Like the blood that was sliding through his broken teeth, regret was ghosting at the back of his mind, even though he was well aware that he had reached far too ahead to ever have a chance of erasing his doings.
Park JuWon was a man who held a certain pride in his profession, even though he could never utter anything about it to anyone. Most people knew him as a 3rd engineer, working on ships but that fake profession of his was not that bad to not allow him to brag. He would leave home for a long period without anyone questioning anything and he still was able to speak about his tales to his young son, when back.
Of course never in front of his wife, for she would be able to understand that his tales were not related to the ships he was supposed to have been working with. As his son Jimin grew older however, JuWon still couldn't stop that habit of his, for sharing those stories with his son, was a bonding moment he wasn't willing to toss aside just because he was growing up and being more able to comprehend. When Jimin had grown too old to understand he had just claimed that all his stories, were made up. Under the pretext that he had so much free time while sailing in the sea that he would come up with stories to pass the time.
The fact that they were lies had not changed anything for Jimin, for he loved them still the same and his father often would question him about them as if he was giving an exam. Especially on the Blue Butterly mission. That story was a favorite of Jimin and since he was ten, he had learned everything by heart about it. His father would even write documents for him and burn them after he memorised them. To the point that he felt that if he was to give it a try, he could reenact the whole experiment, recreate the serums and even reach out to the people on the list if they would have been real.
JuWon had made the mind of his son, the only physical archive of that mission, for any other physical proof could put his life in danger. He could not afford to play games, while he was married and a father to such a beautiful son. He had a family now and that never left his mind, even though he could not withdraw from his real occupation that easily.
In his mind, he had made his calculations. Just a few more years and he would ask to retire and he would spend his life doing a less dangerous job, by the side of his wife and his child. Maybe they could finally go on some trips together and his wife would be less mad at him, for leaving her alone for long periods.
He had so many plans, but all came crashing on him in a very twisting way that caught him unprepared. Someone who had done so much for this nation and been so devoted to his job, shouldn't have been in the position that he was at that very moment, simply because he refused to give the Blue Butterly to any government. He had been a loyal national agent, however he was not stupid. He was well aware his government was corrupted and would be using the Blue Butterfly to gain military advantages and much more.
That decision was gonna cost him his life, and JuWon was more than aware of that from the moment he had lied to his superiors, however, he still had a moral code he wasn't willing to break and stood firm to the right of an individual to keep the solemn consciousness and be in control of their own will. For who are humans, to put chains in the will heaven gave us as free.
This mindset of his had not been shaken even after the many hours of beating that he had withstood before he was tied and lifted into the air of this underground room. The ropes that were pulling at his limbs, bringing his whole entity to an unbearable ache, concluded to have been a pain he would have preferred, once he gazed at the man they had placed before him, at some feet distance, tied up and with a black bag covering his head.
JuWon didn't need to see his face to recognise him, however, for he had his school uniform. He knew he was his son yet he uttered nothing, for that flickering moment was enough to make him realize, that he had not destroyed only his own life, but also the life of who he loved most.
For the first time in his entire being, JuWon regretted having chosen to leave in Jimin's mind, the truth of the Blue Butterfly, for despite it being the safest place to have ever hidden it, he had thought it had been also the place no one would think to look for. How could he have been wrong? When no one knew, who could have made such a wild guess?
His mind swirled in terror as despair became the palm he was hanging on.
***
The video glitched momentarily as a man seemed to enter and walked over to the person who was tied on the chair, then removed the bag from the head of the captive, revealing a brown-haired man, whose face you could not see still because of the camera position.
A symphony of muffled screams clawed through the air as the captive, silenced by tape, met the gaze of his tormentor and the man next to him, didn't hesitate to rip that tape off rather abruptly, seemingly unamused by the boy's reaction.
"Dad! Dad! What have you done to him?!!!" Upon hearing the boy's voice, your eyes instantly grew wide as you realized that it was Jimin. His voice had changed a bit now that he was older but it was him.
"No need for theatrics, young man. Your father and I were merely engaging in a conversation, like old colleagues." The man sneered and another man who was standing in a corner, laughed a bit more, making you notice his existence for the first time.
"Release my son! Release him, I will tell you everything!" The tied man uttered as loudly as he could manage, clarifying in your head, the fact that he was Jimin's father.
