#so like.. here

the first thing his ears pick up.. is the sound of muffled screaming and panic. like he’s hearing it against something.. like there’s cloth blocking his ears and making everything fuzzy. come to think of it, his body feels a lot lighter too. strange.

he doesn’t dare to open his eyes yet, figuring it was just the last remaining shreds of a dream slowly slipping away. a bad dream, definitely. but the surface beneath him doesn’t feel like a bed, and the more aware he becomes, the less muffled everything seems. the less the sounds are dulled, and the more it all slowly comes to the boys realisation what the true issue was here. what the real incident and accident was. that none of this was a dream.

the idols eyes shoot open then, blown wide in panic as he pushes himself up-- almost hesitantly. the scene he sees before him though.. is one of a nightmare than he wishes he’d been in.

it looks like the aftermath of a car chase scene in some action movie. the one when the bad guys get flipped and spun out, thrown into other cars and blown up. only this wasn’t that, because this was reality and the scene was true. because there were cars piled up everywhere. glass strewn from windshields blown out all over the road from the collisions. blood was splattered too, over ground and cars as the casualties rose, and even then he could still ear the tell tale signs of cars coming to screeching halts, ambulance and police sirens appearing in the background, rushing to the scene of devastation.

he forces himself up then, on week and shaky limbs that somehow still know how to hold him up right. he forces himself over to the nearest vehicle. wrecked. he backs off almost as soon as he gets there though, fighting the urge to throw up at the scene inside. there was so much blood. so muc red painting the walls of the car and glass scraped everywhere. a woman-- maybe she was a business woman, rushing home from work to greet her kids, her husband-- the ones she loved. the boy didn’t want to think about the thought that she might never get to do that again.

he’s crying and he knows it, but it’s coming back to him now and even if he feels like falling down and screaming at the world, he knows that his family are around here somewhere. he must’ve been thrown out the car, right? it was a good enough reason to why he was on the ground when he woke up.. but he doesn’t think to question why he feels no pain, why the world still feels lighter and why everything feels just that little bit off. instead, he keeps on forcing him forward until he sees the car. his car. his mother’s car that’s now being attended to by emergency services.

“mum! dad! minhee!” the young boys voice shouts over screaming as he runs, practically falling when he gets there and sees the tragedy that’s unfolded. still, he dares to go closer, to the side his sisters on, eyes blown wide and scared. the door doesn’t budge. “y-y-you’ll be okay..  they’re coming-- c-coming to help--” he doesn’t know that his voice falls on death ears as his sister keeps whimpering and crying out in pain. she doesn’t see her brother, but he doesn’t know that.

he skids over to a paramedic instead that’s talking on the phone, updating on a situation. “you need to h-h-help them.. pl-please.. sir--” he cries reaching out to dug on the mans sleeve. he doesn’t flinch, and suddenly the kid feels hysterical as he practically screams at him to come and help. but the man doesn’t move, doesn’t even spare a glance at him. shaky hands retreat then, as he stumbles back a few steps because why wasn’t he helping? why wasn’t he listening? why--

his breath hitches when he hears his name being spoken behind him in hushed whispers from two paramedics. he doesn’t want to turn around, but he still does.

when you see yourself, blood covered, wounded more than you can even describe and.. broken.. lifeless on the cold ground-- there are no thoughts that go through his head. instead, he feels his body let go, like gravity has a tighter hold on him and pulls him down to the ground, knees scraping off concrete.

he can’t describe his thoughts then. can’t describe anything, only that he doesn’t want to believe it.

the idol looks down at himself then. at his hands, his arms, his clothes. everything. it’s only then he notices that nothing about himself seems wrong. there’s no blood, no tears,no injuries. there’s nothing. no sign of him being in any sort of accident. but the boy in front of him being tended to by three paramedics now as they carefully manage to move his body, making the boy flinch as he watches-- it’s the same boy. it’s him. and even after pinching himself to wake up because this wasn’t real, and this wasn’t fair. he knows that it’s not a dream.

it’s like he’s taking in the scene completely again, only through new eyes as he watches the men and woman run off to help others. to help the woman and children, men, students, families-- to help everyone that had been caught in the sudden accident. and it’s all an accident-- he finds it scary.. to think something to simple as a van filled with over eager fans, can cause a catastrophe as bad as this. and the boy does scream them. hands fisting the ground as they rip from his throat, falling on deaf ears because no one can hear him, no one can see him-- is he dead?

his eyes close then, and when they open this time, he’s still in the same position but in the floor of a hallways. a hospital.

