Chasing Liberty // Countryhumans North Korea fanfiction

Far From Home

      North stared blankly down the slope by the light of the lantern. It wasn’t that he couldn’t comprehend what he was seeing. He could. He had seen plenty of them before.

    They were bodies.

    Scattered over the dusty hillside a few ri outside of Taejon were bodies. Dozens of them clearly lit by the electric glow of the lamp, and many more visible only as dark shapes in the moonlight. Some lay in deep trenches that had been gouged into the dirt, while some were uncovered, lying exposed in the hot night, lined up in rows.

    He knew what he was seeing. He just couldn’t accept who was responsible.

    “Their hands are tied,” Chagang noted, expressionless as ever.

     “I can see that!” North snapped at him, unable to contain his anger. He took a deep breath before turning to Shin Du-su, the Worker’s Party member. “Tell me what happened here.”

     He had heard the summary from SH and North Chungcheong on the way over, after the Americans had been driven out of the city, but he needed to hear it from the source. Perhaps the provinces had misunderstood something.

     “The National Defense Army started rounding up people almost as soon as the war broke out,” Shin Du-su reported. “But when they fell back here, they stepped it up. Started to empty the prisons and take the prisoners out of town, along with anyone that tried to stop them. That’s how I and a few of my comrades ended up here.”

     North looked at the bodies sprawled out in the silver moonlight and wondered how many had Party membership cards in their pockets.

    “They marched us out here, tied our hands, and lined us up.” Shin Du-su swallowed. “They shot some of the others in the back of the head, but we tried to run, and they… open fired. They only hit my side, so I played dead until they left. I got lucky- I think they were in too much of a hurry at that point to bury me. But no one else did.” He squeezed his dark eyes shut. “I’m the only one in my cell that survived. And I wouldn’t have if Ms. Kim Ok-ju hadn’t found me.”

    North clenched his teeth. An entire Party cell wiped out. The nation’s awakened leadership, the ones they would need to rebuild after the war.

    And more than that- his people. Every single person on this hill was one of his people.

   “And what about you?” he asked the civilian woman, trying to keep his tone even.

    Kim Ok-ju flinched. “M-Me, sir?”

    “Just tell Korea what you told me,” SH cut in gently, perhaps thinking North might snap at the woman for calling him 'sir.'

    “R-Right.” She took a deep breath. “My husband, he was arrested for protesting the elections two years ago. He’s been in prison ever since. So when I heard they were releasing prisoners, I was hopeful, and I- I followed them out of town. B-But…”

     She looked down, eyes glimmering with tears, and SH put an arm around her.

   “It’s alright,” she soothed. Then to North, “Korea, I already reported on what she told me. Isn’t that enough?”

   “No,” he clipped. “I want to hear it from her.”

     “I’m alright.” Kim Ok-ju wiped her eyes. “I’m alright.”

     With a shaky breath, she continued, “I was watching from over the ridge. They- They gave the prisoners shovels, and told them to… to dig holes in the ground. I watched my In-guk dig this, this pit with the others, then…” She had lost the battle with her tears, liquid streaming down her cheeks.