M 96

“Brigadier General… What are you saying now…? Aaagh!”

At Aunt Song’s terrible scream, Sehwa jumped to his feet.

“Ugh…!”

Though his spirit was willing, his weak body, devoid of strength to endure his will, quickly crumpled. His twisted ankle was now beyond description as merely painful. It was so agonizing that he desperately longed for the medicine Ki Tae-jeong had once given him. Whether it was broken or not, he couldn’t tell, but with every movement, he heard bone fragments rattling in the misaligned axis.

Sehwa hunched his back, panting, then clenched his fist tightly again. As he took a deep breath to forget the pain, sticky, dirty air clung to the inside of his throat.

– 2 minutes left.

At the low warning, Sehwa barely managed to get up. With each cough, he felt like all his internal organs were heaving. It was as if an invisible hand was gripping his heart and lungs, squeezing them at will.

As he pushed forward through the blind darkness in a daze, he occasionally stopped to check below. He was worried about seeing blood again, but fortunately, everything seemed fine so far.

“Ba… by… Baby…”

He supported his left thigh with one hand and cradled his stomach with the other. Holding his terribly thin belly as if to apply pressure, he kept calling out to the baby who must have been startled. Even though it was probably curled up in response to his own unstable heartbeat, he kept comforting it, hoping it would be reassured by his voice, despite his labored breathing.

“It’s… huff, it’s okay, I’m not scared at all, I, sob, not at all… Ba… by.”

– 1 minute.

Ah. Sehwa gritted his teeth. Although he was trying his best to move quickly, it was impossible to reach the vicinity of the ship within just one minute in his current physical state.

He didn’t know what Ki Tae-jeong was thinking. Even setting aside his own condition, Ki Tae-jeong should know well enough that if he had hidden in this area, it would be impossible to appear before him within at least 5 minutes.

Just as he reached a fork in the path after struggling past the container walls that stood like dams, sharp gunshots rang out from the direction of the port entrance. Sirens wailed on and off, as if being fought over. And to Sehwa, that eerie noise felt like a savior.

Sehwa looked around, panting. He couldn’t sense the search party yet. So maybe he could… hold out a little longer.

It seemed certain that another force had arrived. Whether it was General Oh Seon-ran, Lieutenant Kim, or someone else at odds with Ki Tae-jeong… it didn’t matter who. Since there seemed to be use of force on that side as well, if the disturbance grew larger, wouldn’t Ki Tae-jeong have to focus on that before him?

– Sob, Brigadier General, I really didn’t know anything…. I just received a request from Sehwa, that’s all, hic….

“…Ah.”

Sehwa’s head, which had been cautiously glancing upward to gauge the situation, dropped lifelessly. As if warning him not to entertain vain thoughts, the aunt’s increasingly violent wailing began to flow through the speakers.

– Brigadier General, please don’t do this… I really don’t know anything at all….

– Why are you acting like this, ma’am? If Sehwa hears, he’ll think I’m harming you. That’s not the case, right?

– Please spare me, sob, Brigadier General, I’m really a pitiful person… I’ve been paying off debts all my life until my back is bent… Please, Brigadier General….

– Yes. I’ll spare you when Sehwa comes out. So hurry up and say it. Say that I’m perfectly fine now without a single injury.

– Sob, hic….

– Hurry. It would be terrible if Sehwa misunderstood, right?

The aunt’s shallow crying, like background music for a rustic tragedy, and the clicking sounds of guns being aimed, made it impossible for Sehwa to act selfishly.

– Sob, young man… Sehwa, I… I… hic, I’m still fine, for now….

If only the aunt hadn’t smiled at him, calling him like a son. If only he hadn’t known about her real son borrowing from loan sharks and dying. If only he hadn’t heard that it wasn’t even from a failed business or living luxuriously, but from gambling….

– I’m sorry, but please save me, please save the people here….

He thought his heart had already burned to ashes, but a small piece still alive spread like poison through his veins.

He wanted to scream like a madman. He wanted to save himself first, regardless of others dying. But… It was hard to turn a blind eye to the brief acquaintance who had shown him kindness, to the innocent aunt who might face a dog’s death at the port without knowing why.

– Oh dear, Sehwa. 5 minutes have passed.

It was this side that needed a loudspeaker. Was that supposed to be words? Anyway, he wasn’t hiding anymore, he was steadily moving towards them. Isn’t that enough? Whether his leg was broken or damaged, even if they didn’t know about it… Couldn’t they wait that much?

– Eek! Bri-Brigadier General! Th-that… what is that…!

Sehwa also became anxious at the aunt’s urgent scream, incomparable to before. Swallowing curses, he limped forward almost on tiptoe, when suddenly a deafening sound that seemed to shake heaven and earth tore through his ears. As if mocking Sehwa’s clumsy and late steps, it was truly an explosion that sounded like the world was collapsing.

“…What on earth…”

He had heard a similar sound before. In the 1-Hwan shelter they had infiltrated with Ki Tae-jeong, when he fired a bazooka and the entire building collapsed… It had made such a thunderous noise then.

