Chapter 288 : The Beginning
Chapter 288: The Beginning
Creak.
The sound of something breaking could be heard.
It had been broken from the very beginning.
It was like a sheet of iron that had been hammered into shape carelessly and left crumpled.
It was utterly useless, and even at a glance its grotesque form made it seem impossible to repair.
Creak. Creak.
But the teacher never gave up.
With careful hands, she slowly unfolded what had been grotesquely crumpled together and restored what had been broken.
She showed him what its original form had been.
Creak. Creak. Creak.
That was the boy's heart.
And...
It was the boy's life (人生).
The teacher taught him what it meant to live as a human being.
Creak. Creak. Creak. Creak.
The boy gently stroked the figure collapsed in the darkness with trembling hands.
Fortunately, she was still breathing.
It was faint and shallow, as though it could stop at any moment...
Yet she was still alive.
The boy desperately pounded on the warehouse door as he shouted.
He begged the master, pleading that someone was dying in here and asking him to save her.
But the only thing the boy received in return was an insult filled with contempt and scorn.
"You clueless bastard!"
The boy checked the teacher's condition again.
But there was nothing he could do.
All he could do was embrace her limp body in the darkness and sob.
Please don't die.
Please don't die.
Please... don't die.
The boy prayed.
To whom?
No one knew.
Not even the boy himself.
He merely came to understand that when someone became desperate enough, they prayed regardless of who they were praying to.
And then...
He also realized that life had never once taken his side.
The moment the teacher stopped breathing in his arms...
Creak... Creak....
...Snap.
Something that had been trembling unstably finally broke.
-Aaaaaaaaaah...!
A monstrous scream escaped the boy's lips.
It was impossible to tell whether it belonged to a beast or a human.
It even sounded like the cry of a ghost.
-Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah...!
The boy wailed.
Whether it was his own tears, someone else's blood, or some unknown, unidentifiable filth...
Within the pitch-black darkness where nothing could be distinguished and the lingering warmth surrounding him, the boy continued to scream.
Meanwhile, the presence outside the warehouse gradually faded into the distance.
Even though they undoubtedly knew exactly what was happening in here, they slowly walked away as though they had absolutely no interest in what lay inside the warehouse.
-Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa...!
The boy continued to scream.
Again and again.
He sobbed until every trace of warmth left the body in his embrace.
Until his voice became completely hoarse.
And when everything had grown cold, taking even the slightest shred of hope away...
-I'll kill them.
Those harsh words escaped the boy's mouth.
The conversation he'd shared with her long ago repeated inside his head like a broken record.
'What's a birthday?'
'It's the day you were born. Every year, it's a day to celebrate your birth and remember to be grateful for your life.'
'...Should I be grateful for being born?'
'Of course! Every human being is born blessed.'
'Me too?'
'Of course! And just as your life is precious, so is everyone else's. That's why you must never treat life carelessly. Not your own, and not anyone else's. Understand?'
Human life is precious.
You must never take a life carelessly.
Every existence deserves to be blessed.
-Teacher....
I'm sorry.
I can only think of one way.
The boy slowly laid down her body, which had become cold beneath the night wind.
Feeling around for anything useful, he eventually found various farming tools, unidentified sacks, and industrial equipment.
The villagers had probably been too preoccupied with the commotion the teacher caused to clean this place up.
It had been left untouched for so long that they hadn't even realized what was inside.
Fortunately, the boy discovered a massive sledgehammer tucked away in one corner.
The moment he picked it up, he already knew what he had to do.
Boom! Boom! Boom!
The boy began smashing the warehouse's concrete wall with all his strength.
Stone fragments scattered everywhere and mercilessly struck his face, but his cheeks, already numbed by the freezing cold, felt nothing.
Boom! Boom! Boom!
After relentlessly hammering the same spot for nearly an hour, he finally made a hole just large enough for his slender body to squeeze through.
