Kyubok sat in the back of an American military truck along with another eight people from his tiny village. They were all beaten, dirty and hungry, but that wasn’t much different from the usual. Only their faces had changed; a mixture of horror and indifference, the face of someone who has died but somehow continues to breathe.

Do I look like that? I must look like that, he thought. We’re the same, unlike… He had trouble calling the three soldiers guarding them what they were. There was a fourth one, a woman – she was like them. But not quite, not quite at all. Her eyes had the same shape as his, her features were like those of his sisters, but her skin was healthier, her black hair looked stronger, and she was considerably more muscled than him, or any of the men he used to toil the soil with back at the village.

She looks like the Great Leader; she looks like his chosen few.

The truck stopped at what looked like an army camp, just somewhat different from the ones around the village. The four soldiers got off the truck, but nobody else made a move. Not to speak, not to look around and not even to stretch after the long journey.

It began three days ago with a terribly loud noise some time before dawn. He couldn’t go out to investigate, it was past curfew, but he waited by the door until morning came. Once outside, he could see great columns of smoke rising from the direction of the North Korean capital city, Pyongyang, which was about three hours away from his village, on foot. The soldiers had come two days later, seizing the village and loading himself and everyone he knew onto these trucks.

As he reminisced, the truck’s drapes were pulled back and a couple soldiers ushered them out. They were led through the camp towards a large bonfire, where they were handed trays of food and told to sit down. He didn’t even look at the food at first, dumbfounded by the amount of different people walking around. There were those like the woman that had accompanied them before, but there were also tall, burly men with skin of white, and brown, and even black. They must be Americans, he thought, but that was impossible. He remembered Americans from his childhood textbooks, from television – ugly, evil men of distorted proportions, whose only objective was to destroy their great country and murder the Great Leader. But these people…

Then he noticed the food.

There was rice, like at the village, but there was also pork and vegetables he’d never seen before. The smells were otherworldly, and once he took a bite of the pork, everything around him vanished. He ate ravenously, like he hadn’t eaten anything at all, not in the past few days, but in all his life. The tastes he experienced were nothing like the bland, salt-less rice he ate on a daily basis. He was about to have another big bite of pork when the voice of a woman filled his ears. He looked around and saw the female soldier from before, talking into a megaphone while walking among his countrymen.

“I am Seong Mi-kyong, General in the South Korean Army. Joint rescue operations are being carried out with our American allies to ensure the safety of all Korean men and women in high-risk areas around the city. You will all be properly cared for while we-“

He stopped listening. He wasn’t stupid, he understood what was going on – or did he? He understood, at the very least, what he had to understand. He understood that he would never understand anything again.

After a while, they were loaded back into the truck, and the journey began anew. He looked at the faces around him. He saw change. Some had a glint in their eye, a look of someone who’s discovered something new; someone looking at the future. Others had a face like stone. I must look like that, he thought, not doubting it for a minute.

The truck came to a halt once again, and they descended from it in the same order they had before. They were on an ample asphalt road, leading into what he could only describe as a city of lights. Kyubok’s stomach turned, his heartbeats grew heavy and his mouth went dry.

Then he saw the gun.

It took the tired soldiers a while to react when he grabbed a distracted soldier’s handgun and started running. How he managed to do that, he did not understand, nor did he understand how he survived the shots fired in his direction as he ran through the bushes. He just did, he had to, there was no choice – there had never been a choice.

He eventually arrived at another road, much smaller than the previous one. He started walking, following the familiar, salty smell of the sea, until he could finally see the vast expanse of water before him. He was tired, more tired than he’d ever been. He dropped down to his knees beside a sign with something written in an unknown script he couldn’t understand.

Credit to @agsttne

He took out a cigarette he’d been keeping in his pocket, along with his trusty lighter. He lit it up and inhaled the smoke, enjoying what little of his life he had left. And then, he understood. He understood the sea, he understood the smoke, and he understood the gun on his right hand. Kyubok was happy he could finally understand.

He pressed the barrel to his temple.

Afterword

Here we are again with another last minute entry into @gmuxx's Art Prompt Writing Contest. This time, however, he may know the reason. I decided to go the extra mile and finally get advice and editing help from everyone over at @TheWritersBlock. They were amazing and supportive.

I would specially like to thank @jordan.lesich for all the comments and suggestions, without which this would have been quite a different story, I think. Stronger impact, better flow and higher readability are among the hardly-few things he added to the story. He did substract some things though - namely, adverbs. Haha!

This has been a really great week for me in terms of my writing and other projects I've got going over here. It's been a great way to start the end of the year, and I hope I can keep up the hard work throughout the month. I'll have to leave y'all in a hurry, though; I neglected writing a pretty important paper so I could focus on the story and now I need a time machine if I want to hand it in on time.

Steem on!

Header made with resources from Vos iz Neias.