Suni woke up in a hospital room, a ray of sunshine cutting through the dusty air. Outside of her room people were running through the hallway, rushing to save at least one more life.
Suni didn't need her life saved. She had already seen everything she had wanted to see, did everything she had wanted to do. Maybe the middle-aged man next to her had plans to visit another country, maybe he had a family. They probably didn't see him through the rubble of the collapsed apartment complex. Before Suni could think about the other people who were still buried underneath her old home, her door was violently pushed open. Panting, the nurse rushed to her, a tablet in her hand.
"Is everything alright?"
"Uh…"
"Does anything hurt?"
"What?"
"Do you need more pain medication? The numbness from anesthesia should almost be gone by now."
Anesthesia?
"Oh...I'm not sure, it's ok, I guess?"
"Are you sure?"
"Yeah. I'm fine." The nurse checked Suni's infusion, wrote something on her tablet, and left again. Another nurse came in, she was talking on the phone.
"Miss King? Do you have anyone we can contact? A relative, or a friend maybe?" Her voice was kind and sweet.
"Relative?" There were none or at least none Suni wanted to face at the moment. A friend? "Young." Her childhood friend.
"Excuse me?" The nurse also looked very kind. A kind nurse.
"Shin Young. His phone number is-" Suni didn't know Shin's phone number.
"Ok honey, that's all. And don't move too much." The nurse vanished.
Don't move too much? Only then, Suni felt the bandages on her rib cage. Had they been there this entire time? Why didn't she feel the- oh. Suni winced as she moved her arms. Big bruises spread all over them, they were probably all over her face as well. Ouch. She suddenly felt regret towards her latest decision. She looked through the room. There was a table with flowers. Suni couldn't identify them. A big painting, with no clear pattern. Curtains, two of them. A shade of gray? A closet with a door that looked slightly unhinged. Another, smaller table, with a chair that looked uncomfortable. Suni felt sorry to whoever had had to sit on that chair for hours, waiting for their loved ones to wake up. Not a nice thought. Suni's eyes drifted towards the window. There were barely any clouds in the sky, but it still looked gray. The sun was a slightly brighter shade of gray, but it hurt to look at it longer than a few seconds. Everything was normal. Nothing seemed out of the ordinary. Maybe the room was a bit colorless. Suni tried ignoring it and her aching body. She felt horrible.
➰
"And why can't you tell me where she is?! I have to see her!" Angry gestures were flying around.
"Sir, please calm down."
"NO. You will tell me her room number right NOW!" More wild gestures. The fact that a tall, muscular man was yelling at Nurse Joy was not helping her in this situation. She had already dealt with far worse, but today? No, an impossible task. "Sir, I can't tell you where she is, as you are not related to her or her emergency contact, you will have to wait for Miss King to call you." She wanted to slap him. It seemed as if she was speaking to a tall child. The nurse was saved by the ringing of the reception phone.
"Clearview Hospital Reception, Nurse Joy speaking. How may I assist you?" Silence.
"Young? And what was the first name?"
"Ok, I will pass it on. He will come up soon."
"Great, ok." She put the phone down and took a deep breath.
"Sir, may I have your name and phone number?" The man whipped his head around, his face still red from his tantrum.
"And why would you need that now?"
It was one of those days where Nurse Joy would have wanted to lie down on the floor and start crying, but she smiled and kindly replied: "Sir, Miss King is ready to see you, I just need you to enter your name and phone number to register your visit in our system. It's the hospital policy."
"Oh, ok, and that couldn't have happened, maybe, the first time I asked you to bring me to her?" Ignoring what the man had said, Nurse Joy handed him a tablet. A few moments later it was aggressively handed back to her.
"Thank you, sir. You can take the elevator for Tower B, she is in room B1027, it's on the second floor."
Peace returned to the entrance area of the otherwise very busy hospital.
➰
Another ray of sunshine made its way through the cloudy sky, creating a second streak of dust in the small room. The air was standing still, not even the dust particles were moving.
The calm ambiance was disturbed by sudden stomping coming from outside. Suni took a deep breath, or as deep as her pain allowed it, and closed her eyes once more.
The door slammed open, revealing an out-of-breath, tall, muscular, and very panicked man.
"SUNI!" He rushed over to her bed. Her eyes were still closed. She didn't want to be disturbed again. "SUNI! Are you awake? Are you okay? What happened? Can you move? Are you dea-" He was cut off by Suni, who opened her eyes and let out a weak laugh.
"Shin..." She coughed. Her lungs were hurting from all the dust she had breathed in during the collapse.
"Oh no, Suni, don't talk." Shin already knew what happened the day before. It was all over the news. Every station, channel, blog, and stream was talking about the accident on Mantu main street. An explosion on the first floor had caused the apartment complex to collapse in on itself, burying countless people under rubble and broken concrete. There were still no numbers on how many people had been injured or killed. But all of that didn't matter.
"Suni, I'm glad you're safe." He stopped. Shin was still shaking. He had tried reaching Suni the entire day, he had checked every hospital near Mantu, with no hope until now.
"Shin. I'm fine." A lie. Suni looked at Shin, knowing he would not believe her.
"No, you're not. You were buried! Under a building! You're not fine." Shin's voice began shaking. It always did that when he was getting emotional. He hated it.
"Shin, really. It's okay. I'm here and I'm alive." Maybe she was glad they had saved her and not the other man. Suni didn't even think about her friend when the floor opened up. She had closed her eyes, waiting for a kind grim reaper to tell her it was over. "Thank you for coming here." A tear followed over her cheek. Suni didn't realize Shin had started crying a few moments ago.
"Do you know how worried I was?" he sniffled, "I thought you were dead!" Shin carefully grabbed Suni's arm and cried into the sleeve of her hospital gown. It was an ugly yellow with brown, maybe greenish squares. Soon, the shade of yellow darkened, wet from Shin's tears. The two stayed like that, crying and sniffling. Outside it had started to rain. The sun was still fighting the clouds, barely visible in the hospital room, but still making the teardrops glisten on their faces.