Winter bear

Chapter 9

"No no no this can't be real" Hoseok whispered. The rapper looked shocked at the bed in front of him where the old woman was lying. His whole body was frozen on the spot with the only movement his shaky breaths against the palm of his hand that he held in front of his mouth. "Please don't be dead"

But judging by the color of the woman's skin, the way her face was sunken to the bone and the smell told Hoseok enough that she had probably died a few days ago. At least he hoped it was only a few days and not a few weeks, and the thought of it made the sunshine member very upset. The old lady had died alone, without any family by her side and Hoseok could only wish she had died peacefully in her sleep without suffering.

A picture on the nightstand suddenly caught the dancer attention and he felt himself walking towards it. It was an old picture in black and white of a young couple and in the corner was a modern photo of two elderly people. It must be the woman and her husband, because who else would it be, but Hoseok also couldn't be completely sure. The deceased lady in the bed did look different though. She was at least 10-15kg lighter and her hair wasn't as styled as shown on the picture. The thin but curly grey hair looked a bit unruly on the pillow as if she hadn't paid attention to it in a while.

Hoseok kept staring at the woman with one hand covering his mouth and nose, while he held the injured one close to his chest. He always praised himself lucky that he none of his family members or friends had passed away during his life, so he had never seen anyone die or a dead body before. But he knew that his luck would run out someday, but he had never imagined it would be like this...

It almost felt like time was standing still as the rapper kept standing in the bedroom, but then he snapped out of his thoughts when he felt warm tears coating the hand over his mouth. He tried to wipe them the best he could but when the smell returned at full force when his nose wasn't blocked anymore, he felt his stomach turn once more. He needed to get out this room before he made himself sick again, but he couldn't just leave the old woman like this. It felt wrong to abandon her even though he didn't know her, but he still felt guilty to leave her.

'What do people normally do when they find someone that had passed away?' Hoseok thought and he immediately questioned himself if there was even an answer to that question. It wasn't normal to find a dead body, right? But he knew he couldn't just leave and do nothing. So the dancer decided that he at least could make her as comfortable as possible and grabbed a neatly folded blanket that lay at the end of the bed. It was hard with one hand, but eventually he managed to unfold the blanket and cover the woman, but he did pause for a moment when he held the blanket near her face. 'Should I cover her face? That's what the police does when they find casualties, I think?'

Hoseok felt himself getting dizzy from holding his breath for this long and quickly made his decision to cover her up completely. He then covered his mouth again and turned around to go back to the door, but then something else caught his attention. On the other nightstand was something he didn't recognize immediately. It looked old and something that was usually only seen in a museum, but Hoseok was quite certain it must be some kind of radio. The old woman probably had been stuck in time and didn't know how to use modern phones, and relied on devices that she knew from the past. The rapper knew that his phone didn't have any reception, but maybe the radio worked differently. At least he could give it a shot, so he decided to grab the radio to take it with him.

"I'm so sorry" the sunshine member whispered to the old lady before he quickly left the room and practically ran down the stairs to get some fresh air. He took a moment to take a few deep breaths in the living room to catch his breath while he observed the space once more. The radio seemed to be the only thing that was able to communicate with the outside, but maybe there was something else of use. A thick and fluffy blanket was draped over the couch but when Hoseok lifted it, a layer of dust was falling from it and it smelled a bit musty as well. This wasn't the time to be very picky, but the dancer also didn't want one of the maknaes to get sick from the blanket so he decided to leave it and only take the radio with him. He thought about searching for a first aid kit, but judging the rest of the house he didn't expect to find something of use and every minute he stalled, was another minute the rest had to wait for help. So Hoseok tugged his broken wrist inside his jacket once more before he opened the front door again and went back into the snow to find his way back to their house.