BOSOM. |Bang Chan

Three.

Alana was an overthinker.

She would always find her way to overthink the tiniest of things. One of the topics she usually spends her nights overthinking is the tales her father's uncle used to tell her and her sister when they were little kids.

Those tales were about how this world used to be a long time ago. It's not like it was anything near normal for hundreds of years, but it was less twisted. Even before the day Alana let her first cry ever echo inside the hospital's labor room, the world was already messed up.

It wasn't uncommon to meet someone who can see ghosts and interact with them. It was typical to have a family member who once was a wandering soul. It was familiar to find two different people with the same exact name, face, voice, build, and even education and profession, yet are not related by any means. And it was also predictable to spot someone among the crowd that looks exactly like your very dead great-grandparent.

That was the world Alana grew up overthinking about and how it used to be different when it used to be normal. If there is a thing called normal.

What toppled over that, was how this universe turned upside down within a night. People went to bed, ending their day, and woke up the next morning to more chaos stirring the very little peace left. And that was when Alana was seventeen.

She witnessed people disappear as if they never existed. She watched people get punished by some invisible powers for their bad deeds. She was there when soulmates' bonds started to take their place among the abnormalities of this world.

She was there when the word normal got erased from this life's dictionary.

And surely, she was there when people started falling into an unexplained deep sleep. Some were suspected to be in a coma due to unknown reasons. Others were subjected to trauma -either physical or psychological- before their sleep. But then, there were those who just didn't wake up. They had no damages or injuries wherever they were examined. They had nothing wrong with them except for not waking up.

Some experienced changes during their sleep. Some woke up on their own after years of sleeping, telling tales about what they witnessed while being confined to those hospital beds. Some just passed away without much disturbance to their surroundings. And then, there were those who didn't pat an eyelash for long long years of hibernation.

They were just sleeping, with no expected date for their wake-up.

That's when hospitals started having those departments. The Departments of Hibernation.

"Dr. Mun?"

"Hmm? Yes?" Alana replied once the nurse's voice dragged her from her overthinking.

Nurse Miyoung was a mid-fifties woman, who worked the longest in this hospital. She met Alana with a lovely smile and a warm greeting. She had the girl on a tour around the different departments without going into much details about them, since the ones responsible for that would do that part when Alana starts her rounds at those departments. On the contrary, they had a very detailed tour in the Department of Hibernation.

"Here's our last stop." The shorter woman said, opening the door to a room at the end of the corridor. "And your first assigned patient." Nurse Miyoung added.

The two women walked into the white dimly lit room that was occupied by only one bed and only one patient, which made Alana start her overthinking session. Why was he in a private room? All the rooms in this department were shared rooms with two or more patients.

"Good morning, handsome." Nurse Miyoung sang as she pulled the curtains open, allowing the sunlight to fill the room. She then walked to the bed to look down on the peacefully sleeping patient. She smiled warmly at him. "Guess who's here? Your new doctor. No more cold greetings from Dr. Kim. I know you didn't like his attitude. Dr. Mun here looks to be kind and lovely. I'm sure she's going to take good care of you."

Alana smiled at how the woman talked passionately to him as if he was dear to her. That made Alana curious about him and his state. Alana walked to the foot of his bed and pulled the board hanging there to check the patient's history.

Brows furrowing, she looked at Miyoung. "Lost Prince? Really? Is that his name?" She said pointing to the written name on the patient's board.

"It's been his name for his nine years stay here." The woman sighed.

"Nine years! He'd been in hibernation for nine years?" Alana questioned.

"Yes. He was one of our first residents in this department. And the longest here. The one who gave no signs of waking up or even leaving this world." A bitter smile painted the woman's face. "They were three, almost the same age. The sleeping beauty, the fallen angel, and then this lost prince." She giggled to herself. "They came on the same day with different diagnoses."

"And what happened to the others?" Alana asked as curiosity worked her brain up.

Nurse Miyoung drew a long breath before she looks at the Lost Prince with glistening eyes. "They both left. The Sleeping Beauty girl woke up from her coma two years later for just a very few minutes. The poor girl passed away, donating her heart to the other patient, the Fallen Angel."

"And he is?"

"Alive and heartbroken." Miyoung commented while pulling the Lost Prince's cover up his body.

"Why?"

"The girl turned out to be his soulmate. She just woke up from her long sleep to save his life and leave this world as if she was his miracle." Miyoung looked at the sleeping boy and sighed again. "And then, he was the one to stay behind, still waiting to be saved."

That was Alana's first assigned patient and her job was to save him. The Lost Prince.