Eleven: The Sequel of AlterMyth

Napalm Sticks To Owls

Prologue

Mumei Nanashi sat on the cot of her lonesome jail cell at the basement of the MACV Headquarters building at Da Nang Air Base. The owl-girl barely stirred from her seat. She didn't even bother to eat the food brought to her: roast beef and potatoes delivered from the Officers' Lounge that the regular soldiers would have gobbled up in a heartbeat. Instead, the owl-girl just sat there.

Alone with her thoughts.

Alone with her memories.

This wasn't the first time that Mumei found herself detained in a tiny cell.

Mumei still remembered.

Nineteen years ago, in the confines of the US Embassy building in Seoul, Mumei Nanashi watched the Republic of Korea burn with her then-innocent honey brown eyes.

Mumei was just a ten year old elementary school kid then. She had traveled to Seoul from the US together with her classmates and teachers for some sort of academic and cultural exchange program with South Korean schools. She didn't know exactly what it was she was there to do anymore, but she remembered the excitement she once felt on the plane to Seoul. The young owl-girl and her classmates looked forward to all of the good things that they would be able to do and all of the happy memories they would bring back home to San Francisco.

However, just days before the exchange officially began, the North Korean Army invaded the South. Artillery bombarded the capital of the new nation. Warplanes dropped bombs from the sky. Waves of soldiers and columns of tanks crushed the unprepared South Korean defenders. Mumei, flanked by her classmates and teachers, watched this all unfold with her once-innocent honey brown eyes.

In the midst of the chaos, Mumei and her classmates and teachers sought refuge in the US Embassy in Seoul. But when they arrived, the building had already been abandoned by the consulate. There was no one there to help them - no one there to bring them home. The adults were panicked and helpless and the children were starting to cry.

North Korean soldiers flooded the streets of Seoul. They shot South Korean soldiers, civilians and foreigners alike. The adults tried to show their passports, hoping it would protect them from the enemy soldiers' wrath. Most of the children pleaded in English, begging to be let home. But the North Koreans didn't fear the American passports.

They didn't understand English.

They didn't care.

The adults and the children died around Mumei, falling around her left and right. Mumei's school uniform was blackened by soot and stained in the blood of her companions. She watched the death and despair spiraling around her with once-innocent honey brown eyes.

Rifle shots.

Pistol shots.

Thrusts of the bayonet.

Wicked grins of sadistic joy.

She burned it all into her memory.

The cruelty of Civilization.

Her honey brown eyes were innocent no more.

Only one other person knew of the owl-girl's plight on the day she lost her innocence: someone who shared the makeshift prison cell with her for three cruel months in Seoul. Someone who managed to plead with the North Korean soldiers to spare them from death and buy them time.

Someone who spoke fluent Korean.

Footsteps echoed in the lonely hall of the underground jail. The smell of freshly cooked Korean fare, punctuated by the distinct smell of kimchi, reached Mumei's nose. She raised her eyes from her long shadow on the floor and saw a lone figure with a tray of food in her hands.