When I woke up -
Brought back to reality by hands unknown -
I was all alone.

 

There was not a person in sight:
Not a rebel or a villager.

 

The sound of fighting had long faded into the distance,
Forever lost with the passing of the pressing nighttime,
But long remembered by the boy who embodied the forgotten past of the village -
The pitiful boy who lost everything.

The bodies that had once lined the earth
Had disappeared into oblivion,
And in their place were patches of thorns, brambles, and briers,
Deeply distressed by the deaths of the brave men who fought selflessly for their homeland.

It was only when I realized

How alone I was

That I came to wonder

Where my family had gone

And what had become of them.

 

I frantically searched for the body of my father,
Running to the place where I remembered holding his head,
Seeing the contentment shine in his eyes,
Wishing with the last of my strength for him to return.

 

I went to the place almost in a dream,
Everything around me seeming so foreign and out of reach.

 

When I finally reached the place where my father's body had lain,
My feet had become drenched in blood -

My own blood;
The blood brought about by the pricks of thorns,
The thorns brought about by the blood of the fallen.

 

But at that moment,
The thorns penetrating my skin
And the blood covering my feet
Did not matter.

 

The only thing that mattered
Was the feather lying in front of me,
Right on the spot where my father had been shot.

 

The feather was light brown -

The color my father's eyes had been
Before the rebellion began.

 

I carefully picked up the feather
And held it close to my heart,
All the while letting my tears flow freely,
Now painfully aware that I was not yet a man,
Merely a boy searching for hope
In a world drained of all life and purpose.

 

And as my tears ran down my cheeks,
Flowing down my neck and trailing to my fingertips,
I began to feel the pangs of loneliness
And the misery of mourning.

When my tears touched the feather,
It turned from its shade of light brown
Into a shade of pale, pale blue -
The same color of the daytime sky
Just as it had been before everything was lost;
When everything was the way I remembered it being.

With the feather in my hands,
I went in search of my mother -
Of whatever was left of my mother.

 

It was there,
Lying on the earth below the great oak tree
Where my sister had once been restrained,

That I found what I was looking for:

A single rose petal
As red as the blood coated onto my feet
And stained into my hair.

 

When I held the petal between my fingertips,
I felt the thorns that had been sticking into the soles of my feet disappear,
And I wept in gratitude and sorrowful understanding.

 

My mother,
The woman who had consoled the roses and made them shed their thorns,
Had performed her last act of kindness
Through a single rose petal.

I kissed the petal in my fingers.

It was the last kiss I would ever give my mother -
A kiss I savored above all else.

 

With the petal between my fingers,
I placed my father's feather behind my ear.
I then put the peal into the pocket of my jeans gently,
Hoping that it would not be harmed on my trail home.

 

With tears still flowing from my eyes,
I went to touch the bark of the oak tree,
Hoping to find a piece of my sister there.

 

And it was there,
On top of the outstretched roots of the great tree,
That I found her -

What remained of her.

 

Resting there peacefully,
As if waiting for me,
Was a pile of ashes:
My sister's ashes.

The ashes were as gold as the sunshine,
As gold as her eyes had been.

They were the ashes that remained

After her spirit of fire had been released

And had burned what was left of her corpse.

 

For without her spirit,

My sister's body was useless,

Wandering alone in the world without a purpose -

Much like myself

At that same moment in time.

 

Slowly, carefully,
I scooped the small pile of ashes into my hands,
Tears falling freely to the earth
As I remembered all of the wonderful times we spent together:

All of the laughs we shared;

All of the smiles she gave me when I was feeling upset;

All of the songs we sang as we ran through fields of tall grass;

All of the nights we stayed up late, waiting for sleep to fall upon us.

I cried with the recollection of happy memories
And with the regret of a brother who never appreciated the good things he once had.

I cried at the thought of

All of the words left unsaid;

All of the hugs rejected
And all of the kisses unreturned;

All of the scowls
And all of the hurtful names;

All of it returns to me in an instance
And my heart can no longer keep from collapsing in my chest.

 

It was there,
Under the bare branches of the tree,
With my sister's ashes in one hand
And the other hand on my heart
That I shed the heaviest, most sorrowful tears I have ever shed in my life.

It was then that I realized that everything had changed
And that no matter how much I cried,
Nothing would ever be the way it once was.

 

 

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

 

I thought of my father.
I thought of my mother.
I thought of my sister.

And I thought of myself last.

 

I was just a boy,
Left alone in a world
Rid of all hope
And all solace.

And as I walked back down the familiar road,
Covered in dirt and small stones -
The very road on which I had walked with my family
To return home

So many times before -
I told myself that everything had changed
And there was nothing more I could do.

 

When I reached the place where my home had once been,
I found that everything had been destroyed.

 

The trees had all been burned,
The beautiful flowers that had once grown there had been singled by the embers,
And all of our livestock had been slaughtered and left to rot.

And our home
Was nowhere to be found.

 

The rebels had burned it to the ground,
And when all that was left were ashes,

They had carried the ashes to a place far away
To be released in the wind
And never seen again.

 

It was on that day
That I sat beneath one of the few trees that remained,
Leaned my head against the black bark,
And fell asleep -

Just as I had done
On so many lazy summer days
Back when everything was the way it used to be.

