The door to the basement slams open, Kyungsoo jumping a foot at the noise, struggling against the binds of his chair. Flashlights can be seen sweeping the room before one lands on him, causing him to screw his eyes shut. The light is turned on and when he opens his eyes, he can see blurry people moving towards him. He shrieks, shrinking backwards into his chair, trying to curl up on himself but the binds don't let him, and instead they make him panic more by restricting his movement.
"It's alright, we're not here to hurt you. See?" The officer in front of him puts his gun back into his holster, holding up his hands. Kyungsoo is no fool- he knows that people don't need weapons to hurt others. He nods anyways because he doesn't have a choice, hasn't since he was brought here. He feels the buckles being undone and the officers wait for him to get out of the chair, making sure to give the idol enough space. However, Kyungsoo only sits there, clutching his hands to his chest. He waits for somebody to tell him that he is permitted to get up. Nobody does.
"Can-can you stand?" The male officer in front of him asks, and the tiny framed man stares at him with large eyes, slowly and shakily getting up from his seat, using the arm rests for support. His panting can be heard loud and clear in the small room, but just as he stops leaning against the chair, his knees buckle. The officers scramble to catch him in time, and handle him carefully as though he is made of glass. The young man bursts into tears. He feels pain, sorrow, guilt.

Kyungsoo is lifted up the stairs since he is too weak to even so much as walk for himself, but once he is out of that wretched house he takes a deep breath in as he is lowered down onto the ground. The male officer holds him firmly, but not too tightly. Kyungsoo feels his lip tremble as he looks at the luscious green grass. He uses the officer to walk over to the patch of deep green and ever so slowly presses a bare foot down onto it. His tears drip from his chin as the blades of grass tickle his feet and he stands for a few moments. The other officers turn away, trying their best to keep their emotions concealed. Once Kyungsoo is getting treated by paramedics, the officers gather together to celebrate the saving of another life.
"How old do you reckon he is? He has to be at oldest seventeen." A female officer suggests, sipping her mug of tea.
"I'd say about that. Poor kid, he looks as though he's been trapped indoors almost all of his life. Bless him." The female officer's boyfriend says, resting his head on her shoulder. His gaze is sad and he feels pity for the poor teen.
"He must have been under so much stress. He's lost almost all of his hair- it's gonna take time to rebuild his confidence again."
"We have to keep in mind, Seul, it might not be able to be rebuilt." Her partner, Seungkwan reminds sadly, lips pursed as he watches his partner finish her coffee.

Kyungsoo slips into unconsciousness on the way to the hospital, the paramedics panicking.
"Turn the sirens on! BP is dropping! Fifty-three over thirty-seven! It's decreasing- we need adrenaline!" The first paramedic grabs an oxygen mask, slipping it over the idol's face before tightening it. They both pray for his survival.
"Start compressions!" There is a tangled web of shouting throughout the journey, and then when they finally arrive Kyungsoo is wheeled into theatre after a few scans that have been quickly done as well as a blood test. When the scans show that there is internal bleeding and a punctured lung, the idol is sedated and wheeled into theatre.

*The following scenes contain vivid descriptions of blood, needles and bones. If you are sensitive, please skip to the next '*' *

His skin is swabbed with iodine to kill any bacteria and the equipment for surgery has already been sterilised. An oxygen mask is placed again over the young man's face, although he looks like a teenager due to his sufficient weight loss, small frame and short stature. A few bags of blood from a donor hang on an IV stand, ready for use. Stuck to a screen is an MRI print of the location of the internal bleeding. One of the assistants pass the consultant a scalpel, and the man with steady gloved hands glides the blade across the skin beneath the idol's protruding ribs. He slices through the skin and some muscle tissue, using a ball of sterilised gauze to dab the blood from the deep incision away. A suction device is used to remove the pool of blood as the consultant tries to find the source of the bleeding.
"Oh shit." The consultant curses quietly and the assistant peers into the open section of the idol's body and sees exactly what the consultant was cussing about. The poor man's gallbladder has been punctured by a broken rib and is now suffering from acute cholecystitis, which is when the gallbladder becomes inflamed and sore. The wound was either luckily inflicted the day before or earlier on today. If the gallbladder becomes blocked, an accumulation of bile can occur and this can cause the gallbladder to burst. If this happens, then there is a danger of the bloodstream being poisoned, otherwise known as the life threatening disease, sepsis. The surgeon purses his lips beneath his mask as he tries to think of the best way to remove the broken bone without allowing the contents of the gallbladder to leak into the pooling blood beneath it. The broken rib sliced through a minor vein but due to the pooling blood, the risks are high.

