream came from not far off, and nurses rushed over. Charles looked and saw a patient trying to sit up, his abdomen not yet sewn shut, intestines spilling out.
More nurses hurried over to push him away, but another patient grabbed a nurse's gown, pulling her down.
Charles rushed to help the nurse up, preventing her from being dragged under the stretcher. The patient flailed his arms, wailing, "I can't feel my legs, I can't feel my lower body, I've lost sensation in my lower body."
"Just hang in there," the nurse yelled back at him, "The neurosurgery operating room will be free soon! Dr. Strange is on his way back!"
No matter what she said, the patient clung to her, desperately crying out for help, afraid of becoming paralyzed.
Charles really wanted to say, "Open your eyes and look around, paralysis is the best possible outcome in this room," but he knew that patients couldn't think about that at the moment, consumed by their fear.
The human psyche is so fragile, Charles realized for the first time; this included himself, as he felt a resistance to connecting with another person's mind.
He knew he should use his superpower to reassure the patient, to make him believe help was coming soon, that he wouldn't be paralyzed, that he would survive.
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But he knew once he tuned in, he would hear nothing but despair and deeper despair, and listening to those voices also plunged Charles into despair.
Because he simply could not guarantee that this patient wouldn't end up paralyzed, or even ensure he wouldn't die, because the numbness in his lower body might not be a spinal issue but a cerebral one, all of it was unknown, he couldn't guarantee anything.
"David... David!!!"
Charles's roar spread through the psychic network, and with a whoosh, a figure appeared outside the emergency room door, which, unsurprisingly, was promptly dragged inside.
Charles saw that David's face was somewhat pale, but he couldn't worry about that now, he grabbed David's arm, pulled him over to the bed and said, "Think of something, many people are in great pain."
"I'm sorry, but I can't use my power right now," David took a deep breath, squinted his eyes and said, "There's something wrong with my mind, they're currently... I don't know, I don't know what happened in that castle, everything is in chaos."
Charles echoed back to what Shiller had said about David's unstable mental state, thought for a moment and decided that the consequences of this ticking time bomb exploding were more severe, but who could he call now?
Several more interns were dragged in one after another, but there was still not enough help, Charles thought, at such a critical time for human lives, how could those in the library sit still? Wasn't healing and saving lives the sacred duty of a doctor?
Charles was somewhat angry, so he directly planted a psychic suggestion in the minds of the nearest batch of interns, making them all come this way when they walked down the hallway and help out in the emergency room.
After a night of frantic work, along with those admitted afterwards, dozens of patients mangled beyond recognition were finally wheeled into their respective wards, and Charles, bloodied, sat at the entrance of the hospital lobby and let out a deep sigh.
Before it was even lunchtime, a phone call from Shiller summoned him back, and when Charles saw Shiller's expression, he knew something was wrong.
"Didn't I warn you not to take that hallway?"
"I got lost," Charles attempted to argue.
"But I don't believe 17 interns all wandered off to that hallway in one night, their mentors must have all reminded them."
"I gave them a suggestion, because the ER was short-staffed, we needed more people to save lives!"
Shiller heaved a long sigh, threw a thick stack of records on the desk and said, "All the interns you sent over hung up their psychiatry signs this morning after their shift ended, they were terrified."
Charles felt a chill crawl over his limbs belatedly.
This experience was completely different from performing dissections in the classroom; human blood is warm, real, filled with vitality, and the human wailing is harrowing, understandable, something you can fully empathize with.
Suddenly being thrust into the center of a horrific major accident can cause an indelible psychological impact, and even if one is clear on human anatomy from textbooks, in the moment of truth, no one can rationalize everything.
"Many times, the reason interns are not allowed to do certain things is for their own protection," Shiller said, looking at Charles's somewhat pale face. "Most of you are not prepared enough to be helpful, but what you should do more is look after yourselves, we cannot consume our future."
"But we need to treat our present," Charles said, feeling dizzy and nauseated, his senses hazy, but he insisted. "We cannot stand by and watch death, everyone must do their part."
"Charles, are you aware that every psychic's ability is bidirectional?" Shiller looked at Charles and said, "While you're feeling and manipulating others, you are also influenced by the contents of their minds, and this influence is deeper than you think."
Charles stood frozen.
"Every environment has a collective consciousness, ordinary people can only sense the atmosphere, but you can read it clearly, communicate with it, even become one with it."
"The things you're saying are not yours, but that of the collective consciousness formed by everyone in this hospital and society's demands of professional duty."
Shiller moved a bit closer, staring into Charles's deep blue eyes and said, "No one can live up to the societal expectations of any discipline, as a psychiatrist, you must first allow people to be vulnerable, as well as yourself, realizing that you're not omniscient and omnipotent, you have weaknesses and can choose to escape."
Charles clenched his fists.
"How can I escape?"
"Like me."
"What?"
"Erase this memory, go to sleep, everything will be alright."
"No, I can't..."
Charles turned around, then felt a hand on his shoulder, and when he turned back, what came into his view was Shiller's fist as big as a sandbag.
"Bang!"
Watching Charles collapse to the ground, Shiller shook off his hand and snorted coldly, saying:
"Really thought you were Batman, huh? Thought I'd never dare to take action?"
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