Reverse Isolation (noun): The placement of an immunocompromised person in a specialized room or unit that attempts to minimize exposure to pathogens.

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The room was 15 paces in one direction and 10 paces in the other. On one side was a small red table covered in coloring paper and markers. On the other side was a squashy tan armchair. However, most of the room was dominated by the large bed in the middle. There were rails on either side to prevent sudden rolling over.

An IV stand stood quietly in its shadowy corner, steadily dripping its fluids into the arm of the bed’s occupant.

He seemed too small for the bed, like a tiny raft in a sea of brightly colored blankets. He was dozing, huddled under his blankets, one arm peaking out to reveal the shiny IV needle in his arm and clutching a ragged teddy bear.

Anxious faces watched his chest rise and fall through an observation window facing the bed.

"He’s doing better, ma’am,” one face murmured. He was an older man with kind eyes, the kind of eyes one knows is more likely to crinkle in a smile than droop into a frown. He had his hands in the pockets of his white jacket and a stethoscope draped over his shoulders. “His breathing is easier, he’s getting some color back in his cheeks, and I was glad to hear he ate some breakfast this morning.”

The woman standing next to him didn’t answer right away. She continued staring at the boy in the bed before saying, “I just want to be in there with him,” without looking away.

The doctor hummed sympathetically. “I know. But he’s still delicate. He’ll need to be in isolation for at least another week.”

“I know.”

They watched the sleeping boy for another minute before the doctor gestured down the hall.

“If you could, ma’am, I have some paperwork for you to look at in my office.”

The woman hesitated, but nodded before following the doctor down the hall.

The boy slept quietly for another minute after they left, but as though the absence of murmured voices crept into his dreams, his eyes blinked open.

He shifted the covers off his chest and lay staring at the ceiling for a few minutes before pushing himself up to sit up. He crossed his legs, sat his teddy in his lap, and resumed staring, this time at the blank window looking into the hallway where the doctor and his mother had just stood.

“What should we do today, Cuddles?” he asked his bear. He turned the stuffed animal so it was facing him and adopted a higher-pitched nasal voice.

“Hmm, I don’t know, Sanghyuk.”

Sanghyuk thought for a moment. “Should we find shapes in the clouds?”

He lifted Cuddles’ arms into a shrug. “We did that yesterday.”

“Maybe we can draw.”

“That’s boring.”

Sanghyuk sighed and let his bear slump over his knees. It really was boring in this room, where the only people to talk to were nurses and all he could hear most of the time was the air being sterilized before entering the room.

The walls were painted a cheerful yellow and decorated with superheroes (Iron Man was his favorite), but that didn’t decrease the fact that he was here because he couldn’t be around anyone who wasn’t completely gowned up.

Sanghyuk contemplated going back to sleep, but before he could make up his mind, a sudden crash broke the sterile silence in the room. Sanghyuk jumped so hard he nearly fell off the bed.

Cuddles dropped to the floor as he scrambled as fast as he could to the window looking outside, almost forgetting to grab the IV pole and nearly tripping. He dragged it behind him and knelt on the windowsill and peered out, bare feet sticking out behind him.

The weather was almost mocking as a beautiful fall day. Sanghyuk could see the fall foliage gleaming in the sunlight against a bright blue sky, but for once he wasn’t looking at that.

To his amazement, there was a man hanging on a harness and swinging from side to side outside his window—which was on the 13^th floor. He couldn’t hear what the man was shouting very clearly through the thick, reinforced glass, but it was clear he was cursing up a storm as he cradled one arm in the other. Sanghyuk giggled and knocked on the window to catch the man’s attention.

The man glanced over at the sound and Sanghyuk could read the nametag on his uniform—Lee Jaehwan.

Jaehwan was halfway regretting all his life’s decisions as he crashed into the window and smashed his arm on the sill when he heard a knocking on the window he’d just rattled. Fully expecting to find an irate doctor, he was surprised to see a little waif of a boy grinning at him and waving.

The boy looked no older than eight and was dressed in loose-fitting pajamas. His black hair stuck out wildly in all directions and was falling into his cheerful brown eyes. He also noticed his painfully thin and pale the boy was—he could see all the bones in his hands and he looked like one gust of wind would blow him clear to China.

He stabled his harness by holding onto the sill with one hand and waved back with the other.

The kid held up a “one minute” finger and stumbled across the room to the small table with markers and paper on it. He nearly tripped over the wheels of the IV pole (Jaehwan chuckled) as he came back to the window and wrote something down.

