[CONTENTID1]CHAPTER TWO - THE BEGINNING[/CONTENTID1]
[CONTENTID2]

I was nine years old when it all started. 

It's so loud outside I can barely make out Bugs Bunny's voice through the speakers of the TV. I like the older shows, I always have. Eomma says it's because I have an old soul that I like old things. I like to listen to music from the 1990s, I like to wear clothes that look like they've been taken right out of Grease. I like to watch black and white movies and feel the colours instead of see them. Hyomi's not at all like me. She hates it when I sing an Elvis song, she says the past should stay in the past. She doesn't like watching the old channels like Cartoon Network, not now that Disney Channel previews trashy, generic and recycled shows. She prefers the newer style of clothing, she'll choose thigh-high boots and tiny skirts over a modest, knee-lengthed dress any day. I hate Hyomi, she calls me weird. I don't like to be insulted, I have to put up with it at school all the time.

It's not easy being 'the freak that's obsessed with old stuff'. But I don't think too much about it because I know that when I get home, Eomma will happily watch my Pulp Fiction with me (of course she covers my eyes during some scenes, though I don't know why) and play Frank Sinatra on her iPod. Although she's the best eomma anyone could ever ask for, my role model is my Appa. He's one of the best taekwondo practitioners in the whole of South Korea. He's a Saseong, a very skilled one. I hope to follow in his footsteps - I want to be just as good as him or perhaps better. It's why I work so hard in school even though I hate it, because Appa says I can't be physically trained without first being mentally trained. So I work hard to get the best grades because that's the only way he'll continue to teach me whenever he gets home from yet another one of his competitions. 

I feel the ground start to vibrate and I stop shaking my plush toy in frustration. Deciding it's too noisy, I turn off my TV and leave my room, walking down the hallway to the living room where Hyomi and Eomma are. Or at least that's where I thought they were. I look around and see that there's no one around. Inside is silent whilst outside, angry shouts and screams can be heard. I walk to the window and pull open the blinds, looking out. I see masses of bodies and a plethora of signs and banners. It's a riot. I've never seen a riot before and so I'm intrigued. I'm about to open the window and ask someone for an explanation when I hear the front door opening and turn to see Hyomi and Eomma rushing in. They slam the door behind them and run over to me, Eomma lifting me into her arms and hugging me tightly.

"Ma, what's wrong?" I ask her but she says nothing, only cries into my shoulder. I look at Hyomi but her expression gives nothing away. She simply walks to the kitchen and takes a can of beans out of the cabinet. "Eomma, what's wrong?"

"Everything's going to change, Hyerim," she whispers in my ear but I don't understand. Hyomi returns to the living room and turns on the TV, her eyes glued to the screen as it comes on. My sister might look nonchalant but I know inside she's worrying, she's panicking. I can see it in her eyes, I can see it in the way she grits the metal spoon between her teeth before finally scooping up more beans, I can see it in the way her fingers drum nervously on the can in her hands. Something's wrong but I say nothing, knowing I will not get a response from either of them. I wish Appa was here, he never shuts up. He would tell me straight away what was happening. 

The news channel comes on and I wiggle out of Eomma's arms, walking over to Hyomi and stopping next to her, my eyes also fixed on the screen. Eomma joins us. We're all silent, the riot loud and slightly frightening outside our house. The woman on the screen is talking about some kind of war. She's speaking too fast and I can't understand her. I become frustrated because as Eomma and Hyomi's faces change with different emotions, mine maintains the same expression: confusion. I want to know what's going on.

"Eomma~~" I whine and her eyes flicker to mine. There are tears in them. "What is the woman saying?" 

"America and ISIS went to war today, Hyerim," she answers and I furrow my brows. I still don't understand. What does that have to do with us? We're South Korean. American and ISIS problems don't concern us, do they? "Remember what happened last year?" I remember. Everyone spoke about it at school that day, the day ISIS bombed several buildings in Washington, DC. 30, 214 people died that day. "American fought back today. They're officially at war."

"What does that have to do with us?" I ask her. 

"We're one of America's allies, babo. We're going to help them," Hyomi answers for our mother. "This isn't just a war between America and ISIS. It's a war that has us, America, Britain, Australia, New Zealand, France and Canada versus ISIS, Russia, China, North Korea and Japan." I can't believe what I'm hearing. Although I'm young, I'd have to be stupid not to understanding exactly what my sister is saying.

"What about the other countries? Who are they siding with?" I ask her.

"Themselves," she replies, looking away. Suddenly, realisation hits me and my heart begins to beat hard and fast in my chest. 

"Does this mean-"

"Appa's not away on a competition," Eomma admits and I feel tears welling in my eyes. My head hurts and my legs are numb, though I manage to stay standing. "We didn't know how to tell you." I remember how sad Appa was when he said goodbye, how tightly he hugged me and how hard he kissed my forehead before he walked out the door and disappeared into a black car. He even gave me his favourite bracelet, a cheap faux-leather one he got from the night market. I look down at my doll and run a finger over the bracelet around her neck. I hug her to my chest and blink rapidly, tears spilling onto my cheeks.

"He'll come back, right?" I sniff, looking up at my mother and sister. They glance at each other then look back at me, their faces stricken with fear and their cheeks stained with their own tears. "He'll come back. I know he will."

He never came back. Days passed and the riots got worst. Criminal activities proliferated and looters formed gangs, attacking small stores at first then targeting the bigger ones when they got strong enough. My family and I had fled our hometown, going to Daegu where we were promised was safer than the areas closer to the North. World War 3 put the first two to shame. The number of deaths were unimaginable, the horror and poverty that resulted from it was unfathomable. 

People were scared. It was their fear that led to The Beginning. At first, countries fought with guns and tanks and bombs. Then nuclear bombs were introduced and devastation spread across the globe. It got worse, with Napalm being reintroduced, Agent Orange making it's recurrence, and again being used as a weapon as it had been in the Second Congo War. The Khmer Rouge Regime had been put to test by a number of countries, the whole thing could be describe as one big holocaust that far surpassed the horror and casualties of the Nazi one. 

By 2021, over three hundred million people had been recorded tortured, and/or killed. People were getting hopeless, it seemed the world was digging itself a bigger grave by the second. The first pin was dropped when rumours of China and Russia working together to create cyborgs - half human, half machine hybrids. It was as unbelievable as it was dangerous but we were wrong to brush those rumours off as precisely that - rumours. In 2022, the first line of cyborg soldiers were presented by China and Russia in the easiest and cruelest way; by releasing them into the war. Millions more died at the hands of the hybrid creatures but a year later deaths at their hands stopped because the Chinese and Russians realised the human side of the cyborgs carried morals. You can see where this is going. 

On a completely different continent, down in Northern Africa, clans were forcing children as young as nine years old to train as soldiers. They were beaten, starved, worked and , sometimes to death unless they miraculously survived it all. T