My Songbird's Dream

24. To the stars we cry

Etta Osi Walker
November, 1941
Occupied Seoul

"Miss Walker..."

The words filtered sluggishly through my fogged mind, barely stirring me from the emptiness I had sunk into these past long hours, awake. Sleepless.

"Miss Walker?" The voice repeated more insistently until I registered the uniformed medic hovering over my huddled form with a clipboard. I had not moved, I wasn't sure how to. Wrapped in the bloodied wool blanket, I stared numbly as another medic approached.

"Miss Walker?" She hovered anxiously, voice echoing strangely muted to my ears. "Did you hear me earlier? Police may come question you about the attack..."

I lifted my gaze slowly from the dried red staining my hands, meeting her distressed frown. These many hours, revenge had played violently across my mind's eye - Dachi suffering, screaming, bleeding...relentless visions I clung to in lieu of helpless grief.

The medic wrung her hands. "Please Miss Walker, we could help bring those men to proper justice..."

Justice? Her words almost sounded of mockery. In another time I'd have laughed in her face. The mental agony that came so violently from just existing, being chased by someone...for just wanting a little happiness. Who would fuel that a worthy cause of justice?

Would I not just be asked why I didn't agree?
Bitterness clamped my throat at her naive platitude. As if justice prevailed while snakes like Dachi and Yong-su lived pampered lives, never fearing repercussions. As if any official would view my violation as worth pursuing.

She held compassionate eyes. But I had no words to offer in return. Only a barren, aching void where my soul had been. I turned my face away, fury's ember smoldering in my core - if no one else could ensure those rats paid their due, perhaps the duty would fall to me alone after all.

Sensing no cooperation, the harried medic retreated awhile before returning to nervously repeat the police may want my statement soon. I barely heard her over the chaos of vicious plans swirling.

I would be long gone before their useless bureaucracy stirred to limping action, there was no other option. Dachi had to suffer, to feel the bleak hopelessness of wishing only for death's mercy. The simmering rage to watch his smug sneer transform to pitiful begging, agony wiping away all power - it filled my vision til everything else faded....to watch him suffer and beg and feel but a fraction of my hardship.

A startling touch at my elbow made me flinch violently. But it was just the young medic tentatively taking my vitals, her worried eyes searching my face after I jerked reflexively. I forced rigid muscles to uncoil as she worked, though sensations registered muted as if through grimy gauze.

Soon even that outside stimuli ceased as the nurse left me alone once more. I drifted in a tide of savage fantasies - Dachi below the knife, streaming floods of red, his broken screams. Anything to salve this bleeding abyss inside what was left of my battered soul. Anything to feel slivers of powerful again instead of this crushing helplessness.

When she withdrew, I presumed our interaction finished. What did the rules of law and order matter when those in power so easily manipulated them? Who would come to my defense? I kept questioning.

But the nurse returned shortly, kneeling to meet my lowered gaze. "Miss Walker, I'm so sorry to disturb your grieving again but...you should know, we confirmed you are pregnant."