“So… the Night has opened.”

Haim muttered inwardly. Just moments ago, a patient lying on the bed had asked, “You’re the last storyteller, aren’t you…?”

That one sentence shook her to the core. It was a warning she had encountered countless times in her past research—”the Last Storyteller.” She never imagined that the shadow of that tale would one day crawl its way into reality.

---

From that moment on, the hospital descended into chaos.

The emergency room doors opened and closed without rest. Sirens screamed endlessly outside.

The number of patients rose to nine. All wore the same unnatural smile. All repeated the same eerie phrases:

“The 901st night…” “She stopped speaking…” “The smile is coming…”

Every bed echoed with whispered murmurs, as if a single great story was being read aloud across many mouths.

Resident Park Doyun rushed between patients, heart racing, checking vitals and notes in a futile attempt to restore order.

Though conscious, the patients showed no recognition of reality. Even powerful sedatives were ineffective. The unnatural smiles remained, frozen on their faces.

“Something’s off. There’s a pattern.” Nurse Yoonji spoke, her voice trembling. “They’re repeating the exact same expressions and tone, like clockwork.”

Park nodded heavily.

“It’s not individual memory. It’s like someone implanted a story in them, and now they just replay it, like machines.”

Then, one patient whispered faintly:

“The story… it’s coming back…”

The hospital declared a state of emergency.

Departments of emergency medicine, psychiatry, toxicology, and virology were all summoned. Some patients were transferred to isolated rooms for closer monitoring.

Doctors and nurses worked nonstop, drawing samples of blood, nerve fluids, and hormones, uploading data to the central servers.

But no decisive answer was found.

“Any results yet?” Park Doyun asked urgently.

“All negative for known narcotics like GHB, ketamine, fentanyl. No signs of infection either. However…”

“However?”

“A few patients showed slightly lower levels of gamma neurotransmitters like GABA. But those levels would only suggest mild insomnia, not something severe enough to explain this collective episode.”

Haim jotted notes quickly in her pad:

• No chemical cause
• Narrative implantation
• Repetitive pattern
• The 901st Night
• Infection by story, not memory

She exhaled slowly.

“We are witnessing an addictive response that cannot be explained chemically. All of them are consumed by the same narrative structure.”

The staff couldn’t fully grasp her words. But what unfolded before their eyes defied all known medical science.

Suddenly, another patient slowly turned his head toward Haim and stared. When their eyes met, he spoke as if he’d been waiting:

“Dr. Haim… You have to run… You must restart the story…”

A heavy silence fell over the room. No one moved.

Haim responded firmly.

“We can’t avoid this anymore.”

Her words sounded like an invocation, a release of an ancient curse. The emergency room fell into an eerie tension.

“This is not a simple case of drug intoxication. What we’re facing is narrative contagion. The story itself spreads like a virus. This may be the first documented case of its kind.”

Director Yoon asked:

“Then what comes next?”

Haim looked around at the staff, her voice resolute.

“We must discover the next chapter ourselves.”

Everyone present felt it— a strange sensation, as if they were now characters inside the unfolding tale.

Just then, a scream echoed from the far end of the hallway.

“She’s crying! But… her smile hasn’t changed!”

Haim rushed to the scene.

A woman in her twenties lay on the bed, smiling eerily while tears streamed down her cheeks. Her eyes flickered between worlds—dream and reality.

“Scheherazade… must tell the story again… or we’ll all fade into smiles…”

Haim took a deep breath.

“This is beyond any clinical precedent. Emotional and cognitive disassociation… The signs are escalating.”

Then, the hospital’s central display flickered, darkened briefly, and turned back on.

A new message appeared on the screen, though no one had typed it:

“The 901st Night Has Begun.”

Haim’s eyes widened in disbelief.

“This isn’t a system hack. Someone—or something—is sending us a message.”

Just then, the ER doors burst open again.

“Incoming! 19-year-old female, unresponsive, comatose!”

Haim stood still. The name Scheherazade echoed in her mind.

Was this the one? The true protagonist of the 901st Night?

She began walking slowly toward the doors, whispering:

“The main character… has finally arrived.”

The story… had only just begun.ow it might end.