"Oh but JuWon, you don't know everything. Your partial truths fooled the polygraph, mere crumbs that led us astray. You've always been a sly fox, undetected until betrayal unmasked you" The man spoke with a slight irritation in his voice as he grabbed a handful of Jimin's hair.
"Touch him, and I swear I'll end you!" JuWon threatened between gritted teeth even though he was in no position whatsoever to threaten anyone and laughter erupted, mocking the impotent defiance of a man entrapped.
"Touch him? Oh, you got it all wrong, old friend. He is not the one we are gonna touch." the shadowy accomplice declared then he went ahead and signalled someone which you couldn't see as he wasn't caught on camera, to lower the ropes and, Mr JuWon's body, got lowered but remained tied.
Another man came in after that, pushing a tray with many things on it which you couldn't identify from that distance and the quality of the video, but the man that was at the corner joined him and they each grabbed something small and approached the tied and bloody Mr JuWon.
"Dad?" Jimin's voice quivered, punctuated by a tremor of terror clawing its way up his spine. His small frame squirmed in the suffocating grip of fear, a futile attempt to escape the horrors unfolding before his eyes. "What... What's happening? Why are you doing this to us?" His voice cracked, betraying the turmoil swirling within him.
"We're innocent!" Jimin's anguished cry echoed through but his words fell upon deaf ears, swallowed by the void of indifference that enveloped their tormentors. With callous precision, the men seized Mr. JuWon's exposed flesh, their hands morphing into instruments of unspeakable cruelty.
The sickening sound of tearing flesh mingled with the symphony of Mr. JuWon's screams, each agonized note carving deep scars into Jimin's soul. "Stop! Get away from him!!" His world shattered into a kaleidoscope of horror and disbelief, as no matter how much he was tearing his own flesh, trying to get freed from the ropes that were holding him, he couldn't. He was stuck to bore witness to the grotesque spectacle unfolding before him—the skin of his own father, being tossed to the floor bit by bit, leaving him covered in blood and Jimin unable to face the scene head-on.
He kept screaming in between his cries and sobs, accompanied by the voice of his father who was getting tormented to his death. His eyes close shut, as if he could make the world stop by just closing his eyes tight enough. As if the burning marks of the friction against the ropes, weren't but decorated lines drawn by crayons and didn't hurt at all.
"Please, please, please. Please!" He kept pleading as if the heavens would show mercy on him and the ceiling would crack open for a saviour to come and take him out of this hell, he so suddenly had found himself in.
Just some hours ago, he was at his school, like all people of his age. Just some hours ago, he was living his normal life, talking with his cousin and best friend. Just some hours ago, if someone were to question him about how strong he was, he would have stated that he would protect anyone he loved with all his might and no one would ever be able to stop him. He would have sounded brave, he would have thought truly that he would make it out of any situation somehow.
You see when you are young, you always have this illusion that there's nothing you can't do. That life isn't as scary and no matter what, there will always be a way to make it out of everything. Life was full of sacrifices yet his mind had never thought about such kind of sacrifices, for there was no need to. His life had been normal. Why would he ever find himself in such a state?
"No, this is not real. This is not real. This is all just a nightmare. I need to wake up!" He yelled as he opened his eyes once more, facing the same reality before him, that he had been hearing. The miserable form of his father, bloody, exhausted, getting torn to pieces.
This wasn't like in the movies. No one gave him a pause, a moment to think, a moment to breathe, to find a solution. No one gave him a chance to stop this somehow, no words made them slower in their actions. No cries of his were seemingly putting them in any kind of hesitation. Just what kind of men were they? What souls did they carry? Why were they doing this to his father? To him?
"I will do anything! Anything, I beg you to stop! STOP! Spare him!"Jimin's voice pierced through the cries of his father in a way higher tone as his despair to be heard had overtaken him and you watched the video, now with your hands over your mouth as the sight of the flesh being ripped and thrown around the room, was proving very disturbing for anyone to witness.
But certainly, it was a view more than disturbing for Jimin, for he was witnessing the pieces of his father being skinned from his body and tossed around the room as if they were nothing important. He was forcibly living through the most horrific moment anyone could think of and was engulfed under the sounds of the agonizing cries of his beloved father while begging inwardly for salvation that was nowhere to be seen.
