Overview
Broadcast in the Spring 1991 Special Edition of "Tales of the Unusual" (Yonimo Kimyona Monogatari).
A horror story written by Ryoichi Kimizuka, best known for "Bayside Shakedown." Thirteen years after its broadcast, in 2003, it was adapted into the film "Infection" (Kansen) by director Masayuki Ochiai, featuring some of the same cast members.
The "Tales of the Unusual" episode "The Emergency Patient" serves as the original basis for the movie "Infection."
The story takes place in a run-down hospital where a patient with an unprecedented, unknown condition is brought in, and the doctors and nurses are one by one infected with an unknown virus.
Once contracted, the unknown virus appears to induce hallucinations, leading to an ambiguous conclusion.
Synopsis of "The Emergency Patient"
An empty park at night.
A radio call comes in:
"We are transporting a middle-aged person who collapsed in the park. Their skin is covered in sores and abnormally discolored. Heart stopped… no pupillary response. However… they are twitching convulsively at times."
A nurse waits in front of the hospital for the ambulance.
The patient is wheeled out of the arrived ambulance.
"It seemed like the center's radio was in confusion, but what is the patient's condition?"
"It's strange… symptoms like none of us have ever seen before."
The patient is hastily placed on a stretcher and wheeled inside.
A nurse cautiously removes the cloth to take a look, then instantly looks away.
Then, a green liquid drips from the patient.
Meanwhile, in his private room, Dr. Nanasawa (played by Masahiko Kondo) is looking at a surgical textbook when a nurse calls out to him.
"Dr. Nanasawa… Dr. Mori is calling for you."
"Dr. Mori? An emergency patient?"
"He says to come quickly…"
"Are you alright? You look like you're about to faint. You need to get used to this soon."
Nanasawa heads toward Dr. Mori (played by Shiro Sano).
Along the way, he finds a trail of green liquid scattered across the hallway.
He follows the liquid to a room, but no one is inside—only a howling wind blows through.
"Nanasawa… Over here."
Dr. Mori's voice echoes from an opposite hospital room, and Nanasawa rushes over.
"What is… that green stuff in the hallway?"
"I want you to examine a patient, too."
The patient's bed is surrounded by curtains, with green stains scattered about.
Nanasawa cautiously approaches and opens the curtain.
The moment he opens it, Nanasawa is shocked.
"It's continuing to deform…"
Nanasawa and the nurse instinctively look away, feeling like they're going to vomit.
"How are we supposed to understand this… Even the internal organs are starting to melt."
"…The patient smiled at me."
"At me, too."
Mori and Nanasawa confirm that the heart has stopped. Indeed, the heart has stopped… The protagonist goes off to vomit.
"It felt like I was being sucked into those eyes… Like something was being taken away from me…"
Nanasawa urges them to contact the hospital director and the Ministry of Health immediately.
However, Mori flatly refuses, arguing that they can become the primary discoverers of a newly found disease.
Later, when Nanasawa returns to the room, the nurse is crying, and he sees that the bed is empty.
The two of them rush out to search, and shortly after, green liquid streams from the ear of the crying nurse…
As Nanasawa checks the hospital rooms one by one, a nurse enters a patient room.
She looks around to see if anyone is there, and spots the previous nurse's cap on the floor. When she picks it up, the previous nurse is standing on the bed right behind her.
Unable to find any clues, Nanasawa returns to the earlier patient room. Underneath the curtain hanging over the doorway, he spots a nurse's feet and a green liquid dripping—drop by drop.
He hastily pulls back the curtain to find the nurse dead, green liquid flowing from her mouth.
Overwhelmed with fear, Nanasawa returns to his private room.
He starts retracing the events that just occurred:
When the nurse came to call him…
The puddles of liquid in the hallway…
The dead nurse…
At that moment, Dr. Mori's faint voice echoes from somewhere:
"Forgive me… Please…"
Following the voice, he finds Dr. Mori alone in a dark room, muttering toward a bed.
"Back then, with the night shifts continuing… I was completely exhausted… I wasn't myself."
Reflected in Dr. Mori's eyes is the image of an elderly man he had killed in a medical malpractice incident long ago.
"I'm sorry… I should have checked the medication… It was my mistake."
"It was agonizing… when my heart stopped… And yet I trusted you, Doctor."
Dr. Mori suddenly breaks down in tears.
"I've apologized over and over again… Apolog… Apolog…"
Dr. Mori suddenly begins to convulse.
The protagonist instinctively rushes over, but the convulsions only grow more violent.
"H… He's… com… in… g in…"
Mori collapses, his face completely transformed, and liquid pours from his mouth.
Believing that he, too, will end up like this, a terrified Nanasawa runs back to his room and grabs a scalpel.
He cuts his finger, and when red blood appears, Nanasawa feels relieved.
"What on earth is happening to me…"
Then, the past events flash through his mind once again.
Nanasawa suddenly snaps to attention.
He feels as though someone was reflected in the window of that empty room…
"No way… Azumi-chan (the nurse who came to call him)… No, there's no way… My memory… is losing its mind…"
When he suddenly realizes, the protagonist had fallen asleep at his desk.
"Doctor, we have an emergency patient."
Checking to make sure there is no liquid on the hallway floor, Nanasawa heads to the treatment room.
"Doctor, the patient's heart is weakening," says the nurse wheeling the patient on a stretcher.
Looking toward the emergency patient, there is no liquid.
Nanasawa feels relieved, but suddenly the patient sits up—it is the dead Dr. Mori with upturned, blank eyes, staring right at Nanasawa.
"Aaaaaaaaaahhhhhh!!!!!!!!"
The protagonist screams as a massive amount of green blood pours from his finger.
Dawn had not broken; Nanasawa had been hallucinating ever since he cut his finger.
Green blood gushes forcefully from the wound… Nanasawa's convulsions refuse to stop—fade to black.
Having finished telling the tale, the storyteller walks away, leaving only the stretcher behind.