Squid game AU

🦑

Psychiatric hospital

____

He sat by the window, frozen like a shadow, not looking at the strip of gray sky beyond the bars. Cho Sang-woo. Diagnosis: paranoid schizophrenia with episodes of acute psychosis. His file listed the standard history for such cases—persecution mania, delusions of grandeur, aggression. The treatment was working: he was depressed and apathetic, obediently taking his pills and remaining silent.

My mentor, Dr. Kim, introduced me briefly: "New intern. Will be taking your medical records." Sang-woo slowly turned his head. His gaze was empty, scorched, but somewhere deep inside, it seemed, the last spark of his former self smoldered.

The first sessions were a monologue of deafness. He answered monosyllables or didn't answer at all. But I persistently prescribed him mild sedatives, trying to draw him out. And one day, after a particularly difficult night, cut short by a cry of "Ali!", he broke down.

He began to speak. At first fragmentarily, then in complete, nightmare-polished images. He didn't speak like a madman, fumbling over facts and images. His story was as precise as a blueprint. The giant doll in "Red Light, Green Light." The fragile sugar honeycomb. The deadly marble game with a certain Ali, whose betrayal he described with the chilling logic of survival. The game in the glass bridge and the girl named Sae Byuk, whom he... He didn't finish, but the way his fists clenched made it all clear.

It was precisely this clarity, this inner, albeit ugly, truth of his narrative, that made me doubt it. This wasn't chaotic delirium. This was a confession. Each episode was connected by cause and effect, each of his actions—however monstrous—had a motivation dictated by extreme circumstances.

I am a normal person. I trained for seven years to trust facts, tests, and diagnoses. Supporting a patient's delusions is a professional crime. But what if it's not delusions? What if this crazy story is the only truth he has left?

That's why I decided to continue our conversations. Not to confirm his madness, but to... understand. Because if he's telling the truth, then this man isn't a patient. He's a witness. And his story is just beginning.