He shoved the rusted sickle he'd found in the warehouse and the sledgehammer he'd used to break the wall through the opening before crawling through himself.
-Haa... Haa...!
The sweat from the heavy labor met the freezing air outside, chilling his body instantly.
An ordinary person would've felt flesh-tearing pain.
But the boy felt nothing.
-I'll... kill them....
After escaping the warehouse, the first place the boy headed was the harbor where the village boats were moored.
He untied every mooring rope securing the boats against the harsh winter sea winds.
Some boats slowly drifted away into the open sea.
Others were pushed back toward the shore.
For the ones that kept drifting back to the pier, he had no choice but to smash every steering console with the sledgehammer.
Afterward, the boy struggled to carry several fuel drums from the boats.
Since he lacked the strength, he had no choice but to leave the sledgehammer behind at the dock.
Carefully choosing routes untouched by the streetlights, he quietly made his way toward the village.
When he reached his destination, the boy realized the village was unnaturally quiet.
It was only midnight.
No matter how early country folk finished their daily work, it was far too silent.
Only then did the boy notice the lights inside the village hall.
He couldn't be certain without checking...
But it seemed that, because of the current situation, all the villagers had gathered there for a meeting.
-Good.
It was actually an opportunity.
While the entire village was gathered inside the hall, the boy searched every house one by one.
Because the villagers viewed themselves as one big community, their sense of security was astonishingly lax.
Many houses had locks but hadn't even bothered locking them.
The boy entered freely without anyone stopping him.
And then...
-As expected.
There were people who hadn't attended the village meeting.
The children.
Those too young to attend were sleeping soundly beneath the warm blankets their parents had tucked around them.
Holding the rusted sickle in one hand, the boy silently looked down at them.
'Life is precious.'
The teacher's words crossed his mind.
But they soon scattered like a mirage.
The only things remaining in his mind were the insolent little brats who used to throw stones at him.
Therefore...
He did not hesitate.
The only mercy he could offer was letting them die without ever knowing what happened.
And so...
Beneath the moonlight, the crimson sickle swung again and again.
After dealing with everyone left behind in the village, the boy headed for the village hall.
First, he wrapped heavy chains taken from the village chief's house around the entrance, securing them so thoroughly that no one could escape.
Fortunately, the tense atmosphere inside the hall prevented anyone from noticing what he was doing.
The village elders were too busy shouting at one another, arguing over what they should do once the mainland police and reporters arrived.
It truly couldn't have gone better.
After completely sealing the entrance, he thoroughly poured fuel all around the hall.
The nauseating smell of gasoline slowly spread through the air, but since it was winter, it probably wouldn't seep inside.
Then...
The boy set the fuel ablaze.
Thanks to the gasoline he'd spread beforehand, the flames engulfed the entire building in an instant, while thick black smoke billowed into the sky.
-W-What's happening?!
-Fire! Fireee!!
-Get outside! Hurry!!
-T-The door won't open!!
The villagers belatedly realized the building was on fire and tried to flee outside.
But because the boy had completely sealed the entrance, the doors wouldn't budge.
Some attempted to escape through the windows.
But the boy had prepared those even more carefully.
Since that area had the fiercest flames, they couldn't break through easily.
-H-Here! Let's get out this way!
Coughing violently amid the thick smoke, the villagers finally found the escape route where the flames were weakest.
It was the back door of the village hall.
Since the door was made of wooden planks, no matter how much it was barricaded, a group of grown men could eventually break through it by force.
The boy had deliberately refrained from setting that area on fire.
If he had, it might've actually created an escape route.
Instead...
He waited there.
The moment the village elders smashed the door halfway open with their combined strength, he splashed fuel through the opening and threw a burning ember inside.
Terrifying screams erupted.
Flames burst upward from within.
Yet human life was more resilient than expected.
Even while enduring severe burns, some people still managed to burst outside.
Only then did they realize the culprit behind everything was the boy.
Some cursed at him.
Some begged for mercy.
