That tiger was back. It was back and prepared to unsheathe its claws and dig into the flesh of the person whipping him. Yesterday he’d been in a zoo, now he was in the circus ring being forced to perform even though he wasn’t able. It was fair. Who did this man think he was? He had no right to come and –
“Agh!” MinHo’s back arched with the blow, feeling his fingers scrape across the floor in an attempt to relieve the stress on his bruising behind where a shiny, red welt was surely appearing and overlapping the others that had been left there.
“That’s right, you little bitch! Scream like a pussy because that’s what you are!”
This time a foot collided into MinHo’s ribs and forced him onto his side. A pain so intense it nauseated him engorged him and he was left gasping for air and believing that rib had chipped or at least bumped into his lungs. The collision into the floor that had been a repercussion from the kick ached in his bare chest where the impact had been most focused. Somehow he found solace in the nippy temperature of the tiles. They soothed the bruises crisscrossing on his chest…
Short lived was his enjoyment as blow after blow after blow beat down on his body and watered the flower of pain that had begun blooming at his core. Vines grew out of the stem of the blossom and bound his limbs together while simultaneously constricting his chest.
How such a great feline could be reduced to a mewling kitten?
“S-screw you…” MinHo panted.
If the worker had had access to a whip that he could wield it would have whizzed through the air with that noise that resembled the noise an airplane made when cutting through the layers of the sky. The leather rope would have lashed down onto his back with a cringe worthy snap that would have left him writhing in pain. Except he didn’t have a whip, and it was his fist that came pushing down onto his back – the knuckles probably enforced with steel – getting harder and harder. MinHo clenched his teeth as the majority of the punches pushed down on the rib that he believed to be fractured.
It wasn’t him…
MinHo’s body was getting spongy and soft which meant every new hit would hurt more than the last. Muscles would have come in handy right now… He wished that he still had them…
For some reason, he found his mind wandering to his high school days (which were fresh in his mind as not much time had passed since he’d graduated). The big building was home during the day and evenings to a variety of different students; acting as the building that could host the greatest times of someone’s life or the worst.
Kids were racing round the hallways in a rush to get to their next class or find their friends to share the latest gossip they’d heard floating around on the grounds. MinHo himself was seeking out his buddies to chat with them about the basketball game that had aired on TV the night before. Honestly, he probably should have been going to speak with his math teacher about the lesson he’ d missed the previous week because they had a test last period and he was missing the notes, but his priorities were a bit scattered.
The crowds in the hallway were quickly thinning out as time ticked down to the final seconds before the beginnings of class were to be announced by the ringing bell. A couple kids actually chose to sprint the last few metres to their classrooms. MinHo was in the midst of debating whether to pick up the speed a notch or two or simply continue at his leisurely pace when someone rammed hard into his shoulder, forcing him to stumble backwards a step.
“Hey! Watch it!” he snapped without thinking.
Engulfed with larger problems, the young student had continued on his way, sparing MinHo not even a teeny glance or apology. To say that the young boy’s actions peeved him would be downplaying the true annoyance he felt. Was it so hard to apologize? There was enough time to mutter a small ‘sorry’. It wasn’t like there was that little time left before the next period
Realizing that it would serve nothing for him to gawk angrily at the escaping assaulter, MinHo continued at his steady pace, only feet away from reaching his classroom anyway. There were only three lockers separating him from his next lesson when he realized why that boy had been running in the first place and why he hadn’t been able to apologize.
He was the fox to the hunter who was chasing after him with a rifle loaded with unjustified contempt. Insults blurted out of the “hunting” boy’s mouth, aimed directly at his target that by then was fighting to retain his balance as he skidded around the corner.
MinHo watched in a paralyzed state like in those movies when a big explosion announces the climax of the plot and the protagonist is staring at it all amazed and such whilst turning away in slow motion to further dramatize the whole Hollywood situation. The big hunk ran by him, ignoring his existence much like his victim had. He resembled a charging bull with the way he was making the floor shake with his blundering stomps. The windows were surely trembling from the Godzilla steps.