"Now now, that sounds about right." The man next to Jimin tilted his head and leaned near his face with a smile. "We will let him go. Alive and free, for as long as you tell us all that you know about the Blue Butterly."
Jimin's eyes froze looking at the man, confusion etched in his mind over why they were asking him about a made-up case but soon his father's voice snapped him towards the gruesome sight again and shook him to his core by the words he uttered for him. "I am dead! I am dead anyway. Don't trust them! Never!"
An eery silence engulfed the place for a few seconds, leaving you wondering what could have possibly been going on in Jimin's mind that very moment then the man beside him yanked his head back, violently and rather abruptly, before he screamed on his face. " SPEAK! OR BE THE CAUSE OF YOUR FATHER'S DEATH!"
"Don't listen to them! There's no saving me! DON'T LET THEM WIN! DON'T LET MY LIFE GO IN VAIN"
Jimin's scream brought an end to the bickering between his father and that man, his head shaking vigorously as if he were out of his mind. His chair collapsed on the floor along with him for his movements and body weight had made it turn and there he kept struggling as if he was on fire, until that man rushed to pin him down, holding his head firmly against the floor.
"It's not that I was expecting you to be easy but I dislike kids that throw tantrums." The man spoke right before he started kicking Jimin in the head, and anywhere else he could, until his screaming stopped and his body came to a halt for his desperate attempt to get freed.
"Son! SON!" His father kept calling to him but the man just brought the chair back up to an upright position, with Jimin who seemed to have a bloody-looking face, that was hanging low.
"We know that he knows where you keep the information and we are gonna get it out of him one way or another." The man uttered as he approached a desk that was left at the side of the room and rumbled among the shelves for a bit, doing something you couldn't distinguish, until he returned back to Jimin's figure on the chair and forcibly held his head on one direction before he stuck a big looking needle right on his neck.
You found yourself drawn into the screen, your eyes fixated, your breath held captive as the scene unfolded before you. Closer and closer your face leaned towards the glowing laptop screen, the anticipation palpable in the air, tinged with an unsettling sense of unease.
Silence enveloped the room after that action as Jimin, stood face to face with the imposing figure of the man before him. Time seemed to hang in the balance, a suspended moment with anticipation and dread.
Then, like a thunderclap shattering the stillness, the man's voice sliced through the air, sharp and demanding. "Now tell me... Where is the Blue Butterfly?" His words cut through the tension like a knife, probing, demanding answers from him.
But Jimin, defiant and unyielding, met the man's gaze with a steely resolve. In a sudden eruption of primal fury, he lashed out with unexpected force, the sickening sound of bone meeting bone echoing in the chamber of his mind, as he collided his head with force against the face of the man.
A gasp escaped your lips as Jimin's headbutt landed squarely, sending the man reeling, crashing to the unforgiving ground below.
At that moment, the boundaries between predator and prey seemed to have blurred, as Jimin's laughter started echoing around like a wave, bringing the other two men who were standing near his father to look towards him, in confusion and wonder.
A chain of swear words followed after, coming from the man who had withstood the hit, who stood up and started hitting Jimin in rage, until he grew exhausted of beating him and Jimin's body was perfectly still and unconscious.
"What have you done? You cannot kill him?!" The voice of a woman echoed for the first time, sounding like it came from some kind of microphone, making you furrow your eyebrows in confusion, observing the screen, which soon solved your wonder, over who that voice belonged to, as Jimin's mother rushed into the room and headed right by his side.
" Jimin, Jimin." She called his name softly as she took him in her arms, ignorant about the shocking look that her tied-up husband was giving her, utterly surprised and betrayed to the core, as he couldn't help but come to the realisation that his own wife was the reason why they knew that Jimin was his archive of the Blue Butterfly.
She was the whole reason they both were in that situation right that very moment.
And in that chilling depth of reality, this truth that was so raw and dark was what made you understand that you could never dare utter all this to Jimin. For now, you knew for certain that to deny him the solace of ignorance was the same as pushing him straight to the arms of despair.
To the knife of betrayal that cut him more deeply than any other, for not only its blade was too deep, cruel and carved his mind forever, but the holder was also the one whom he had laid his heart on, from his first breath into this world.
---To be continued...