Yoo Youngjae
Rise of Heroes
Please state your name.
Yoo Youngjae
Please state your association.
None
Please state your encounter.
My feet pounded on the ground as the blazing amber sun beat down my back. Sweat dripped down my face as I scurried to hide behind another giant bush in the forest. The smell of rotting flesh was growing worse by the minute but this was the price many of us had to pay. My village wasn’t the base of a revolution, nor were we criminals. Most of us were regular citizens who lived ordinarily in fear of tomorrow. Apparently, though, the mere sight of humans cowering in fear didn’t secure the government’s rule over us all; they had to take precautions to insure that no more revolutions would try to take them down. That was the day the government decided to take drastic measures to ensure that none of us would try to fight against them. The soldiers who they sent were ordered to kill us all. Every man, woman, and child. No one was safe and a lot of my loved ones are dead, if not all.
I'm guessing that the ones that the military soldiers haven’t killed yet are being used as slaves for the time. Bodies are probably piling up, a new corpse every minute until the entire population has been wiped out. Before the soldiers even stepped foot into our village, everyone already knew of the deaths happening on the outside. Some probably perished from disease, others from starvation. But the thing was, everyone knew the truth. Because above all these semi-natural disasters, the cause of most deaths was cold-blooded murder.
I passed through the thick forest alone only to see another dead man lying in his puddle of blood. His left arm was crudely severed and his stomach cut open to reveal his slimy insides. The slit on his throat was deep enough that his windpipe was exposed to the air. The blood caked on his face made it difficult to identify who it was. The body was mangled, almost torn into two as if by some wild animal. Judging from the darkness of the ruby liquid, the man had been dead for a good number of days. The soldiers were probably here for quite a while before they invaded my village.
I closed my eyes and hurried away. Slit throats, puncture wounds, protruding ribs, the gruesome sight didn’t faze me as much anymore but I would be lying if I said that I didn’t want to throw up after every encounter.
Everyone in our village knew it, yet no one said a word. Out of fear, of course, because defying the government meant losing your life in a matter of minutes, hours if you were lucky. No one wanted to die. Too many people had done so already and all they craved for was the key to survival. To be free of the cage that bound them to this godforsaken land they once called home.
My father told me that it shouldn’t be the government officials I should be afraid of. Apparently, those officials had spies, ones who were more terrifying because of what they did. They were the ones sent by the government to infiltrate villages and find out who the ‘traitors’ were. They plastered smiles on their faces and faked friendships long enough to find out the secret bases of their ‘friends’ and to order the murder of all the village. It was simple, easy, bearable after a while, I’d think. Throats were slashed, guts were spilled and blood splattered on the wall like a layer of fresh paint.
The spies watched in silence, a straight line for a mouth. The only thing distinguishing them from an emotionless robot was that millisecond of sadness that flashed in their eyes before they disappeared. However, rarely anyone saw that millisecond. Perhaps it was for the best. Once you start feeling sorry for the enemy, your enemy becomes yourself.
But, you see, my best friend was the spy.
How’d I find out?
The day the soldiers came, right before I went home, I witnessed him blast my father’s brains out. I backed away quickly from my house and ducked behind the stack of wooden crates a couple buildings away. He stepped out of my house with a grin on his face, walking out and disappearing instantly in an alleyway. The second I saw him gone, the house exploded. The damn bastard detonated the bomb he placed inside. Angry flames danced in front of my eyes while I watched it swallow the building whole. The tiles of the jungle green roof fell and shattered as it made contact with the gravel ground below. Because it was a wooden house, the raging fire consumed my home in a matter of minutes.
It’s sad how I couldn’t even cry.
The loud beeping of our emergency alarm had me running away like a coward before I had the chance to mourn. The soldiers had arrived.
Screams pierced the once calm atmosphere of our village, and before I knew it, I acquired a rifle from my uncle along with all the others who managed escape. All the boys my age were ordered to take the children to safety and my uncle assumed the role of our chaperone. Half of us made it.
I knew I shouldn’t have, but when I turned back to see what happened, all I saw was blood soaking the street and corpses of children on the dusty, gravel ground.
Sangheun was gone, so was Jinyoung, Mikah, Seunghyun, Minwoo, and Carlos.
