It was Tuesday morning when Junha didn't wake up. The alarm went off. 6 o'clock. Seoyeon opened her eyes. Beside her, Junha lay there. His eyes were closed. He was breathing. His chest rose and fell. Seoyeon shook his shoulder. No response. She shook him again. Junha's body was limp. There was no strength in his muscles. Seoyeon lightly slapped his cheek. No reaction at all. She lifted his eyelid with her finger. The pupil was there. It was moving. Left and right, fast. The eye of REM sleep. But when Seoyeon took her finger away, the eyelid closed again. Seoyeon took his wrist. There was a pulse. 52 beats a minute. Slower than usual. Seoyeon dialed 119.
It took 11 minutes for the ambulance to arrive. Seoyeon sat beside Junha for those 11 minutes. Junha's chest rose and fell in a steady rhythm. He was alive. And yet he didn't wake. Seoyeon called his name. Once. Twice. Twelve times. Junha didn't answer.
When the paramedics arrived, Junha's body temperature was 35.4 degrees. More than a full degree below normal. Blood pressure 90 over 58. Blood sugar 64. A paramedic opened Junha's eyelid and shone a penlight. The pupil contracted. The reflex was there. The paramedic asked Seoyeon whether he was on any medication. Seoyeon answered. MetaSolve. Both of them.
MetaSolve. A metabolic integration regulator. Released 3 years ago. One subcutaneous injection a week. Manufactured by NexGen Pharma. It regulates appetite, sleep, body temperature and emotional fluctuation through a single pathway. Take it and 4 hours of sleep bring full recovery. Hunger disappears. Body temperature locks at 36.5 degrees. The amplitude of emotion shrinks. The distance between joy and sorrow grows short. Seoyeon and Junha had been taking MetaSolve for 2 years. Seoyeon worked at a design firm. Sleep 4 hours, get up, and the day was 20 hours long. Junha was a freelance translator. Once his emotional swings settled, he said, deadlines no longer shook him. Before MetaSolve, Seoyeon had slept 8 hours a day. 10 on weekends. Even so, the fatigue piled up. After MetaSolve, Seoyeon went to bed at 1 in the morning and rose at 5. No fatigue. She quit coffee. Naps vanished. Among her coworkers, as far as Seoyeon knew, 2 didn't take MetaSolve. Those 2 couldn't survive the late nights and eventually quit. Neither of them had any thought of going back to the way things were before MetaSolve.
The hospital emergency room. Junha lay on a bed. Heart rate, blood pressure and oxygen saturation glowed on the monitor. An EEG device was attached to Junha's forehead. The attending physician told Seoyeon that, by the brain waves, he was in a waking state. Beta waves were active. And yet the body was in complete sleep. Muscle relaxation, lowered temperature, reduced heart rate. The brain was awake but the body was asleep.
Seoyeon parted her dry lips.
"Awake? Then—he's hearing what I say, isn't he?"
The physician turned a page of the chart.
"By the brain waves, yes. Beta waves active—an unmistakable waking state. Only... that signal isn't reaching the body. A kind of disconnection, you might say. The brain is shouting, but the body can't hear it."
Through the curtain, Seoyeon heard the sound of another patient's monitor. Beep, beep, beep. A steady heartbeat tone. Junha's monitor was making the same sound. Seoyeon took Junha's hand. The hand wasn't warm. It was lukewarm. The hand of a person whose temperature is 35.4 degrees. Seoyeon squeezed Junha's fingers tight. No reaction at all. His fingers lay slack inside her hand. Seoyeon put her mouth to Junha's ear and spoke.
"Junha. It's me, Seoyeon. Can you hear me?"
The brain waves on the monitor shifted slightly. The physician pointed at the monitor. The amplitude of the beta waves spiked for an instant.
"Look. The brain is responding to auditory stimulus. It means the odds that he's hearing you are very high."
Seoyeon held her breath. With a trembling hand she gripped Junha's hand tighter. He's hearing this. All of it, even my voice. Unable to open his eyes, unable to move a single finger, listening to the sound of his own heart. Unable to answer.
Seoyeon stepped out of the room and stood in the corridor. The corridor's fluorescent lights ran on in a long line. The light repeated at even intervals. Seoyeon called NexGen Pharma's customer support line. It connected on the 3rd try. The agent said there had been no reported cases of side effects from MetaSolve. Seoyeon described the symptoms. The brain waves showed waking, but the body was in sleep. The agent put her on hold for a moment. 2 minutes later the line came back. They would transfer her to the medical advisory team, they said. On hold again. 4 minutes. The line dropped. Seoyeon called again. This time it didn't connect.