– Aaagh!

The aunt’s panicked cries and the sound of something exploding reverberated throughout the port. Terrified screams from people hiding near the ships swelled.

Sehwa looked around blankly. Even knowing he wouldn’t see anything, he did so desperately, grasping at straws.

Fortunately, it didn’t seem like anyone had been shot. This was clearly the sound of something being destroyed, something as large as a building. But what exactly had collapsed? At least it didn’t seem to be aimed at him…

Long past caring about being discovered, Sehwa moved forward, slapping his palms against containers and pallets with hollow sounds. As he got closer to the sea, an acrid smell of burning reached his nostrils.

He forced his increasingly unsteady body forward. Bending his back that felt ready to snap, he barely emerged from the forest of stacked blocks.

“…In…sane…”

Only then did he see a small flame rising like a torch beyond the sea. If it was visible even from here, the actual scale must not be small. 

A ship? A lighthouse? He wasn’t sure exactly what was burning, but it was clearly Ki Tae-jeong’s doing.

– Ah… Come to think of it, you were rather clumsy at running, weren’t you? With those thin ankles.

Ignoring the aunt’s panicked screaming and people jumping around like water fleas asking what was happening, Ki Tae-jeong murmured in an incredibly calm voice.

– I don’t know what gave you the courage to cause such a big scene when you couldn’t even run properly without me… But alright, I’ll take that into consideration.

A series of small explosions sounded over the water surface. The fuel in the ship must have caught fire too, as the small flickering flames were now rising high like pillars.

– The ones who just fired were the rats Colonel Kim secretly planted… But there won’t be a next time.

Ki Tae-jeong whispered as if admonishing.

– There really won’t be, Sehwa.

Sehwa stared blankly ahead, dumbfounded. Gray smoke spread like spider legs across the sky above the sea, which had been clear as if marking a border with the port area.

– Young man, Sehwa… I’m sorry, but please save us… Come quickly and… I don’t know what’s happening, but please tell the brigadier general to stop this… okay?

The aunt, desperately calling only for him, seemed almost out of her mind. The workers hiding here and there also started using small megaphones to call out for Sehwa.

“Damn it, are you trying to get innocent people killed?!”

“Sehwa or whatever your name is, come out while we’re asking nicely, huh?”

“Yeah, if we find you first, we’ll rough you up a bit before handing you over to them! If you don’t want a beating, come out quick!”

People’s accusations that if he wanted to die he should do it alone instead of dragging innocent people with him stabbed at Sehwa’s heart.

Is this what hell would be like? 

Sehwa ran again with his body fluttering like a paper doll dissolved in water. He fell, barely got up, but couldn’t take more than a few steps before falling again… After repeating this several times, he finally cried out.

“…I’m here! I’m right here!” He shouted, crying and rolling around, scratching the ground until his nails bled, “Stop it… I’ve come out… So…”

If Ki Tae-jeong caught him again… 

He had expected to be treated like a tool at best. He thought all pretenses of change would be thrown away, and he would be viewed as an object again…. 

He was prepared for that much. He had resolved not to be hurt anymore, that it wouldn’t happen, and that even if pushed into court by Ki Tae-jeong, he wouldn’t say a word of what he wanted to hear.

However, the end of his brief rebellion was more miserable than Sehwa had imagined. As if determined never to repeat his previous mistake, the tyrant pulled out the most effective and cruel card to choke Sehwa.

“I said stop it, I’m coming to you…!”

As he pounded the asphalt with his fists in frustration, his wrists, now in as poor condition as his ankles, dangled at odd angles.

And… As if waiting for Sehwa’s declaration of surrender, a massive sphere of light dropped from the sky. Lights from an unknown source began frantically sweeping across the entire container area.

Sehwa, with tear tracks on his dust-covered face, raised his blank eyes to look at the sky. Dozens of drones flew overhead scattering pin lights, and massive floodlights hung from cranes blinked like hundreds of eyeballs, closing in from all directions.

The wandering devices finally seemed to spot Sehwa slumped in a corner, dropping a bomb-like mass of light towards him. Drones swarmed like a colony of bees right above Sehwa’s head, buzzing disgustingly.

At some point, no sound came from the speakers anymore. All he could see was the surroundings turned completely white as if from another world, and all he could feel was the sea breeze carrying fine dust. Sehwa muttered intermittently like a broken robot, telling them to stop.

“It’s been a while.”

After a moment, a man who had boldly thrown himself into this empire of light, so bright it was hard to distinguish anything, addressed him in a casual voice.

With each step the man took towards him without wavering, Sehwa felt as if his limbs were being dismembered. Black military boots appeared at the edge of his lowered vision, and a familiar scent wafted on the stuffy summer breeze. The smell of cigars, a strong and pungent cologne…. Sehwa sat still like trapped prey, swallowing his miserable sobs.

“Did you enjoy your outing?”