We made it to the forest, the remaining ten of us with the responsibility of protecting a kid. It was only a matter of time before the soldiers invaded the forest too. They swarmed in like a horrid disease, weapons out and ready. They didn’t care that there were children. They had no remorse.
Once the first bullet whizzed past, our group scattered.
One by one, I heard them drop.
Gunshots rang and echoed like deadly fireworks throughout the mass of bark and leaves.
“Youngjae!”
With every call, I lost a friend.
“Hyung!”
I scooped the little boy into my arms and kept running, trying to ignore the cries of pain and pleas in the background.
“Hyung, I’m scared,” he whispered, clinging to front of my shirt. I looked at him, the tears dripping down his chubby cheeks and his jet black hair ruffled from fleeing the village. Kiron’s smaller fists were balled into the fabric of my shirt, tightening with every exploding bullet.
“It’s okay, Kiron” I said, holding him closer to me. “Nothing will-”
The force from a grenade’s explosion sent the two of us flying. My grip loosened and I accidentally let go.
The side of my head collided with the ground and everything turned into a distorted mass of colors. Nothing made sense for a while so I felt around a for a bit until I realized that Kiron was no longer in my arms. It took a minute but I knew I had to get up and find him. Somehow, I stood up to circle around to find him and received a shot to the shoulder. it hurt like hell but Kiron was more important than the throbbing pain and the blood soaking through my shirt. The rain of metal bullets still hadn’t ended so I had to zig zag my way around to catch a glimpse of the black-haired boy in a sky blue shirt.
“Run, Youngjae! Run!” My uncle sped past carrying a little girl with a rifle in his unoccupied hand. Just as he rushed along, I spotted a sobbing Kiron crawling to me yards away from a fallen tree. I don’t know how, but his legs were gone. Bloodied stumps that ended at his knees.
“Hy-Hyung!” his dark eyes were wide in shock, watery and red. Fresh blood smothered the grass and foliage behind him as he inched forward slowly.
“Kiron!” yelling, I tried to rush back to save him, but stronger hands held me back. I struggled to tear away from the person’s grip but, judging from my state, to no avail. I thrashed about wildly until Kiron was knocked down by a bullet to the head. I remember it clearly.
“Run!” my uncle screamed at me, so I did.
Side by side we fled from the scene, sprinting away with all we had. Everyone else was gone and it was only-
Two more gunshots.
“K-Keep running! Be the hope that this world needs!”
A third shot.
I was the only one left.
That night, I climbed the tree with enough bushy leaves to camouflage me. I was exhausted, but I couldn’t-or more like wouldn’t go to sleep. Every time I tried shutting my eyes, the images of all of their lifeless bodies appeared in my mind. It drove me crazy, the fact that I couldn’t save even one of them.
Before you guys found me, I thought I’d go mad.
Making sure there was time before the sun rose, I jumped down the tree and darted away from my location. As far as I knew, the guards were over there and my best chance at survival was to race the opposite direction. The forest is an incredibly large and dense place. Towering trees stood for miles that it seemed never ending. Which brings me back to when I passed by the mangled body of a man who was probably killed days earlier.
“You! Halt!”
I quickly whipped around and shot the shouting soldier before making another run for it. The rifle was loud and attracted attention, pretty soon, all the soldiers would come swarming in again. Luckily for me, I managed to disappear before attracting a huge crowd. I detoured a couple times and tripped on another body. Though, he wasn’t anyone I knew at all.
A brunette with strands of gray hair and horn-rimmed glasses. Clad in a black wifebeater beneath his dusty black leather jacket, army green military pants, and navy blue combat boots, he smelled like the typical revolutionary man who had been murdered a day earlier by the dogs of government officials. Decent build, I'd say. I'm not sure if he's a part of your revolution, but the guy was dead either way. I doubt he'd be much use to you.
And though it was useless, I checked his pulse. Like any other time, there wasn’t one. The blood flow had stopped ages ago judging from the stiffness of the body and the crumbling dry blood.
I checked his pockets for some sort of identification or a knife of some sort. He wasn’t as mangled as the other man a while ago so a majority of his belongings were possibly readable and useable.