red eyes glance around and take in everything. from the steady beeps, the the quiet conversations coming from the different wards and patients. nurses with their smiles to the awakened, and doctors with their hushed whispers. the unspoken words.

using his sleeve to wipe at his eyes (not that it helps much), the boy manages to get himself up with the help of the cold wall, forcing himself to take steady steps down the hallways. glancing into rooms and back. he still tries to avoid walking into people.. but he realises then that it doesn’t matter. but is he dead?

he finds her first. his sister. she’s unconscious and there’s doctors and nurses around her setting up some kind of machines. his head tilts as he watches, but he sits by the bed long after they leave, glancing at the sixteen year olds face, over the cuts and bruises, and the broken bones. if she didn’t look so pale, he’d have said she was sleeping.

when he leaves her, he finds his mother and father in two rooms opposite each other. his mothers awake, panicked and red eyed just like he had been, but at the same time he can tell that she doesn’t know fully what’s happened.

the son catches onto words spoken by doctors outside the room though. paralysis. and stands, arms wrapped around himself outside the room as he thinks about what that means and suddenly how it’ll affect his mother then. and just.. that she doesn’t deserve this. none of them did.

he hears about his fathers memory loss before he even sees the man though, and this time he doesn’t dare to go past the threshold because the sight he sees his heartbreaking enough. it’s the sight of a man that doesn’t understand anything, and is too stubborn to believe what he’s being told. he doesn’t believe the car crash. he doesn’t believe he’s forgotten things. he doesn’t believe that his family have been hurt. he doesn’t believe any of it. and the boy then feels like he can’t breathe because watching a sight like that is too painful to bear.

and then.. he finds himself last. he watches first, from the viewing area of an operating room. watches as the doctors and nurses work in unison before he’s moved out to an intensive care unit himself. he manages to slip in, walking side by side with himself still on a bed. and he sits next to a lifeless body that he doesn’t want to believe is his own. and he just sits and stares. he doesn’t dare to reach out, and no matter how much he tries to will himself back into his own body, it doesn’t happen.

a day goes by, or maybe it’s a few hours, before he hears the commotion outside the unit, and he sits himself up a little more to peer out through the glass. when he sees the face of his brother, his group mates, and some other friends that have tagged along. it starts him off again and he fights back the urge to scream out because he understands now they can’t hear him. so instead he just watches as they battle with nurses to get into the unit, because they can see him, see him clearly through the glass doors leading in. they can’t hear the beeping or the voices the speak behind the panels, but they can still see what’s going on.

he’s glad for when someone comes over and closes the curtain though to conceal him, his own frail body then curling in on itself in the seat as his arms wrap around himself. he can still hear them, but at least now he doesn’t have to see.

weeks go by and he’s been moved from the unit to a ward where others can visit. he doesn’t know how many times he’s heard the same things over and over as he sits on the windowsill instead of by the bed.  just watches over like a ghost - well he supposes that’s what he is now - as his mother, father and sister all manage to be helped into the room to see him. the group mates and friends, his brother, that had all tried to get in before now come and go freely, are allowed in as much as possible. and the room fills up slowly with gifts and cards and balloons. some fan presents and wishes, but mostly those from the ones he cares about and many more.

he’s given up on trying to talk to anyone too, because he’s come to understand that they can’t speak back to him, and none of them will ever notice his presence. he’s alone in a world where he can view everyone else. like there’s a screen between life and himself, and he’s only allowed to watch. and he still can’t put into words or thoughts how he feels as he continues observing the days going going by, and the people that come and go again. he doesn’t listen to anything about the accident either. any facts or figures or deaths. nothing. he doesn’t want to know it.. he doesn’t want to hear it-- so he’s glad when the tv in his room is never turned on.

it’s a few more weeks later that he feels an invisible force tugging on him, tugging at his skin and his mind and he’s almost tempted to say it hurts. but it forces his body to move for once, something he rarely sees the point in doing now. he drifts towards the door and out. he keeps drifting, past the night nurses in the dimly lit hallway and the doctors still working overtime to help out patients that need them. he just keeps walking, letting the tugging sensation guide him away.

if he were to be asked then, or spoken to again, he’d say that the pull of death was a pleasant one. there was no life reel showing him everything that had happened up until this point. there was no angel to guide him or devil to bring him into hell. there was nothing but.. peace-- and silence. it was just himself, walking until the darkness took over.

it’ll be announced then on the news a few days later. the death of pan, bang myungsoo, twenty year old and still far too young, dying on the seventh of march, twenty seventeen, just a few minutes after midnight.

he’ll never see the reactions. he’ll never see any of his life again.