Eyes Open- Taylor Swift

The lights were pounding in my head- everything was getting increasingly fuzzy. My throat was sore from the screaming, but the pain was just so intense that I couldn’t help but shout once more.

It felt like my abdomen was slowly being wrenched apart from the inside. I could hear voices shouting around me, my body was being roughly jostled back and forth, only compounding the pain worse. I could only recoil further and hope it would all be over soon.

I heard cries, sobs, someone was calling my name over and over again. With my limited, and quickly deteriorating, vision, I could just make out the rest of them huddled together on the stage, by my side.

Chansik was crying his heart out on his knees, his voice the main sound I could hear. Baro was beside him, his eyes conflicted and insecure, the very opposite of the confidence and drive I usually saw in him. Sandeul was a mess, retreating into a tight ball, looking terrified, while Jin Young hovered over them all, on the verge of tears himself, but still trying his best to calm everyone down.

I felt the compulsion, the urge, to assure them that everything would be okay. It tore me apart inside to have to leave them like this. But the pain made it near impossible to even breathe, much less to get up and speak.

A new sensation opened up to me- I was being lifted off the ground, transported quickly somewhere else. A harsh gust of frigid air-conditioning hit the clammy surface of my skin as the movement came to a halt, and in addition to the terrible, worsening ache that was slowly spreading through my body, I felt a pinpricking of pain in my wrist. It occurred to me that I was being put on a drip, and being taken to the hospital. That was what they did with sick people, right?

A stab of fear made my blood run cold. Was I to be operated on? I’d never even seen the inside of an operation room before. Immediately, every instance I’d come across of people dying in the hospital flashed through my mind, and I had to force them down to prevent panicking.

The pain only seemed to double with every ticking second. Through the incessant thrumming in the back of my head, I could hear my own breathing- shallow, ragged and desperate. Each laboured breath made me wonder if it would be my last.

My vision was hazy, I was disoriented, I could barely even see straight. The journey felt like it was taking forever, especially now that I was struggling to do something as simple as breathing.

Agony spiked through my already pain-ridden body as I was, all too soon, being moved again.

Through all the flurry, the bustle of black and white I saw with my deteriorating sight, only one thought could run through my mind.

What if I really was going to die?

How would my parents and sister take it? Would they miss me? Would I have a funeral?

What about B1A4? Would they continue as a four-member band? Would I be replaced? Would promotions just go on as usual, like nothing had ever happened?

Would I be forgotten?

No…

No, I couldn’t think that. I had to stay awake. I had to keep going. I couldn’t give up.

All of a sudden, I felt myself being lifted, and an icy surface come into contact with the burning skin of my palms. A vivid image of a lone, blood-splattered metal table in a cold operation room morgue flashed through my mind, and I just had to force my eyes open to get a grip of my surroundings.

A bright light blinded me the moment I opened my eyes, but I managed to snatch a glance of the room before I squeezed them shut again. The walls were white, and I could see several doctors in blue hospital gowns, wearing goggles, face masks and hair nets bustling around beside the table, speaking things that were incomprehensible to me.

“Is the morphine here yet? We need to begin the operation now!”

Morphine...was that a painkiller? It was, wasn’t it? Whatever it was, I hoped it would come soon, because I was suffering where I was right now.

More stabs of pain in my arm, and all of a sudden, a strange, numbing sensation spread through my body, that blanketed me with the urge to fall into a deep slumber, which I probably would have done if it weren’t for the sharp ribbons of pain that continued to break through, and the fact that I was currently fighting for my life.

“Dong Woo, is that your name?” Someone was speaking to me, his voice near my ear. “You’ve been diagnosed with appendicitis, and we’re about to begin the operation to treat it, understand?”

Appendicitis...?

“Whatever you do, you have to stay conscious, understand? You cannot stop breathing.”

Well of course I wouldn’t stop breathing, I needed to breathe to survive, right?

His statement struck fear within me. Why would I feel the need to stop breathing?

The morphine was making me feel light-headed, and an overwhelming blackness overcame me. The sounds around me were starting to echo within my head.

Dull blades of pain were still slashing away within me, but it was bearable until one particularly painful stab came somewhere in my lower abdomen, causing my body to convulse instinctively.

“He needs more morphine, he’s definitely still in pain!”

“Any more and the risk of fatality will spike. He just has to bear it. There’s nothing we can do.”

So I’ll be facing this pain and worse through the whole operation? The incredulous thought flashed through my mind for a split second, before the sensation of pain seemed to claw its way through me from my abdomen. It felt like an enormous weight had just been placed on my chest- it was crushing me slowly, like a bind that was growing tighter and tighter with the passing seconds.

The ache continued to pound through me for what seemed like forever. How long had passed? Would the operation be over soon? It felt like hours had already gone by. I was exhausted from fighting the pain- really, all I wanted to do was just fall asleep.

“Do you see this? This is probably the worst inflammation I’ve ever seen.”

“Hold the operation a while, we need to contact his manager for permission to proceed any further.”

The news I was hearing just seemed to get worse and worse. Pain was spreading like a spider web to every inch of my body, almost making it seem like I was lying on a bed of red-hot nails.