But the boy silently continued swinging the sickle.
Those who had inhaled so much smoke they could barely breathe were nothing more than easy prey.
-Save me! I-I was wrong...!
-Aaaaaaaaaah!
The boy killed.
And killed again.
After the flames consuming the village hall gradually subsided several hours later, the boy searched the building to ensure no one remained alive.
Most had died from suffocation.
A handful—fortunate or unfortunate enough to survive—lay in a corner room, horribly burned and crying out in agony.
The boy spared none of them.
After thoroughly ensuring there would be no future consequences, the boy searched the village chief's corpse for the key before returning to the warehouse deep within the forest.
Click.
The firmly locked door opened.
The boy carried the teacher's body out on his back.
She was heavier than he'd expected, causing him to stumble and fall countless times.
Even so, he never gave up.
He kept walking until he reached the warehouse at the village chief's house—the place where he'd spent the most time with the teacher.
There, embracing the teacher's body, he blankly watched the dawn break.
One day.
Two days.
The boy ate nothing as he absentmindedly let time pass.
Then, on the third day...
Someone came to him once again.
They were people from the mainland.
The incident on the island became front-page news across the mainland, throwing the entire nation into turmoil.
At the center of that storm, the boy was investigated for murder, constantly moving between the courtroom and the detention center.
The boy confessed to every charge.
He admitted that he'd killed all fifty-something villagers, including the children.
He also told them everything about the fifteen years he'd endured without omitting a single detail.
It was an extraordinarily grave crime.
He had killed more than fifty people.
However, because he was still a minor and because public sympathy overwhelmingly favored his testimony, his sentence was drastically reduced.
Ordinarily, receiving life imprisonment wouldn't have been surprising.
Instead, his actions were recognized as homicide committed under extenuating circumstances, and he ultimately received a sentence of five years.
The moment the boy escaped the prison called the island, he found himself imprisoned once again.
Only after becoming an adult was he finally released into the outside world.
Citizens who knew his story reached out to help after hearing of his release.
Some provided financial support.
Others gave him a place to live.
Thanks to their kindness, the boy was able to earn his High School Equivalency Diploma and even attend university.
But partway through...
He abandoned everything.
Instead, he found temporary day labor and barely managed to survive.
There was no ambition behind his actions.
It was nothing more than the mechanical judgment of an animal continuing its existence through food, clothing, and shelter.
-'You have to treasure yourself.'
In truth, he'd thought about ending his life many times.
But when the moment came, he was too afraid to follow through.
And the words the teacher had spoken long ago became shackles that prevented him from taking his own life.
-'There are so many wonderful things in this world.'
-'Even if life becomes unbearably difficult, one delicious dinner at the end of the day or a drama that moves you to tears can give you the courage to live through tomorrow.'
Was that really true, Teacher?
This world doesn't seem nearly as interesting as you said.
I keep trying to find those things, but everything feels empty.
I've learned everything you told me to.
I've traveled.
I've watched enough dramas and movies to grow sick of them.
But none of it truly reached me.
No matter what I do, it feels like chewing dried, withered grass.
I think...
Life back on the island was better.
If I had never said I wanted to leave...
Would you have stayed by my side forever, Teacher?
I miss you.
The boy...
No, the young man opened his eyes once more.
He'd quit his job and was barely surviving by slowly spending the money he'd saved.
The bleak scenery inside his empty house had become so familiar that it no longer felt strange.
Out of habit, he turned on the television and his computer before absentmindedly drifting through the virtual world.
Amid the overwhelming flood of endless content, he searched tirelessly with the hope that this time would be different.
Yet he'd never once found anything that truly satisfied him.
But that day was different.
A web novel he happened to discover.
Beginning with the sentence,
[The sky I looked up at for the first time in a long while was the color of a television screen filled with static.]
—a line paying homage to another novel—the story depicted a futuristic world.
And just like that...
It suddenly entered the young man's life.