COME ALIVE

four

          Beep... Beep... Beep...

     It's annoying. The sound makes Jungguk want to wake up and punch whoever decided to connect him to this thing. He didn't know how long he had been there, in a body that didn't belong to him, with a family he didn't know, and in a book that he simply hated.

     Taehyung and Jimin stopped visiting him. From weekly visits, they came only twice a month and after that, they did not come at all. His parents visited him regularly, but only once every two weeks or at least that's what the boy assumed, and Yoongi ... Yoongi came to see him, rarely, but he still came. Sometimes he came three days in a row, other times every few months. Jungguk decided that he had been in a coma for a few years, probably two or three.

     As far as the boy remembers because now he had enough free time to let his imagination run wild, in the book it all started when Jungkook was 16 years old. And the boy had died after ten years, at the age of 26, being in a vegetative state, brain dead. He also remembered that Yoongi was devastated. He wondered if his presence here changed the book or not. Why would the universe transfer him into the book if it had no plan for him? And if he was here, in Jungkook's body, then was the real Jungkook in his real body, in his reality? The boy had a lot of time to think about it, but no answer seemed real or at least good enough to justify what was happening.

     So he waited. He didn't know how much time had passed, he didn't know what he would do if he woke up, if he ever woke up, but he was feeling pretty sure that he would. It was impossible not to think like that, his mind was working, it was just his body not cooperating.

     After a while, his mind was out of ideas and subjects to think about, so he decided to try to wake up on his own. If his body was not trying to cooperate, then his mind would take the lead and maybe would succeed in waking up. So he tried, and tried, but nothing.

     "It's hopeless..." he thought, giving up.

     He didn't have enough strength to try again, and his thoughts started to get foggy. The boy started to feel a pressure on the chest area, like a huge anxiety spreading all around preventing him from breathing properly. He felt his whole body trembling, even though he knew that he could not move, and as he trembled, a feeling of numbness came over him. Jungguk didn't know what to expect.

     Should he wake up... or give up completely? He knew that his decision was the decisive one, he had to choose now. The boy was tired of everything he had endured during his stay in this world, so giving up was the safe choice. In the end it wasn't his body. However, thinking more, the boy felt sorry for Jungkook, Yoongi, and the book. So the only thought he had then was that he could make the book better, that he could give Taehyung, Jimin, and Yoongi a happier ending, one that was worth reading again and again.

     "Oh... Jungkook- you... How could you leave me?"

     "We love you, son... Come back."

     "Disappointment. That's what you ar-"

     "Jungguk, just do what you want, whatever makes you happy..."

     "I think... you should quit." said the younger one, looking at the coffee that sits right in front of him.

     "How?" asked Jungguk, his voice unsure and scared. "My parents are crazy, Soobin. They... "

     "You could start fresh."

     At that moment he knew that if he didn't fight, the war against his passion would end, and he would be the loser that his parents always thinked of. So, gathering courage and ambition, he began to fight to take over this body. After a while, I started to hear sounds more clearly.

     The device next to him that beeped continuously seemed to scream, meaning that his heart had gone crazy, and his chest had started to hurt. He could feel his hands, his legs, and all the tubes that were connected to his body.

     He knew what this meant, it meant that he had a little time left and he was waking up, so with the last strength remaining, he forced himself until everything stopped. The next thing he knew, he was facing a bland white wall with a switched off TV on it and a medicine cabinet.

     He had woken up.

     His throat was dry and his whole body was numb. He felt that there was not much left and his head was exploding, and the disastrous sound made by the maschine next to him did not help. He was sitting upright on the bed, staring at the wall in front of him. He couldn't believe it.

     "I really... I really didn't dream this?" he thought to himself, frowning.

     It was impossible, or at least it felt that way. Spending so much time in isolation, vaguely hearing the world around him, and not being able to say anything, the boy thought he was going crazy, so that explains the conclusion he reached some time ago, but he never thought that his theory will be one hundred percent real.

     The sounds of a person's footsteps brought Jungguk, or rather, Jungkook out of his own thoughts. A few minutes later, a nurse appeared, and when she saw Jungkook, she froze. She went pale and looked as if she had just seen a ghost, which was somewhat correct according to the boy's intuition. Jungkook was in a coma for a long time, and now waking up out of the blue was like a miracle.

     "Water... Water..."

     The nurse understood what the brunette wanted, so after a few minutes, she returned with an empty bottle of water. After Jungkook moisturized his throat, he started to cough, looking at the nurse again. She seemed familiar to him, but he didn't know why.

     "Jungkook, I'm glad you woke up from your coma. If you need anything else, please press the button next to your bed and I'll be right on my way. In the meantime, I'm going to tell your parents that you woke up."

     The brunette's thoughts were in a fog, and the only words he could distinguish from the nurse's mouth were "button", "coma" and "parents". He didn't know whether to be amused by the enthusiasm of the nurse who didn't seem to be more than 30 years old or to cry because he didn't know how to return to his reality.

     "... I'm sure they'll be very happy to see you with their eyes open, especially since you're feeling well now and... oh my God, I have to inform the doctor as well."

     "Excuse me..." Jungkook started to say, interrupting the mini-crisis the nurse was having in front of him. "For..how...How long was I in c-coma?"

     "Ten years."

     "How many years?" yelled Jungkook, shocked.