Back drop

45 years ago, the last remaining governing system was overthrown by the freedom revolution; the movement was led by a group of idealists that had wanted this world to be free for all its inhabitants. No systems, no policies, no oppressions, everyone entitled to their rights without needing to submit and answer to anyone. They had faith that humans will be able to function better without a political control, but they were wrong.

Post revolution, the place was dominated by of the powerful criminals who no longer have anyone to control them. The crime rates grew, but with a free society where everyone did what they wanted, there was no one to deter the criminals from doing what they wanted. The idealists had fallen eventually and the place was thrown into chaos.

The revolution had not only given freedom to the people, it had also given criminals a way to thrive. The criminals had eventually gotten out of control and the world was in chaos. The place had no rules and no one to set them. The idealist had failed to control their creation and wanted to revolutionise again.

This time, there will be no war as there will be no one to fight it. They have to gain control again by curbing the criminals from causing more chaos, the criminals were then named the powers.

In order to control these criminals and punish them, the idealists had to create a weapon. They have to start from scratch, so the idealists had decided it was for the better good to use innocent children rather than recruit anyone or hire mercenaries from this deceitful world.

Picking up children at random, the idealists had hidden them from the society and mound them to fit their purpose secretly. There were a total of 20 batches with a 100 children in each batch. Many of the children had died during the mounding process and even more had died during their missions, or were hunted down and captured by the powers.

There are less than a quarter left by the end of the 20 years of preparations. The idealists however, felt they were ready to launch their weapon and regain control. The idealists then gave themselves a term called GODS or also known as the higher power. Their weapon will adopt the term, numbers. They were to keep their identity a secret and merge into the society again, to induce fear in the powers' hearts and to punish them through execution.

The GODS had 8 numbers that they keep as their backup, they will be summoned when the other numbers had failed. This 8 numbers are also the most wanted by the powers for the information they have on the GODS.

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13 years ago, flashback from Junsu - number 6

BAMM! BBZZZZZZZZZ *silence* A bomb had exploded behind the bus that I was in... bodies were littered everywhere... blood was everywhere... I could barely keep my eyes open but i could feel someone dragging me out from the wreckage. 

I was from batch 2, my number was 3… I was with another 39 of my comrades when the bomb had gone off. There were only 40 of us left in batch 2 by the time I was ten… now… I’m the only one left. Batch 2 will be totally annihilated if I were dead as well… they had thought it was a miracle that i had survived this attack.

While I was recuperating, I had thought about my life and its meaning... I don’t know how I came about… no one ever told me how I came to exist. Even when I had asked the people around me… they had not been able to answer me.

Everyday had been a struggle for me since I knew my left hand from right… I had many other children my age surrounding me everyday… but we never had a relationship with one another. We were not even friends… we are not allowed to be.

In the camp, we did nothing but study, combat practice, and physical conditioning every day. No fun, no dreams, no goals in life… we were robots. We pledge our lives to GODS everyday… like a message drilled into our minds since we knew ABC, the pledge we made every day became the only thing we lived for.

We also have the dreaded "qualifying rounds" every month. Many of them will go for it but few will return. Then it was my turn and I finally knew what they had left to do. I had committed my first act of murder at the age of 9… I wasn’t given a choice back then. It’s me or him… I had to do it. Then I had to go every month… then it became every week… and eventually every day. I had lost count of the lives I had taken… all I wanted to do was survive and return. I was scared at first… then I grew used to it… even my conscience became conditioned to this heinous acts.

A bell would sound every morning at 5 am, we were given 5 minutes every day to get ready and assemble outside our bunks. Be it rain or shine, snowing or not… the routine becomes a part of us. After waking up, the day will be all about trying to surviving… sometimes I wished I would not wake up anymore… but even this thought got lost over time.

When the blast had occurred, I thought I would finally die… but I had not. The minute I woke up, I knew that my life would change... I knew I was finally punished for my sins… 

My punishment? … I was deafened by the blast.

For the next 13 years, I had lived in silence. They had decided to give me a chance and allowed me to master lip reading and sign language. I was even taught to speak like a normal person. They were desperate to keep me useful… they had not anticipated the attack… and definitely hadn’t anticipated that a whole batch will be killed in just one day.

I was the only one left that they could use… but I am not what I was before… the blast had knocked the conscience back into me. I could no longer murder anyone without the feeling of guilt. Every one live I took had caused the hole in my conscience to widen. The guilt becomes so painful to bear; I wake up every day wishing I had died in my sleep.

I felt someone's presence behind me and had turned around before the person could tap me on the shoulder. It is my student approaching me. The adorable chubby little boy was smiling and saying something to me with hand signs.

“Teacher. My mother is here. Thank you for looking after me before she came. I will go home now. See you tomorrow.” He had “said” to me via sign language.

“Fine. Go on home. See you tomorrow.” I signalled back to him. He then gave me a hug and left.

I work at a school for the disabled children, I teach them sign language. This is my job during the day. The only few hours in my life that does not involve any bloodshed or deaths. This job is the only thing that keeps me sane. 

I had only slept at 4 am in the morning and woken up at 5 am. I could barely sleep. Looking at the mirror last night, I had saw blood stains smeared all around the bathroom… again. I was not alarmed... I see that all the time… it’s just my imagination running wild… my conscience eating at me again. This illusions are a grim reminder of what I had done… I had learnt to live with it.

Today, I will not be given a mission as I had just completed one. This is one of the benefits of being a tentacle. I will only be summoned when the other numbers had failed. I have been carrying out assassinations for code 1 targets for some time now and there aren’t many of them around. I can rest well knowing I will not need to kill anyone for the next few days.

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Junsu had checked into a new hotel. He knows that the powers are constantly on the hunt for him and he will never station himself in one place for too long; that means he does not have a home.

He had not been able to sleep for more than 3 hours every day; for a very long time. He was so conditioned to wake up at 5 am every day, therefore only a drink can help him sleep longer. He is determined to sleep more this weekend so he will drink even though he hates it.

Heading out of the hotel room, he made his way to the nearby pub for a fast drinking session.

TBC

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It will be a little messy at first, but it will be clearer towards the later chapters... hopefully! *bows and apologises*