In my pocket inspection, I found his brown leather wallet. A hunk of old, tattered leather ripped on the sides and smelled a bit like beef jerky.
His ID stated that his name was Romeri Artuso, forty three years of age, and the captain of squad fifteen. Definitely a revolutionary. The rest of his squad’s probably dead by now too. Our village doesn't cross paths with captains very often. Our usuals are mostly the underlings or regular civilians.
I emptied out the contents of his wallet and found a wad of old bills and a folded piece of ripped paper.
Out of curiosity, I unfolded it, expecting some sort of coded letter. It wasn’t though. It was still a letter, yeah, but it wasn’t a coded one that gave away your guys’s base positions or anything.
Can you show it to us?
Buildings are toppling over into nothingess, people are being erased,
and for those who are still existent, only pending death in in their
wake. The rest of my infiltration squad has been captured by the
government and I am outnumbered fifty to one. However, that doesn't
matter. I'll die fighting. The world has lost six brave boys who today
have become men. They fought for what they believed in and they died
noble deaths. We can't let their efforts be in vain. We can't be the
cowards we once were, cowering in fear of the government and military.
We must stand our ground and fight! Life is only a tragedy for those
who believe it should be.
There is hope, my friends. There will always be hope no matter the
deaths. My comrades have laid down their life to protect the innocent.
They are heroes. There will always be people who will fight to the end
and I know that you will be one of them.
I am Romeri Artuso, captain of squad 15, and I send this message to
the fighters in this world.
Be the hope that this world needs.
It was stupid, I thought. Just another dying man’s last will. Heroes, huh? No one could save us now. Where were these so-called heroes my grandfather and this man talked of? Right, they were all dead. Useless, actually.
So I pocketed the letter, and left.
And the rest is history. One of your men found me and now I’m here with you guys.
What happe-
I don’t want to talk about it.
As you wish. You may leave.
Wait!
Yes?
I want to stay and fight with the revolutionaries!
State your reason.
I realized.
Before he died, my grandfather told me that one day, heroes will rise again and save us all. I believed him at first, but ever since everyone I knew died in front of me time and time again, I stopped. I thought that if these so-called heroes will rise, then why won’t they rise now? So many deaths have happened and so many innocent people have died, why aren’t they coming out to save us all? I thought my grandfather was crazy for having had so much faith in something so mythical. Heroes, huh? The idea of them was laughable at the time. It was stupid.
But then, I remembered what my grandfather, my uncle, and the captain said before they died.
‘Be the hope that his world needs’.
It took me awhile to figure it all out, you know, what they meant and all.
But then, I realized it. Really, I did.
How long do we have to wait for these ‘heroes’? When will they suddenly pop out of nowhere and rise to defeat evil? That’s what I used to think. Now, I know.
Heroes are the people who give others hope. They’re the ones who keep fighting til the end for a better future. Dreaming of a better future is the only thing we can do if we decide to lay down and let the government trample us.
True, we may never know what the future holds, but whatever happens to me, I don’t care. I’m going to fight until the end for what I believe in. I’ll fight for those who can’t fight for themselves and for all my friends who have fallen trying to protect the ones they love. If I die, I die, but at least I died trying.
State your purpose.
My name is Yoo Youngjae.
No matter how many people fall, or how many lives are taken, hope will always come. No one can take that away from us.
I will be the hope that the world needs.
I will be a hero.
---
Bang Yongguk turned off the video that his secretary had sent him and headed out the room. He walked down the hallway, greeting his comrades who passed him by. The lean man kept his pace, stopping only once he reached the front of room A4.
With a quick flick of his wrist, he unlocked the door and pushed it open to reveal the face of the boy he had seen only minutes before. The one with unruly dark brown hair, slightly chubby cheeks, and battered clothing from the days before he reached his facility.
The boy quirked an eyebrow at him, a gesture Yongguk only smiled at.
'I will be the hope that the world needs', huh?
Finally, he thought. This is the rise of heroes.
and so is the end of my lameness xDDD
idk but this might be the beginning of some
random story that might pop up later on...
so i guess this is a novel excerpt? Yep.
Thank you for dealing with my idiocity, loves.
Love, Jelly <3
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