Fifteen

Pain.

That was the very first thing that came to Eunhyuk's mind. It took him a long time to know where it came from, but then he knew that it was his head. His head felt like it was about to explode; there was this throbbing ache all over it, clouded his mind so much that he couldn’t hear himself think. He wanted to hiss, to scream in an attempt to voice out what he felt, but no sound left his lips – and somehow it felt like it had been like that for a long time.

It was dark around him, pitch-black to be exact. For a moment he thought his eyes were shut and he tried to open them. But they already were open; he could blink at least without seeing a thing. So he thought that he had to be in a room void of any light, maybe it was night. But why was it so loud at night?

There were noises in the far. He tried to concentrate on them through the devastating pain in his head. Those were high tones, he thought, and they sounded mechanical. Was that some kind of machine? But there were also other noises. A voice – someone was talking. He tried listening to it, heard some mumbling he couldn’t understand. The voice died down suddenly and the pain left with it; then both came back, louder and more painful than before. It happened a few times and it felt like someone ripped him out of consciousness and brought him back; with every time the things around him got clearer a bit.

Even though he couldn’t remember closing his eyes, they fluttered open sometime later. And this time he could actually see something. Everything around him was bright and blurry as he stared at some spot somewhere in the far. He didn’t recognize anything and he had no strength to let his eyes move even the tiniest bit before they fluttered shut again.

Eunhyuk felt something on his hand the next time he was surrounded by that strange brightness. Pressure, something pressed it down. What was this warmth he felt? And those movements? More voices, more beeping noises; rustling and snippets of words.

"Hyung."

Someone was there with him. But who was it and where was he to begin with? What was this place and how had he gotten here? He tried to remember the last thing he knew.   
His mind was blank.

"Do you see this?"

He saw something appearing in his field of vision after blinking his eyes; it moved from side to side, but he couldn’t follow its movements. The voice he heard was completely unfamiliar, even though the other spoke like they were close with each other. And maybe they actually were close – but Eunhyuk didn’t recognize anything. What he knew though was that it was a different voice than he had heard before and it was also different from the one he heard next.

"We're just examining your head. There's no need to worry."

There was a shadow quite close to him, a person maybe. That someone reached out his hands and he could feel them on his head a moment later. He couldn’t tell what the other did and it didn’t matter anyway: the next time he noticed himself staring at that spot in the far the shadow was gone. However, this time he finally recognized the voice of the person speaking to him.

"Hyukjae, is everything okay?"

That was his mother. Yes, that was definitely her.              
Eunhyuk blinked his eyes a few times without being able to do anything against the blurriness around him. He wanted to say something, to move to make her understand that he was trapped somehow so that she could help him. Nothing happened though; the only thing he managed to do was to very slightly move the pointer of his left hand, a movements that was immediately noticed.

"Yes, yes. I'm here. And appa is here, too."

He could see some movements on his right side, maybe another person standing beside his mother. Someone started whispering from his other side and it sounded encouraging, he thought. Hesitation was what followed next and it looked like that second person left the room, only to come back a short moment later.

"Look who's also here to greet you."

His father's voice was quiet and almost didn’t reach him through the buzzing pain in his head, but he very well noticed what happened next. Something was placed on his bed – that he was lying in one was a fact that slowly started dawning on him – and it had a light brown color. He felt something wet and rough on his fingers and whatever it was moved rapidly before it suddenly barked.

Choco.

Eunhyuk blinked his eyes again and finally was able to move them a tiny bit. Searching for his dog he heard something that sounded like a relieved gasp quite close to him and the next thing he felt was his hand being lifted up to come in touch with his pet's soft fur.       
His eyes eventually found his dog and he fixed them on her even though she was nothing more than a blob of brown to him. Another happy bark was heard and once again he felt something wet. He wanted to move his hand some more, but he started to feel more tired by the second. As he closed his eyes he actually just wanted to blink them without knowing that he fell asleep once again.

***

"I'll come back tomorrow, alright?"

Soft pressure was on his hand and suddenly the warmth surrounding it was gone. He couldn’t tell who had spoken to him, but whoever it was: he didn’t want to be alone. Eunhyuk still wasn’t able to make a sound and so he tried to move his hand, to grab the other's to stop him from leaving. But everything he could feel as he eventually moved it was something soft underneath his fingers that only barely wanted to curl. The pain in his head increased once again, so much that he wanted to scream – and the next second it was gone.

It started lingering somewhere in the back of his head some time later, that was what he thought at least. There were voices again; mumbled words, whispers and calls of his name.     
Hearing voices… that felt familiar. He had heard them a lot in the past, hadn't he? But when, how?

Eunhyuk tried to recall the memories that hid somewhere in his aching head. Yes, he had heard voices. And he had heard them very often. It had confused him because he… he had thought he was hallucinating. That's right, he had thought that. But why had he been thinking that way?

The voices had been overlapping with those of the people around him. That had been okay most of the time. It had only concerned him when he had heard Donghae's-

Donghae.

There was something wrong with Donghae. It felt weird to think about him, like something had happened. What was the reason for that, why had it been weird to especially hear the brunet's voice?

Worlds. Eunhyuk had kept switching worlds. Yes, that's right. He had switched worlds – one of them had been fine and the other hadn't. Why? … Because in one of those worlds there had been so many people crying and it had hurt, his hand had hurt. He couldn’t tell why. The other one… Donghae had been there. He hadn't been there in the sad one. Why hadn't he been there?

The accident. There had been an accident.
Donghae…
Stairs.
Donghae had fallen down the stairs. And he… he had tried to grab him, but it hadn't worked.
Blood, Donghae's blood.
Donghae…
…was dead.

It was like a lightning bolt shot through his body. All of his memories were back in a heartbeat, he knew everything again. Donghae had fallen down the stairs; he hadn't been able to grab his arm in time. Eunhyuk was guilty because Donghae had wanted to leave because of him. Donghae had died because of him, in both worlds – or to say it better in the past and in the present. He had killed him, the younger was gone. He was gone.

His eyes slowly fluttered open; once again he couldn’t remember that he had shut them. White, everything around him was white and he quickly shut his eyes again as he was blended too much. He tried it again after some seconds he needed to collect himself, blinked his eyes multiple times until his surroundings got just a bit clearer.

White walls and furniture he didn’t recognize. It felt a bit familiar, but there was no way that he could tell where he was a