“His manager gives us the O.K. Commence the cleaning procedure.”

What felt like the next few hours dragged by torturously slow. Every minute that wasn’t spent resisting the prickling, aching pain was spent fighting for my next breath. It felt like a thousand weights were languorously being stacked up on top of me, making every breath a task. My lungs felt like they were going to implode with the effort it was taking just to inhale.

I could feel my strength slowly ebbing away with every moment that passed. It felt like having run a marathon for days, but never seeing the finish line. I couldn’t see the point of having to keep trying.

I just felt so exhausted.

Maybe…just a bit of rest would be okay…

No, no I couldn’t. I couldn’t fall asleep. I needed to stay awake.

Even so, I started to drift off unintentionally. The darkness that engulfed me seemed to lull me, whisper for me to sleep.

“He’s losing consciousness.”

“Dong Woo, do you remember what I said? You have to stay awake, understand?”

What was the point? The pain taunted me. Why did I have to keep breathing if it was just going to hurt?

What was the point of staying alive just to suffer more?

What was the point, really?

I felt what would probably be the last breath in my body slip away, as I finally began to drift into blissful unconsciousness.

“He’s not breathing.”

There was silence for a while. The crushing sensation in my chest slowly became a dull, hazy ache, one that called desperately for oxygen, oxygen which I couldn’t bring myself to inhale.

“There’s nothing we can do if he won’t breathe.”

I wondered what death would be like. It made me fearful, but the need to finally escape from the pain overcame that fear. I waited, waited patiently for it to come and take me away.

Vague pieces of my memory began surface within the muddy suspension in my mind, like watercolours from a child’s picture book.

There was one from when I was six, curled up under a blanket in bed one night, bathed in the gentle glow of the orange nightlight, listening intently as my sister told me a bedtime story about a farmer, a rabbit and a cabbage harvest.

Another when I was ten, running through the door after coming home from school, waving my results with one hand excitedly, as my words tumbled out one after another about how I’d topped my class for the end-of-year examinations.

The memories were becoming harder to grasp now. I was seated, barefoot, on a small, weathered wooden stool on the porch of our countryside home, while my mother darned one of my father’s shirts on her thatched straw rocking chair, all the time teaching me the basics of singing.

The memory of singing brought me to my trainee days. Meeting Jin Young for the first time, and being slightly jealous of how good he looked. Being amazed by how powerful Jung Hwan’s voice was when he first sang. Breaking out into random rapping sequences with Sun Woo when I found out he rapped. Being stern to Chanshik while the others babied him.

I remembered how much fun we had growing up as a group. I remembered every moment of exhilaration we experienced together. I remembered all the hardships, the triumphs, the tears and the joy.

I realised how much I missed all of it already.

Finally, the last memory that came to me was the one at the Music Core. I remembered the breaking point, that moment when I couldn’t bear the pain any longer. I remembered collapsing on the stage as the pain hit me like a hurricane.

The confusion, the uncertainty, the suddenness of it all, and finally, I remembered the four of them.

I remembered shock and fear, identical, on their countenances, yet so different in their reasons. I remembered the tears, the pain, starkly visible in their eyes. I remembered every one of their problems, every moment I’d spent taking care of them.

The memory stayed like a tinge of sweet relief on the tip of my tongue, through the pain that closed in upon me, before it faded, leaving a new realisation in its place.

I remembered the reason why I had to live.

The reason I needed to hold on through this, the reason I needed to stay alive. They were the reason I had to keep breathing.

I needed to suffer through this for them.

I could suffer through this for them.

Gathering as much strength as I could muster, I forced myself to inhale.

It hurt more than I thought it would. Pain coursed through my torso, attacking in sharp needle spikes in my lungs, but I was breathing, and I would live.

“He’s breathing again. Sir, he’s breathing again!”

“Well, what are you waiting for? Continue the operation!”

I held on through the pain, through the exhaustion, through the compounding ache and hurt, but with a fresh motivation keeping me awake.

The finish line was blurry, but the people who waited for me behind that line were as clear as day.

I kept breathing through the entire operation with that beautiful watercolour image in mind. 

_______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Author's Note:

...please don't kill me.

I know this update is really late and I'm SORRYYY :'(((( Unlike other authors, however, I'm not going to say I had tons of work and other lovely faeces (though I did...) but I didn't map out this chapter properly, which explains the month and a week delay :( I'M SORRRRRYYYY :( I really hope you guys will be happy with this chapter. The next one won't have such a disgraceful delay, I promise.

I'd better write that down somewhere.

There will perhaps be two chapters after this, and this little fic will be over :) I hope you've enjoyed it so far, and I'll miss this fic...even though it's barely c.20,000 words, it's one of the fics I've written so far that I feel the most for :D This fic really means a lot to me. Shattered Secrets relies a lot more on technique, and Here and Gone was more of an outlet for me to vent my emotions (hence the non-alliteration title). 

Okay enough of that.

Hope you guys won't be mad and continue to comment :3 

Sincerely
WhiteWings19