Mixtape Sixteen

kingdom come

The weather today is serene mixed with a sense of dread. The sky was the color of pink, and the clouds were outlined in flames.

Forget silver linings. Fire is where it's at today.

Lee sat on his bed with a deadpan face. The TV was droning in the background, letting out the noise of the panicked broadcasters reporting for the very last time.

For the first time, Lee didn't know what to do. In his 29 years in the face of the earth, he had everything figured out.

Until now.

His mind asked itself whether to tell him or not. This is your fucking last time, it told itself.

For decades he had locked this in his heart, and he planned to lock this for eternity until his death.

But now that everything was about to end, he was presented the opportunity to unlock this secret and tell him all about it.

He had to think quick. The world only had two hours left.

Finally, Lee stood up from his catatonic state and picked up the phone.

He dialled his number that he memorized clearly. After pressing the last digit, he heard the jazzy call waiting tune playing.

It seemed like it played for an eternity, when finally, his soothing voice spoke at the other end of the line.

"Hello?"

Thank God, it's him who picked up this last time, not his nosy sister or his stonecold father.

"This is Lee speaking. I wanted to-"

He was cut short.

"I wanted to tell you something, Lee."

His voice was distressed.

"...Jin..."

His name was all Lee could say.

"Meet me in the arcade park."

That was his last words on the phone before hanging up.

Lee didn't waste time. He walked out of his room and out of the house. There was no one to stop him. His mother, his father, his older brother-all of them were gone now.

He walked by the main street of the city-no, ran. Time's ticking fast towards its end, and he cannot afford to waste time walking. He ran through the city streets for the last time.

Everything was so quiet. There's few of them left, after all, as most of the people has already been harvested from the face of the Earth.

They were the pure ones, the believers, the harvestables.

People who's left behind were the non-harvestables, the non-believers, the rejects, the degenerates, the impure, the rotten eggs. It's funny how there were few of them left-exactly the opposite of what most of the people were expecting.

When Lee reached the arcade park where they played Pacman in the weekends, Jin was already there waiting for him.

His back was as straight as a stick, and his broad shoulders reminded Lee of the many times Jin protected him from the mean things of the world.