 

I did not wake up again
Until the next day.

I had slept through the night
With my father's feather behind my ear,
My mother's rose petal in my pocket,
And my sister's ashes in my hands.

 

I did not know what to do next,
But there was a voice in the back of my head
Telling me to continue on the trail.

I argued with the voice for a few moments,

But it was only after realizing that I had nothing to lose

And nothing to gain by staying in the barren land where my home used to be

That I gave into the wish of the voice.

 

And so,
With the wind at my back
And nothing but black clouds above me,
I carried on.

 

It was there,
Just off of the trail,
That I found what I needed most.

 

There was a small, quaint little cottage there,
Untouched by the rebels,
Untouched by anyone.

My sister and I had passed by that cottage many times,
But never once did we approach it.

 

We were told that a miserable old woman lived in that house -
A woman who cursed those who disturbed her serenity
And made sure that they died a most horrid death.

 

She was feared by all the villagers

For one reason

And one reason alone:

 

It was her job
To bring death.

 

But now,
Looking at the cottage from up close,
I realized that I would rather die
Than live the rest of my life alone.

Now that I had lost everything -

Everyone who ever meant anything to me -
What purpose was left in living?

 

Why did they deserve to die

While I was left untouched,

Unharmed?

 

What more was left for me here?

How much heartache could I handle?

 

So I approached the cottage without fear.

 

It was only when I had reached the doorstep that I realized something:

The cottage was empty.

 

The door was wide open
And the insides were covered with dust and cob webs.

 

What remained in the cottage
Were a few cans in the cupboard,
A few empty picture frames on a long table,
And a few old books on a large, wooden bookshelf.

 

I went into the house slowly,
Appreciating every little imperfection that I saw,

For every imperfection
Symbolized my situation.

 

It was in the abandoned cottage I stayed.

 

I did not sleep in the bedroom
Because I feared the comfort.

I only wanted to feel discomfort,
The pain my family was forced to endure.

 

I did not want to close my eyes
Because I did not want to see the rebellion,
My sister's face,
Everything as it used to be
Behind my closed eyelids.

 

And I did not want to leave
Because I did not want to return to the outside world
Where everything had changed.

 

So I placed a pillow from the small, dusty sofa on the floor
And sat there,
Absolutely silent and still.

 

I stared at the door,
Hoping that maybe,
By some miracle,
My parents and sister would come walking in,
Holding their hands out to me,
Telling me they were looking all over for me
And were worried sick.

 

I stared at the window

Hoping that maybe,

By some miracle,

The sun would shine through

And remind me that change was reversible

And I still had something to live for.

 

I stared at a cracked mirror hanging on the wall,

Hoping that maybe,

Just maybe,

The face that was looking back at me

Was not real.

 

That face,

Covered in dirt, sweat, and tears,

With eyes that had turned dark with grief

And hair that had turned red with the blood of the fallen,

Just couldn't be real.

 

I once had a clean face,

A face on which rays of sunlight danced

And raindrops rested,

Tired from their fall.

I once had light eyes,

Eyes that seemed friendly,

Eyes that held many stories

And wanted to see more of the world,

Just as it was.

I once had light hair,

Hair the same color of my father's eyes,

Hair that people saw and recognized instantly

For being the hair of a gentle boy,

A boy who caught the rain

And cared for his sister

More than he cared for himself.

 

It was in the emptiness of the house
That I realized I had changed.

 

I had changed,
And there was no going back.

 

I was no longer Minhyuk,
The boy who caught the raindrops;

The boy who argued with his father;

The boy who abused his mother's kindness;

The boy who called his sister a fool,
Even though she possessed more wisdom than anyone else;

The boy who watched an entire village change in a single night
But was unable to do anything to stop it.

 

I had been reborn
Into a new person:

A person who did not want to fall asleep;

A person who preferred to live in darkness
Because he feared the light would bring back memories;

A person who would not fall asleep
Because he did not want to dream about anything that had happened;

A person who thrived on the feeling of loneliness
And came to accept it as a brother and a friend.

 

From that day forward,
I was called B-Bomb.

I had witness my entire life fall apart
In a single moment,
Just as a person observes a sudden calmness
Before a bomb is dropped
And everything changes
In an instance.

The rebellion was the bomb
That changed the village as I once knew it.

It had taken the lives of men, women, and children,
Leaving me alone and helpless.

It had destroyed the land,
Leaving me hopeless and hungry.

 

And I only fed the destruction
By watching,
Just as one can only watch
As a bomb is dropped,
And everything is destroyed.

 

I bore this name
Out of my inconceivable guilt
For letting the destruction continue.

 

And in bearing this name,
I was reborn,
Just like a butterfly.

 

Only I was a butterfly
Without any wings.

 

 

 

 

________________________________________________________________________________

This is the last establishing chapter.

After this chapter, Yookwon will come in (although I don't exactly know when) as will other members.

You just really had to read this for the story to make sense.

I think I failed with this chapter.

I really wanted to show Minhyuk's grief...but I don't think I did a very good job of that.

What do you think? Was it alright?

This story has become something I look forward to writing and I really hope that you are enjoying it.

I promise, things will start to get more interesting from here.(:

Thank you for reading! Comments/opinions/criticisms/suggestions are always welcomed! <3