Seoyeon searched on her phone. 'MetaSolve sleep disorder.' Results came up. A community forum post. It had been put up 3 weeks ago. 'My husband can't wake from sleep while on MetaSolve. The hospital says the cause is unknown.' 47 comments. There were people who had been through the same thing. 'Same symptoms here. My wife hasn't woken for 4 days now.' 'They say her brain waves are normal but she can't open her eyes.' 'I contacted NexGen but they say it's not a side effect.'
Seoyeon checked the dates on the posts. The oldest was 5 weeks ago. For 5 weeks these cases had been piling up, and none of it had made the news. NexGen's market cap was 124 trillion won. MetaSolve brought in 28 trillion won a year. Reading through the posts, Seoyeon felt her fingers go cold. She read further into the comments. One caught her eye. 'NexGen's Phase 3 trial data reported 12 cases of half-sleep. It was never disclosed. Internal report number RA-0447.' The poster's username had been deleted. Only the comment remained.
Seoyeon went back to the hospital room. Junha lay in the same position. He was breathing. Seoyeon laid a hand on his forehead. Lukewarm. His temperature had dropped further, to 35.2 degrees. A nurse came in and tucked a warming blanket over him. Seoyeon sat in the chair beside Junha's bed. She looked at his face. It was different from the way he usually slept. Normally his mouth fell slightly open. Now it was closed. His jaw was tensed. He looked like he was clenching his teeth. Seoyeon touched his jaw. The muscle was rigid. It was not the jaw of a sleeping man.
Seoyeon checked her own injection schedule. Her next MetaSolve dose was Thursday. Two days away. She set the phone down and took stock of her own body. Her last injection had been the previous Friday. 5 days ago. Normally one weekly injection carried her 7 days. Now, on day 5, Seoyeon's temperature was normal. 36.5 degrees. She wasn't hungry. Her emotions were level. The drug was still in her system.
Junha's last injection had been the previous Saturday. 4 days ago. He had failed to wake on Tuesday. 72 hours after the injection.
Seoyeon opened the community thread again. She read the comments one by one. She searched for the ones that mentioned when the symptoms had begun. 'Day 3 after the injection,' 'around 72 hours,' 'the morning of the fourth day.' All of them, somewhere around 72 hours after the injection. Without realizing it, Seoyeon tightened her grip on the phone. The screen creaked. Her own last injection had been Friday. 72 hours put it at Monday. Yesterday. Last night Seoyeon had slept. 5 hours. The sleep duration she'd had before MetaSolve. The drug was wearing off. Seoyeon raised her hand. Her fingertips trembled faintly. Was it fear making her heart race on its own, or the drug running out and her control coming loose? A cold, metallic taste spread through her mouth. Her stomach growled. Hunger. The first hunger she had felt in 2 years. The sensation of her stomach contracting felt foreign. Seoyeon bought a juice from the vending machine and drank it. It was sweet. While she'd been on MetaSolve her response to sweetness had been dulled. Now it was sweet enough to sting her tongue. Her body was beginning to sense the world without the drug.
Wednesday, before dawn. Seoyeon fell asleep in the hospital chair. She did not dream. She woke 3 hours later. Her neck was stiff. Junha lay in the same position. On the monitor, heart rate 48. Temperature 34.9 degrees. Still dropping.
Seoyeon went to the nurses' station. She asked the nurse on duty whether there were other inpatients connected to MetaSolve. The nurse hesitated for a moment. It was the look of someone weighing whether or not to say it. She glanced around once, then spoke.
“...There are more patients like this. Three on the 5th floor alone.”
She leaned toward Seoyeon and whispered.
“NexGen was here yesterday. They copied every chart on their way out... and they begged us, over and over, never to tell the families.”
Seoyeon went up to the 5th floor. The room at the end of the ward. 3 beds, 3 patients lying in them. All with their eyes closed. All in the same position. All fitted with EEG monitors. A woman sat beside the patient in the first bed. Around 40. Her eyes were bloodshot. When Seoyeon approached, she looked up.
“You too?”
the woman asked.
“Yes. My boyfriend.”
The woman parted her dry lips.
“My husband... it's been 5 days.”
Her voice trembled like a thread.
“At first it was 35 degrees... now it's 34. Every day, 0.2 degrees, it keeps... it keeps dropping. And nobody, nobody knows why.”
Seoyeon looked at the second bed. A young woman lay there. No guardian was with her. On the table beside the bed sat a MetaSolve syringe case. Unused. She had slipped into half-sleep without receiving her next injection. The temperature written on the chart. 34.2 degrees. Day 5 of admission. The third bed. A man lay there. Sweat beaded on his forehead. His temperature was low, yet he was sweating. His autonomic nervous system was in disarray.
