The Making of a Heartbroken Boy | ✔️

CHAPTER 1

1942, JOHOR, INNER PENINSULA of Malaya.

A piece of bark chipped off the trunk behind him, inches from his head. The round - a .303 calibre bullet - was no more than two centimetres tall, and in the slim light leaking through the jungle trees, he could see reflections of the thin bullet grasped within the hole it had dug into the tree.

No one had ever really heard the sound of a bullet. When a gunshot rings, it's the bang of the ignition of gunpowder that's truly audible; the pop as the bullet explodes from the chamber of the gun. No one really ever knew what a passing round of metal sounded like as it cut through the air.

But when the gunshot is heard from over a hundred meters away and sometimes lost in the thick, the bullet can be heard.

Finally. The faintest whoosh no louder than a whisper of a breeze, and his heart skipped a beat. But it was hard to tell whether it was from the discovery of a sound, or...

A sting burst into flurries of fire just below his ribcage. The fire charred his gut, the hole - the same size as his finger. He couldn't imagine how something so small could make a flame of pain so big that burned so deep. No matter how impossible it seemed, he felt it - and that was proof enough of the bullet's sear. He fell against a nearby tree, black spots dotting his vision. The pain roared and a headache overcame him, but not before he sent a quick prayer to the rest of his Chinese syndicate.

He sat down - bleeding from his left abdominal region, back pressed on and legs outstretched behind a tree in the jungles of the Malaysian Peninsula. As he solemnly glared at the destruction around him, the lad wasn't sure if he should've joined the army at all.

But the thought was a bullet, and the small round left as quickly as it came, faster even as he pushed it away with another; I joined for him.

He said it again in his head. For him. I joined for him. Again, again, and again, until he was saying the words aloud, and re-aiming his rifle down the line of fire. Three rounds left, and at the impact of those bullets three fewer enemies fired back at him. A shout was released into the wild from the enemy's side, and when he looked again after reloading, no guns fired back.

None at all.

He leaned heavily on a nearby tree and attempted to stand up for a better view. On the first try, the fire caught on his whole torso and he dropped back onto the jungle floor. His hand went straight to the wound, just as the pain seared through him, stealing a sharp intake of breath along with his dignity.

He tried again, and he flung his weight into another tree. He wrapped arms around it to stabilize, but...

His breath hitched.

Looking down, he saw a branch coming from the tree, but disappearing in his body. He twisted his shirt's fabric around, only to find the wood caught in the same place as the bullet hole. He muttered a curse, the feeling long ago gone numb. Spots blurred his vision as he found the strength to look away.

The sounds of the jungle whisked into a distant murmur and his hands found a hold on the bark and gripped harder. His fingertips went numb with force.

He blinked, and the spots worsened.

Holding tighter, his hands trembled until he put as much strength as he could into the tree, pushing as hard as he could.

The pain numbed as he stumbled backwards, and suddenly the feeling was nearly gone. Bile rose in his throat, but he swallowed it away. He pushed into the wound with his hand and his joints buckled beneath him, sending his knees into the ground with the weight of his whole body. Rather than attempt to stand again, he aimed again, biting his cheek against the pain. He shook the dark spots away.