Sleeping Beauty Syndrome

8

"We have to call the ambulance." Juhee shouted in panic and immediately dialed the number. She described what was going on and listened attentively for a moment before she started shouting into her cell phone. Juhee's voice can get impressively loud, she always reminded me of Jessi, both in terms of her looks and her volume.

"No, you listen to me now. The boy has a fever, please send someone here... I don't care, just make room... He's an idol, they'll probably still have VIP rooms... pff politicians, put them in the cellar, nobody needs them anyway... but... no, what if he dies then? ... what? What the hell you brainless freak, if I ever meet you in my life I'll finish you off." Outraged, she hung up and then burst into tears.

"What did they say?" Yeosang asked cautiously, because Juhee certainly didn't have good news.

"The hospitals are full, they want us to lock him in a room and wait until it's over... If he dies, he'll be taken away by the clean-up service... what a heartless bitch." she told us, visibly upset.

"I'll go to my room and lock the door." Jongho was about to stand up when Hongjoong pulled him back by the hand.

"No way, we'll take care of you. Locking you in there sick would be a death sentence," the leader immediately objected, but Jongho just shrugged his shoulders.

"That's it either way... I don't want to infect you." Jongho muttered quietly.

Juhee ran to him and hugged him tightly.

"We probably all have the virus anyway, isolating us now is totally pointless. Let's try to keep the fever down for as long as possible so that its level remains harmless. That could buy us some time."

"What can we do?" Yunho asked with motivation, seemingly refusing to give up hope.

"First with calf compresses and damp cloths, keep the temperature down as much as possible, fever reducers if necessary and we should make lots of ice cubes in case it rises too quickly." I listed off and Mingi and Yunho went into the kitchen, where they filled countless ice cube bags with water and froze them.

Juhee took Jongho to bed, where he was supposed to rest and gather his strength. Yeosang brought a bowl of cold water, while San placed several washcloths next to it. Seonghwa applied the damp compresses to his ankles, while Wooyoung, who seemed to have come back to life after the anxiety in Jongho, took care of the wrist compresses.

To keep an eye on his temperature without disturbing his rest, only one person stayed with him at a time. Juhee went first and everyone else left the room.

I sat down next to Wooyoung again as he seemed to need me. The whole time he was looking for physical contact, either taking my hand or leaning against me as we watched the news again.

As China was producing the new vaccine, they were also distributing it, trying to deliver it fairly to countries in proportion to their population. However, the US complained that it could not save enough people and insisted on more. The president demanded that America be supplied first and only then the other countries, and even tried to use military force to divert deliveries.

When none of this worked, he threatened China with annihilation and there was a live feed to the White House, where he was standing with his finger over the red button, clamoring to declare war on China, when we heard a loud bang and witnessed live the President being shot by security forces.

"They should have done this years ago." Yeosang said, while the rest of us just looked at the screen in shock.

The Vice President stepped into the picture and apologized to China, promising to wait for the supplies and not to intervene again.

Seonghwa turned off the news and switched to Netflix.

"Enough madness for today, let's take our minds off things."

I snuggled up close to Wooyoung and couldn't believe how close we had come to a nuclear war...

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So... dear Americans reading this... since you make us Germans the bad guys in every 2nd movie, here's your Uno reverse card :D