Seoyeon left the room and sat on the stairs. 72 hours. The point at which MetaSolve passed its half-life in the body. 72 hours. The span in which, as the drug drained away, the line connecting brain and body was severed. The scream to wake up circles only inside the brain, while the body sinks to the floor of a deep sleep. Sitting on the stairs, Seoyeon looked down at her own hands. Tomorrow these hands might not move. Trapped, utterly, inside this body.
Seoyeon took her own temperature. 36.3 degrees. Within the normal range. But 0.2 degrees lower than yesterday. Seoyeon thought of Thursday's injection schedule. Tomorrow. If she took the dose, the drug would hold for another 7 days. Her autonomic nervous system would stabilize again. She wouldn't have to face the 72-hour threshold.
Seoyeon went back to Junha's room. She took Junha's hand. It was cold. Body temperature 34.7 degrees. Two thermal blankets covered him. Seoyeon brought her lips close to Junha's ear and spoke. "Junha. I have to get my injection tomorrow. If I don't, I could end up like you."
The EEG monitor stirred. The amplitude of the beta waves grew. Junha was listening.
Seoyeon's voice trembled. "But... if I just take the injection, then it all gets erased, doesn't it. NexGen will bury it. Say it was never a side effect. And if I'm the only one who ends up fine... is that enough, Junha? Is that how it's supposed to be?"
The waves shifted again. Alpha and beta crossed. Junha's brain was processing something. Seoyeon gripped his hand hard. Junha's fingers moved, faintly. Seoyeon felt it. One finger pressed against her palm. Weakly. Then went slack again.
Seoyeon did not let go of Junha's hand. If she skipped Thursday's injection, Friday would be the 72-hour mark. Seoyeon could slip into the half-sleep too. If she slipped in, she would be like Junha—unable to open her eyes, unable to move her body, hearing nothing but the sound of her own heart. When she closed her eyes, the darkness rushed in. Thud, thud, thud. Nothing but the sound of my own heart filling my ears. The sound of breath going out, coming in. And the sensation of someone holding my hand. The sensation of that becoming the whole world. That, and nothing else.
Seoyeon took the MetaSolve syringe case out of her pocket. The next dose. She'd picked it up in advance. A prefilled syringe holding a clear liquid. Seoyeon opened the case. She drew out the syringe. She twisted off the cap. The needle came bare.
Seoyeon looked at her own abdomen. MetaSolve is injected subcutaneously into the abdomen. On Seoyeon's belly, two years of injection marks lingered faintly. She'd alternated left and right. This time it was the left's turn.
Seoyeon brought the needle close to her skin. She stopped. She looked at Junha's face. A face with the jaw clenched tight. Beneath his eyes, the lids were trembling faintly. Rapid eye movement. Proof that Junha's brain was awake. Junha was in the darkness now. Listening to the sound of his own heart. 48 beats a minute. The way he'd moved his finger when Seoyeon held his hand—that was all Junha could do.
Seoyeon set the syringe down. It came to rest on the bedside table. The clear liquid caught the light of the fluorescent lamp. Seoyeon picked up her phone. She went back to the community post. The comment from the deleted account. An internal report number. Seoyeon jotted the number down. Then she searched for a whistleblower intake channel at NexGen Pharma. There was none. She searched for the drug safety agency's adverse-event reporting system. There was one. Seoyeon began drafting a report. Junha's symptoms. The similar cases she'd confirmed in the community. The 72-hour pattern after injection. The internal report number.
As she wrote the report, Seoyeon's fingers trembled. It wasn't the cold. She took her temperature. 36.1 degrees. Down 0.2 from two hours ago. The drug was wearing off. Seoyeon did the math. About 130 hours since the last injection. Long past the half-life. The 72-hour threshold might already have passed, or might not yet have come. It would vary from person to person.
Seoyeon pressed the submit button. Submission complete. A reference number appeared. Seoyeon captured a screenshot of it. Then she posted a new message to the community. The reference number, a summary of what she'd reported, and a request that anyone experiencing similar symptoms report to the agency.
Three minutes after she posted, the first comment came. 'Thank you. I'll report too.' Seven minutes later, the second. 'Confirmed 2 identical cases in Busan as well.' Seoyeon slipped the phone into her pocket and returned to Junha's bedside. The syringe lay on the table. Cap off. Seoyeon picked it up. A clear bead had formed at the needle's tip. A single drop. Seoyeon turned the syringe and fitted the cap back over the needle. She returned it to the case. She closed the case. She put it in her bag.
