Immortal In A Death Game-Chapter 201: Feeling Numb (2)

"Take me to them."

"W-what...?" Jimmy held his breath. His fingers curled around the lanyard holding his ID badge. "They’re dangerous."

"That’s fine."

Jimmy hesitated for another moment, then nodded. He unclipped his ID from the lanyard, held it against his chest, and started walking.

"Where is everyone else?" Adam asked, falling into step behind him.

"The panic room. Most of them ran there when the alarms went off."

"Panic room...?"

Jimmy glanced back, gulping as he nodded. "There have been... incidents before. People have been hurt. Some have died."

Adam only nodded.

They walked in silence after that. Adam took in everything. The corridor branched into smaller hallways, each lined with doors. Through reinforced glass windows, he could see the rooms beyond—examination tables with restraints, centrifuges, specimen refrigerators, surgical trays still laid out with instruments.

Some rooms were pristine. Others looked like they’d been abandoned while they were still doing something—chairs overturned, papers scattered across floors, monitors left on with screensavers drifting.

Adam stopped.

One room caught his eye. Larger than the others. Through the window, he could see rows of computer terminals, server racks blinking with green and amber lights, cables running along the ceiling in neat bundles.

"Is that your... uh... server?"

Jimmy stopped a few steps ahead. "Yes?"

"Go in."

"I... I don’t have clearance for that room."

Adam sighed. He walked to the door, gripped the handle, and pulled. And just like that, the frame buckled, and the door came free.

Jimmy flinched as he watched Adam set the twisted door against the wall.

Adam stepped inside and looked around at the terminals, and reached into his pocket and pulled out a small USB dongle.

He held it up, turned it over between his fingers, then looked at the nearest computer. His eyes moved across the ports, the cables, the connections... and he had no idea what to do.

Adam turned to Jimmy, who was still standing in the hallway.

"Where does this go?"

Jimmy blinked. "Are you... talking about the dongle?"

"Yes."

Jimmy hesitated, then stepped inside and pointed to a port on the side of the nearest terminal. "There."

"Thanks."

Adam plugged it in. The monitors flickered to life—all of them, not just the one he’d used. File directories opened and closed. Transfer bars appeared and filled.

And in just seconds, it was done.

Adam pulled the dongle free and slipped it back into his pocket.

"Let’s go."

They spent several more minutes walking. The corridor narrowed, and the fluorescent lights grew fewer, spaced farther apart, casting longer shadows between them.

"This... this is it." Jimmy stopped in front of a door that was visibly different from the others—thicker, reinforced, with a heavy frame sunk deep into the wall. "The patients are inside."

Adam turned to Jimmy. "Let me guess. No clearance for this one either?"

"I... I do!" Jimmy quickly pressed his ID against the terminal. The light turned green, and the door slid open with a hiss.

"Thank you." Adam gestured forward. "Go ahead."

The air changed on the other side. Colder. Drier. The hallway beyond was lined with doors, each fitted with a small rectangular window of thick glass.

"This..." Adam held his breath.

Everything else about the Hospital was different. The technology, the scale, the depth. But this hallway... was the same exact layout. The same spacing between doors. The same flat white walls that reflected the overhead lights into a featureless glow that erased all shadow, all depth... all sense of time.

The white room. The window where faces watched. The straps around his wrists. The sound of a pen scratching notes while someone cut into his abdomen.

The memories poured in, and Adam let them come.

But then... nothing. He waited for the rage. For the grief. For the sick twist in his stomach that always followed. And it simply wasn’t there.

Has... he become numb?

He followed Jimmy past empty rooms. White walls. White floors. White ceilings... but no one inside.

Until they stopped.

The placard on the door read Patient: 6.

Adam looked through the small glass window. Inside, an old man sat in the center of the padded floor. Thin white hair. Hollow cheeks. Hospital gown draped over a frame that looked like it had been slowly folding in on itself for years. His hands rested on his knees, fingers interlocked, perfectly still.

"Why... is he here?"

Jimmy kept his distance from the door. "He reads minds."

Adam glanced at him. "That’s it...?"

"He’s incredibly dangerous," Jimmy continued, shaking his head. "Before he was brought here, he worked as a therapist. Swindled hundreds of people. Used his ability to manipulate them—their fears, their secrets, everything."

"He... did that?"

"Y-yes." Jimmy’s throat bobbed. "Dozens of his patients committed suicide."

Adam turned back to the window, only to see the old man already looking at him. He looked straight into Adam’s eyes, and Adam felt a sense of... pull.

The old man’s eyes were pale. Almost colorless.

"Hm..." A wave of nausea rolled through Adam’s gut. The pull he felt was becoming more and more... physical. Not pain, but something else.

Was this the old man’s abilities? Clementine gained the ability to read people’s intent and emotions from the Game—but Adam didn’t feel anything at all whenever she used her abilities.

The old man was different, however, Adam could actually feel something inside him being pulled. It was... weird.

And then, all of a sudden, the old man’s face changed.

His eyes went wide. His mouth fell open. He threw himself back, slamming into the padded wall behind him with enough force to bounce his skull off the cushion. His hands flew to the sides of his head, and he began shaking, violently, desperately, like a man trying to dislodge something that had burrowed into his brain.

"What’s... happening to him?" Adam blinked.

"I..." Jimmy quickly glanced through the window. "...I don’t know. I’ve never seen him like that."

Jimmy then pressed something next to the terminal, and a crackle whispered from the door as they could now hear the old man.

A strangled sound escaped his throat. Not a word. Not a scream. Perhaps... a wailing moan?

The old man who had driven people to kill themselves pressed his face into the padded wall... and wept.

"He..." Jimmy whispered.

"Did he read your mind?"