SCARRED | TK

Chapter One

TRIGGERS: blood, curse words, description of graphic images

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"If I told you what I was
Would you turn your back on me?
And if I seem dangerous
Would you be scared?"

The 12-year-old boy stared at his parents' bodies with wide eyes and trembling lips, his face being the pure expression of despair and fear. There were tear stains on his dusty cheeks and a few drops of blood splattered on his pale skin which took away the innocence he usually portrayed.

Why weren't his parents moving?

Jeongguk looked down, at his trembling fingers, then back up at the men hovering in front of him, their gawking eyed wide and filled with questions he did not wish to hear.

"Are his eyes clear? Does it seem like he has any visible symptoms?" A rough voice echoed from under the mask, their eyes immediately drifting to him once again – analyzing every inch of his face.

One man leaned in closer, staring at him like he was an unknown animal they have not seen before, which made Jeongguk cower in fear even more – he had stared at a rabbit once in the same way before, many years prior. Had that rabbit felt the same fear? The same tremor had rushed through his fingers?

He wanted to run away from them because they were bad people, he knew that. His mom used to tell him those masked men were bad people and that he shouldn't ever trust them, that he should run if he ever saw them coming.

As thoughts of his mother filled his mind, the child found himself trailing his eyes towards the bodies on the ground again, immediately regretting the decision when his eyes were met with his mother's unrecognizable face and disfigured body – it was crushed.

What had happened?

The boy tried to scream but hands covered in gloves immediately gripped his jaw, making him bite his tongue, not strong enough to make it bleed but strong enough to make tears fill his eyes from the pain. He started shivering, trashing around on the ground, but his body was too frail to fight off the man holding him.

"Could it be that he was born immune?" The man asked, turning his face around and staring at his eyes from the side, Jeongguk whimpering as the rough fingers dug into his fragile skin.

The child did not understand what the two men were talking about, his gaze still lingering on those familiar bodies laying in front of him.  He tried to move in order to reach them, to bring them back, but the man's hands grabbed his shoulders, forcing him to stay put, his weak body complying even if he so badly wanted to run back to his parents' embrace. The black sleeves of his mother's blouse weren't covering her arms anymore, revealing white skin full of wounds and something that looked like dark colored veins.

Jeongguk coughed a few times, feeling the last biscuits he ate two days prior rise back to his throat due to how scared and confused he was feeling.

"Don't throw up on me, damn it!"

The man let him go to avoid his coughs, probably scared that he'll get infected, and the child fell on his knees with a thud, panting heavily as he tried to regain his breathing, as he tried to ignore the pain in his throat and the buzz in his head. He couldn't breathe due to the tears that kept flowing down his face, his throat swollen and aching as he tried to take deep breaths. Digging his dirty fingers in the ground, Jeongguk let out a scream, his voice rough as it echoed into nothingness.

His knees were covered only by a pair of dirty pants, so the impact from his fall made his bones hurt for a few seconds before everything was gone, like the pain was not even there. After his voice died out, the child let out a son and fell on the ground, his stomach contracting but nothing came out because he hadn't eaten in two days. 

When he managed to calm down, he wasted no time and got up, stumbling to his parents' bodies.

"No—, mom, dad! No—"

His weak hands gripped their clothes, shaking them in an attempt to wake them up but his parents did not answer.  He raised his palms to wipe away his tears and gasped in surprise, stumbling back and falling on the ground when he saw them stained black.

"Get him out of here and let's leave. The others are approaching at a fast rate.  They'll either try to protect him or kill him so let's go. We can't afford to lose him."

His body was easily lifted from the ground by that tall man and, no matter how much he kicked his legs and arms screaming, the other did not let go. 

Jeongguk looked at his parents for the last time, feeling tears roll down his dirty face as he was dragged by those people to a place that would only bring him suffering in the years to come.

As the man carried him in his arms, Jeongguk looked past his shoulders — at the bodies of his parents, at their shallow eyes that were still staring at him. No matter how much he tried to remember, he couldn't recall what had happened.

When he raised his hands to wipe away his tears, Jeongguk's whole body froze. There was dark liquid on his fingers but, no matter how much he stared, he couldn't understand what it was.

As he was dragged away from those deserted lands, from his home, Jeongguk cried, letting out pained screams and begging the men to bring his parents back. Still, no matter how much he tried, they didn't listened. Instead, they ignored him, forcing his body into a car and tying him to a bed.

In a few years, tens, maybe hundreds of scars, would stain his body because of the tests he would undergo due to the fact he had simply been born different.

They'd cut his body open and stitch him back but they would never manage to find out why a simple boy from a deserted area was immune to a deadly virus, why he was so dangerous and, most importantly, why his eyes looked different at times — lethal.

Apart from the pain inflected on him and the loneliness he would be forced to live in, something much stronger was going to press on his heart, reopening a scar that could never be healed, not entirely.

Anger – anger towards the so called humanity that was hurting a mere innocent soul in order to fulfill their greed and save themselves, was going to fill his chest and, as years passed, the smile he usually had portrayed on his face was going to disappear, along with the consciousness of the boy that used to be the true owner of that body.

Because Jeon Jeongguk had indeed been born different but not as they liked to think, not immune to a deathly virus, not as a cure for them to invest into, not as a bag of blood they could extract and experiment on, not as a child for them to cut open and inspect – not as a human whose life they could steal.

He hadn't been born immune to the virus and there was no genetic mutation in his body.

Jeon Jeongguk was different merely because he was carrying the weight of two souls inside one tiny body, one much stronger than the other, much more powerful – older than the world itself, wiser than anyone alive and much more powerful than anyone out there.

The ancient scar on that soul was going to reopen and his anger was going to make him lose both his control and his past memories, making him hate humans with his whole soul and mind, leaving only wrath and despair behind.

In the upcoming years, he would only want to destroy them and bring them despair, as they had brought him a long time ago, as they had done to that child during those years, just as they kept doing again and again, because humans never learnt from their mistakes.

They stayed selfish, only caring about their own well-being and hurting the weaker in order to obtain what they wanted.

Little did he knew that the said scar could be healed by someone he's been waiting for all his life.

Someone who had healed that scar before.

Thousands of years prior.