VI

When Yongsun finishes university and has begun mapping out ideas for the city, she is contacted by the government. They want her to go to the frontier, to the border, to design prosthetic limbs for severely wounded soldiers.

This is the world that Yongsun lives in: a world controlled by minds consumed by hate, where citizens have become like sheep to the slaughter. Lives are wasted the same way we have wasted the earth and its resources. We have dug this hole with no escape, no ladder to climb up, no rope, no hope.

Yongsun bites down on her lip as she reads the government’s letter requesting that she comes to the frontier. She is, understandably, afraid of meeting the same fate as her parents, but Yongsun knows she has no choice in the matter and comforts herself by saying she will die a hero’s death, whatever that might be.

She packs her bags, taking her favourite textbook so she has something to read on the train. Yonghee comes to see her sister off and says goodbye to her on the platform, hoping Yongsun will return safely. On the train, Yongsun meets a young woman who is being sent to the frontier to fight, a scared soldier that does not wish to die.