The Trials of Neo City [WINWIN • YUTA]

🖤 19. Run 🖤

The tube did not begin to raise which made Sicheng immediately worry that something was wrong. The boy looked around and back into the small hallway, worried that something was terribly wrong. Was this a bad nightmare? Did it turn out his name hadn't been pulled and it was another Sicheng? The boy could only pray.

The hall was silent and Sicheng stood awkwardly in his tube, waiting to be raised into the arena. Seconds felt like minutes, minutes like hours. Sicheng quickly became stressed about what was going on, his mind immediately playing out various scenarios and explanations to try and calm himself down.

Nothing could have prepared him for the real reason for the delay, though.

"This is what befalls a traitor and a rebel." President Sooman's voice spoke out from speakers that Sicheng couldn't see. His heart pounded in his chest as he looked behind him at the unwavering Peacekeepers who had escorted him to his tube.

Where the hallway door had been was now a screen that was off. Shiny and black, reflecting Sicheng's confused face as the tube closed itself around him. Sicheng became restless and anxious, more so than he had already been.

Then the screen turned on and Sicheng was both intrigued and frightened with what he saw; On the screen was a grainy feed with four figures in a dingy, white room: A Peacekeeper in slight view of the camera and three kneeling figures with their hands bound behind their backs. They were nearly silent and Sicheng noticed the littlest one trembling in fear.

He raised an eyebrow, his stomach twisting in knots as he thought of the worst cases possible; Who were those people? What was this? What was the Capitol up to? Was Renjun watching this same feed? Yuta? Shotaro? Ten?

His nightmare was confirmed as the veils on their heads were lifted and Sicheng's heart fell to his stomach as he witnessed the fearful faces of Miss Im, Heeseung, and his own mother, staring back past the camera.

Someone off screen said something softly and the three stayed silent. Sicheng's mother stood seemingly straighter, a defiant glint in her eye that he recognized as identical to Renjun's. Heeseung hiccuped, eyes teary and looking away from the front.

The recording of Renjun's words played faintly over the recording to the three and Sicheng's face ran cold and pale.

This was the Capitol's response. Renjun's words wouldn't get him punished. No... everything he loved instead would be taken from him.

Him and Sicheng.

"... I will kill you. I will destroy you and I will destroy everything you love." The President's voice rang out suddenly in an oddly calm tone, mocking Renjun's own. Sicheng's heart beat against his chest like a wild animal in a cage, eyes widened as everything around him became eerily silent.

A moment's pause and a gunshot rang out. Miss Im fell over without noise, arms still bounded and body limp as Heeseung screamed for his mother, who bled out onto the ground. Sicheng's mother looked forwards, still defiant, still stubborn.

Sicheng screamed.

Heeseung trembled, eyes widened and his small body trembling as he pleaded quietly with the Peacekeeper behind the screen. Little utters of "please" and "no" escaping his mouth, face streaked with tears and eyes filled with the horror of witnessing his mother's violent death. Sicheng's heart broke; such a young child facing execution for something he hadn't even done, hadn't even caused.

This was beyond fucked up.

Another shot rang through after a moment of silence (save for the boy's screams) and what was soon left of Heeseung's face was bloodied and mutilated by a bullet in a matter of milliseconds. Sicheng's mother shut her eyes tight and grimaced, unwilling to watch the scene next to her. Blood was splattered onto the white walls of their holding cell and Sicheng felt the urge to vomit and cry. Heeseung was immediately dead, dark eyes looking at the camera devoid of any life.

Sicheng screamed again, tears now welling in his eyes. This wasn't supposed to happen! This was too much, this was horrible.

He knew what was next.

He whispered as if to plead, though nobody could hear him.

More mumbled speaking from behind the camera and Sicheng's mother smiled stubbornly. She looked directly into the lens and silently mouthed something, something that Sicheng barely caught.

"Everything will be fine, Winnie."

And then the last shots rang out, multiple bullets to the chest and head, ripping the woman apart quickly in a flurry of crimson. Sicheng lost count how many bullet holes the woman now had, his poor mother unrecognizable as the gunfire died down. He shut his eyes and his body felt numb.

His mother had been killed and he couldn't stop it. His family, his neighbors, his brother... himself.

There would soon be no traces of Sicheng or anything familiar to him. They'd all be dead soon.

"I don't take kind to threats, Mister Dong." The President's voice taunted, Sicheng curling in on himself in fear, traumatized, as his tube began to raise slowly into the arena. "Remember that, now. I will take away everything you love..."

And all Sicheng saw was sunlight, cloudy through his tears.