Remember, remember, the fifth of
November, the gunpowder treason and
plot. I know of now reason why the
gunpowder treason should ever be
Forgot.

A young Sungmin sits on his father's lap, combing the hair of his pet dog, Cacao. He was born near the end of the millennium, the year 1997. His father used to say that people were so afraid that the world was going to end that they were willing it to happen.

His father sits beside his mother on the living room couch, watching the news. From the look on their faces, the news is bad. Sungmin thought, reminiscing, he doesn't remember much of the century's turn. He doesn't remember the market crash or the plague or any of the Gulliver’s riots.

The television flickers with images of heavily armed soldiers fighting in a shelled city. He has read about them since, but he doesn’t recall how any of them
impacted my life except for the fear. They would hide it from him, like a secret between them.

Little Sungmin sees his father staring at his mother. They take hold of each other's hand, clasping them tight.

“But I could feel it,” Sungmin said.

*

In the distance, there was a man, with a mask. With a dream and hopes and Vengeance. He was watching over the city that was being curled in by smoke and fear.