BOSOM. |Bang Chan

Eleven.

It didn't make sense when Alana sat down beside her sister to watch the news about the Minister of Health announcing having those Departments of Hibernation a few months after that day. Alana was a high school student by then, but it didn't make sense.

Why would they host sleeping people in hospitals?

Alana didn't know how chaotic it was outside her house since she locked herself in for quite some time. She didn't know that emergency rooms were being flooded by those patients. Some had accidents that led to them into comas, but even after they were treated and totally healed, they didn't wake up. Some just passed out in the streets without any obvious reasons. Others went to sleep but never made it out of bed again.

Each patient would be examined and allocated to the related department for their cases, but then there were those with no cases. No injuries, illnesses, or anything other than sleeping. Departments of Hibernation were created. Not only in South Korea but worldwide.

Later on, Alana learned the true reason for those departments. Experiments. It's not like it was something unethical or life-threatening. It was just for the sake of finding a cure, a cause, a prognosis, or anything that would help in waking those sleeping ones. Departments started having patients from different places with different histories, the only common thing was they were all sleeping. Doctors and scientists started volunteering in those departments, giving all they had, all they learned for those sleeping beings.

People started having high hopes again. They would be cured, they thought. The best doctors, scientists, and professors from all over the world were uniting to solve this.

And then, nothing.

Years passed with medical teams trying their best. It was always trial and error. People started losing hope. They started losing faith in medicine and science. Doctors lost their own battles. They too lost faith in what they had been doing for long years. How could there be no cure? How could they fail every single time? How could they be that helpless?

A few years later, families began to withdraw their members from hospitals to have them at their houses with their beloved ones till they wake up on their own, or leave this world quietly. Home care services were still provided by hospitals but that was all they could do.

Other families still had some hopes. They still had beliefs. And that's why they left their members under the care of the hospital for better follow-ups. Others had no option. They had no one to decide for them whether to stay at the hospital or not. They were alone when they arrived and had nothing that would help with their identities. Just like him, the Lost Prince.

Although Alana didn't see the point in those departments, she forgot about that long ago. She forgot about that once she started studying medicine. Alana was the one that would follow rules and guidelines. And her professors always provided them, so why deviate? Why think outside of what she learned? Especially, when she believed in medicine and science. When she believed in facts and logic.

Logic!

It wasn't something that could be found in this world anymore.

Alana could finally remember how she used to think before being a doctor. In her eyes, it wasn't logic. Why do people seek logic when the cause of that chaos wasn't logical at all?

Somehow, Felix's words combined with what Dr. Kim told her about how those patients weren't confined to the medical laws, clicked some buttons inside Alana's head. And that's how she walked into the hospital with the determination of shoving whatever she learned in medical school, rationale, logic, rules, and guidelines across the window of her patient's room. Hell! He wasn't even a patient. He wasn't sick. He was just sleeping.

Starting from that day, Alana was being avoided. The doctors and nurses in her department viewed her as an insane witch. No one approved what she was doing but no one stopped her. In their eyes, she was a young passionate doctor who was doing her best for her patient even if it was irrational. In Alana's eyes, she was a human being that ached for the boy who was nearly her age but missed his best years sleeping in a hospital bed.

Alana's steps weren't calculated. She was trying since there were no rules to be confined to. The Lost Prince's medical files were long forgotten already, and now it was time for Alana's nonscientific attempts.

Convinced that he actually could hear her, Alana started talking more. She believed that the reactions he made when it rained, when the thunderstorm hit, and when Alana sang to him, were not by coincidence. He could feel his surroundings, Alana believed.

Alana's talks were updates on the world he missed. She would tell him the date of every day to keep him aware of the calendar, months, and seasons. She would tell him about the weather outside. Alana even told him about how mobile phones became slimmer and foldable with no buttons. She told him about the World Cups that took place and the pandemics that locked this world for long months. She didn't forget about the K-pop groups that were famous back then and how they were doing now if they still existed.

For days, Alana kept talking nonstop. She didn't wait for answers but for reactions. And she got some that didn't exceed loud sighs, rumbles, shivers, and accelerated heartbeat.

Although those reactions were little, Alana didn't get discouraged. She still would walk into his room every day, sit by his right as always and start talking to him till midnight or even beyond that.

Only one thing was bothering her.

She had only a few days before her round at the Department of Hibernation ends, and finds herself allocated to another department.

And somehow, that added weights to her heart.