After holding a brief meeting at the table over the unconscious patient, the staff decide that they will continue the surgery. The gallbladder is pinched and the bone is quickly but accurately removed and the perforated wall of the gallbladder is squeezed closed. The consultant sutures the hole in the wall. Next is to drain the pool of blood again from the cavity, before then stitching up the vein. There is a problem, however, when they see that a small amount of the bile from the gallbladder can still get through the neat row of tight sutures and so the area of the wall is cauterised, causing the skin to weld itself together. Afterwards, no more bile leaks out and they can finish up the operation by suturing up the incision, removing the needle for the sedatives and scrubbing up after a few hefty hours of surgery.

*****************************************************

Kyungsoo wakes up groggily, feeling tired, dizzy, thirsty, hungry, confused and sore. He is a concoction of different emotions, his hormones running haywire as they try to figure out for him how he should feel. The lights blind him and for a good few minutes he thinks that he is still in the basement, stuck in that dreadful chair. An IV is hooked into his arm, one line containing saline, the other connected to another IV stand where a silver bag hangs from the metal pole. He leans over to try and read the large white label that takes up nearly the whole front of the bag, but finds that he is unable to do so. He can't remember the last time that he was actually able to see clearly. He observes his hands in the light, turning them around. The gown that he wears is itchy and uncomfortable. His eyes then venture beyond his abdomen and he finds that his right ankle is in a support and his left leg is in a cast, the horrendously irritating itching sensation causing him to want to scratch down the inside. A nurse knocks gently on the door but he jumps anyways, jolting his unseen wound beneath his ribs. He groans in pain as the nurse apologises sincerely, looking guilty.
"Hello, love. This is just a form to ask about your personal details. It's just so that we can track down your family, alright? Now since you can't use your arms, do you want me to write down your answers for you?" Kyungsoo almost instantly relaxes due to the woman's soft voice, and the tone of it reminds him of his mother, and he begins to tear up at the comparison. A deep purple and blue bruise has been painted across his throat and the nurse then realises that the poor boy probably can't speak either.
"I'll get a doctor and I will be right back, ok?" She leaves as quietly as she came, and so Kyungsoo takes his time soaking up the details of the ward. The bed is hard, but way more comfortable than sleeping on the floor of a wet basement or being strapped to a chair.

The small idol looks at his thin arms, staring at all of the marks that litter the once uniform expanse of skin. He sighs. It's worse on his back- that's where Iljung did most of his 'art' as he so called it. Carved into the soft skin are words like 'thief' and 'mistake', but Kyungsoo is glad that he can't see those. He has faded scars on his arms where oddly enough Iljung made sure not to cut too deep, just deep enough where the smaller would bleed and feel the excruciating pain, but not so that the wounds would scar. Purples, blues, blacks and greens paint his body, next to no chinks of his natural colour coming through. His face is also painted with these colours, not a single place of his body left as an exception. A doctor enters the room to check up on how he's feeling and runs a few more tests, checking for anything more abnormal. The doctor then leaves and he is shrouded in silence apart from the irritating beeping of the heart monitor.

Four hours later, a doctor comes in, smiling gently at him while holding a clipboard. She has his results.
"Alright dear, you have suffered quite a bit, huh?" Her eyes soften as she looks at the 'young boy', wanting to ruffle his hair. So she does. He flinches, but the faintly familiar act is so gentle and caring that it reminds him of his father, of his friends, of his brother. Of course, his mother used to play with his hair when he had a full head of it, but she was more of a hugging type of person. She asks him if he wants to know the details of all of the X-rays, so he nods in response.
"You have suffered a broken collarbone, a fractured and buckled wrist, your left arm was dislocated so during the surgery we reset it. The cuff of your right shoulder was damaged, so we had to stitch some of the ligaments together. You have three broken ribs, two fractured, you did have a punctured gallbladder, there is a long list of ligament damage and quite a bit of soft tissue damage as well. I know that all of this is a lot to take in, but we are here to help you, ok? It's not going to be easy, but you can do it.

"Oh! I almost forgot- we got the results of the identification test that we ran. You are Do Kyungsoo, is that right?" She asks, lifting her glasses up as she looks at him for confirmation. He nods.
"Ok. Would you like me to contact your family?" Again, she gets a nod in response. "Is there anyone else you'd like me to contact?" Kyungsoo opens his mouth to speak, but the nurse immediately shushes him gently, handing him a sheet of paper and a pen. She smiles at him encouragingly. He is thankful that she understood without him even having to say anything. He scribbles down a quick list of people, his hand writing looking like a young child's due to his casted wrist. He hands over the list with a short bow of his head and waits. The nurse leaves and he sinks into his thoughts and finally slips into a peaceful sleep- the first he's had since more than nineteen months ago.

Hi guys! That's this book completed (yay! I did it 😂). Anyways, I just wanted to thank all of you for voting and commenting. I love each and every one of you, so please continue to smile and be happy. Bye my peanut butter cookies! ❤️🍪

Date of update/completion: Thursday 29th November 2018

Word Count: 2130