Seoyeon sat down in the chair and took Junha's hand. His hand was cold. Seoyeon's was going cold too. The two of them were drifting toward the same temperature. Seoyeon closed her eyes. Drowsiness came. The drowsiness from before she'd started MetaSolve. Heavy, sticky drowsiness. Seoyeon opened her eyes. She had to. If she fell asleep now.
Seoyeon stood up. She went to the sink and washed her face with cold water. The water was freezing. Her skin drew tight. Her own face showed in the mirror. Dark beneath the eyes. In all the time she'd been on MetaSolve, no shadows had ever settled under her eyes. The drug was draining out. Seoyeon's body was reverting to two years ago. But it wasn't the body of two years ago. Everything the drug had regulated for two years, the body now had to do again, alone. Temperature regulation, sleep cycle, appetite, emotion. Would the body remember. Seoyeon looked at her own face in the mirror. She couldn't answer.
Back to the room. Junha's monitor. Heart rate 46. Temperature 34.5 degrees. Seoyeon checked the clock. 2 a.m. Seoyeon took Junha's hand and sat down in the chair. Drowsiness surged again. Her eyelids were heavy. Seoyeon held on. For as long as she could. Junha's finger moved faintly again. It pressed against Seoyeon's palm. Seoyeon fixed on the sensation. The pressure of a single finger. Weak, but there. It was there.
3 a.m. Seoyeon went to the bathroom. She looked at her own face in the mirror. The color of her skin was off. The blood had drained from it. Her lips had a purple cast. Her nails too. Seoyeon pressed on a nail. Press and release, and it should turn pink again. It took 3 seconds. 3 times as long as usual. Her peripheral circulation was slowing. Seoyeon took her own pulse. 58 beats a minute. On MetaSolve it was usually 64. Her pulse was dropping too.
4 a.m. Seoyeon's temperature fell to 35.8 degrees. Her fingertips tingled. Drowsiness rolled in like a tide and pulled back. Seoyeon did not let go of Junha's hand. Her eyes tried to close. Seoyeon opened them. They tried to close. She opened them. The interval between was growing shorter and shorter.
Seoyeon took the MetaSolve case out of her bag. She set it on the table. The syringe was inside the case. A clear liquid. One dose and her temperature would return to 36.5 degrees. The drowsiness would vanish. 4 hours and she'd recover. Seoyeon did not open the case. She left it on the table and took Junha's hand again.
Outside the window it began to grow light. Thursday morning. Seoyeon's temperature was 35.5 degrees. Her fingers were stiff. Junha's temperature was 34.3 degrees. Seoyeon looked at Junha's face. The rigidity in his jaw had eased. His mouth had fallen slightly open. It was coming to look like his ordinary sleeping face. Whether that was a good sign or a bad one, Seoyeon could not tell.
Seoyeon looked at her own hand. The hand holding Junha's. The fingertips were bluish. She looked at Junha's fingertips. The same color. Seoyeon smiled. The corners of her mouth lifted. In all her time on MetaSolve she had never smiled like this. The amplitude of her emotions had been dampened. A laugh broke out of her. It was an unfamiliar sensation. The laugh did not stop; it turned into sobbing. Something hot ran down her cheek. Her first tears in 2 years. Whether she was crying from grief or her body had broken down and was crying on its own, she could not tell. It was as if everything MetaSolve had held back was bursting out all at once. Seoyeon did not wipe the tears. They ran down her cheek to her chin. From her chin they fell onto Junha's blanket. A small stain.
Seoyeon looked at the MetaSolve case on the table. She picked it up. She did not put it in her bag. She put it in the drawer by the bed. She closed the drawer. And she took Junha's hand again. Their two cold hands lay pressed together.
The nurse came in on the morning rounds. Seoyeon had fallen asleep in the chair. Still holding Junha's hand. The nurse shook Seoyeon's shoulder. Seoyeon's eyes opened. They opened. The nurse asked.
"Are you all right?"
Seoyeon nodded. She confirmed that her eyes would open. They closed and opened. They opened. For now.
Seoyeon looked at Junha. Junha's eyes were closed. Seoyeon looked at her own hand, the one that had been gripping Junha's. The hand that had held on all night. The marks of Junha's fingers remained on her palm. Red marks. Whether Junha had been gripping Seoyeon's hand all night, or Seoyeon had been gripping Junha's, she could not tell. Seoyeon looked at the marks on her palm. The marks were slowly fading. As the blood came back. Seoyeon looked out the window. Morning light was slanting in across the floor of the room. Seoyeon's temperature was 35.3 degrees. Junha's temperature was 34.1 degrees. The gap between the two numbers was narrowing. The syringe in the drawer stayed closed.