“How did you get up there?” the paper read in childish scrawl in purple marker.

Jaehwan pointed at his harness and mimed being pulled up. The boy’s eyes were wide as quarters. He bent down again. “What are you doing?”

Jaehwan grinned and pointed at his tool belt and then his eyes, telling the boy to watch.

The boy tilted his head in interest.

Jaehwan took the squeegee from the bucket hanging from his harness and methodically soaped up the window. The boy’s face went bubbly and distorted, but he could still see the look of fascination in his eyes.

He then took his dry squeegee in his other hand and wiped the window squeaky clean. The boy clapped in glee.

The boy’s excitement was contagious. Jaehwan didn’t want to move on. He glanced over at his coworkers, who were several floors away, busily doing their jobs. He looked back at the boy.

“What’s your name?” he asked, mouthing the words as exaggeratedly as possible. The boy didn’t get it right away, and he repeated himself.

The boy picked up his marker again and held up his paper a moment later. “I’m Han Sanghyuk. I’m 10 years old.”

Jaehwan tried not to look surprised—the kid would pass for six if he tried.

“Why are you here?” he mouthed again.

Sanghyuk ran for a new paper. This one took a little longer. “I can’t be around other people because they might get me sick and my body doesn’t fight back when I’m sick. So I have to stay here until they think I’m strong enough to go home!”

As if to accentuate his point, Sanghyuk turned as the door to his room opened. Jaehwan assumed the person who walked in was a nurse, but it was hard to tell due to the protections the person was wearing. They had on a gown, mask, gloves, and booties on their shoes.

The wary look on Sanghyuk’s face told Jaehwan that the arrival of this person meant discomfort. He felt his heart give a pang as Sanghyuk looked back at him, gave a half-hearted smile, and waved farewell. He waved back.

Sanghyuk watched as the window-washer tugged on his harness and dropped out of sight. He sighed and moved toward Nurse Mimi, who was patting the bed so he could lie down.

“And how are we feeling today, Hyukkie?” she asked, busily removing the nearly empty bag on the IV pole and prepping a new one.

Sanghyuk thought for a minute. “I’m okay, I think.” He accepted a thermometer and watched her fill a syringe with a clear fluid and swallowed.

“Well,” she continued, taking the thermometer out when it beeped and checking it, “how about on a scale of 1 to 10, 1 is the worst you’ve ever felt and 10 is you feeling like Iron Man.”

Sanghyuk giggled and did an Iron Man pose on his back. “I think a 6.”

“That’s good to hear,” Nurse Mimi pulled him into a brief embrace before lifting the syringe again. “Now, I need you to stay still for this medicine, okay?”

The smile wiped itself off of Sanghyuk’s face and he scooted backwards, deeper into his pillows. “Is it the same one from last time?”

Nurse Mimi took a breath, as if readying herself for the upcoming battle. “It is, sweetie, but I know you’re a very brave—”

She didn’t get a chance to finish before Sanghyuk was halfway off the bed and yelling, “not that one! I don’t like that one!”

When the nurse tried to reach for him, Sanghyuk kept his arms out of reach, holding them above his head, rattling the IV pole, and crying, “that one burns! I don’t want it!”

The nurse pushed the call button and brought two more gowned nurses into the room, but Sanghyuk just cried louder and thrashed harder as they reached for him. “Go away! I want my mom! Mommy!”

The faces at the observation window were back and the woman’s cheeks were streaked with tears at her son’s cries.

"Don’t do it! Get away! Mommy! Make them stop!”

In all the commotion, no one noticed a face looking in from the outside window.

Jaehwan was on his way up to a higher floor and decided to look in on his new friend and maybe cheer him up a bit more.

But what he saw broke his heart into a million pieces. Sanghyuk was flat on his back on the bed, arms out, and held down by a nurse on each end. His legs were kicking wildly at the third nurse approaching him with a filled syringe. He was clearly screaming at the top of his lungs, tears squeezing out of his eyes and down into his hair.

Jaehwan’s coworker’s voice tore him away from the pitiful scene. “Hey Jaehwan, what’re you doing? You still have to finish your section.”

Jaehwan took one more look at the boy on the bed, the nurse having successfully stuck the needle into his arm and was pushing the medicine into him. He’d stopped kicking and was now just sobbing, shoulders heaving against the adults holding his arm.

“Yeah. Sorry, Hongbin. I’m coming.”

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This story just popped into my head one night and I got excited about it. It might be two or three chapters, it might be twenty, you never know. But anyway, I hope you enjoy!

~ELF