It wasn’t until he rounded the corner and his footsteps stopped shaking the building that MinHo was able to pull out of the stupor he’d been drawn into.
Fear for the boy led him to chase after the pair. He couldn’t very well leave him to fend for himself…. It was like handing the mouse over to the cat. It was plain suicide!
With brisk yet fervent steps, he stealthily stalked the two, only going on intuition and not much else. Despite not having had waited long to follow after them he wasn’t able to locate them as easily as he’d thought. When all hopes of tracking the two grew fruitless and the final bell had come as his last warning that no matter what he did now he’d still be in trouble he thought about giving up. He didn’t know the boy anyway and the other guy wouldn’t really hurt him… Hopefully.
But then he heard it.
It was muffled at first – an on and off spurt of noise that encouraged him to keep at his search. The more he followed that choppy noise the louder it grew and the more he was able to pinpoint what it was that was causing the noise. He was positive that it was coming from around the corner…
He was right on, but what the noise actually was disturbed him on the highest degree.
Heaving sobs shook the air, mixed with sniffles and coughs blocked off by phlegm and interrupted by the dull thud that told him there was body on body contact.
“Who do you think you are?” a deep voice growled, wavering from the intensity the speaker was packing into his words.
MinHo couldn’t even imagine what the other boy appeared like. If he had been in his shoes he probably would have crapped his pants. That was a lie. He would have socked one right into the eye of the bully, never having been one to deal with anyone’s crap. Either way, he was fortunate to not be in the same position as the smaller boy.
“I should make you eat shit! Did you like what you saw in the locker room, huh? You want to choke on my dick?”
How someone could be so cruel to a human baffled MinHo, leaving him thinking of how many kids hadn’t had someone to follow them in a situation resembling this one. Millions probably…
Did anyone know that kids were suffering like that? Did they know about the two boys around the corner even? Glancing around the empty halls he deemed it safe to say that he was the only breathing victim witnessing the sickening events taking place in the building that was supposed to be the foundation for accomplishing your dreams. Destiny clearly had a sick way of utilizing innocent brick to tell you that you weren’t good enough for life.
Choices.
He had to make choices.
He could walk away and pretend this never happened. He could just walk off to class and make up an excuse to his teacher for why he was late and he would grovel to get out of detention before deciding that the punishment was inevitable and he would spend a lunch time or two dying of boredom during his lunch period. Easy peasy lemon squeezy.
His conscience wouldn’t allow him to this, though. Thinking about it now even sent electric shocks into his brain telling him that his conscience was already pissed off at him for considering the option. He had a feeling that he ignored his “inner voice” and continued on his way that it would eventually mould itself into a ghost out of the bullied boy’s soul and act as a puppeteer, forcing the soul to follow MinHo through his waking and resting hours. He would have to live with the fact, the stalking boy, that the last thing he said to him was, “Hey! Watch it!”
No, he wasn’t going to let that happen; it wasn’t in his nature!
Only one option remained for him. He would act as the hero to the problematic situation. He definitely had the brawn to fight off the bully and – if he permitted himself to gloat about himself – he had the brain to accompany it. With his two strengths combined he could make this boyo wish he’d picked on someone his own size instead of a defenceless boy clearly unable to protect himself. And even if MinHo was dramatizing things slightly in the heat of the moment, he knew he at least had his determination to fend for him because he sure as well wasn’t going to be a bystander.
He would not let the innocent get beaten.
Hearing a pull of a zipper and another thud that could only mean another hit, he made up his mind. That familiar anger burned beneath the skin on his fingers telling him to cool it before he got just as intensely angered as the bully. But he was going in. He was going in. Going in. Going.
Not all super hero’s needed a cape.
He would go for any kind of hero right now – cape and all.
“Maybe if I do the work for you than you’ll stop wasting my time.” The worker who’d been looming over top of MinHo was at his side and pulling hard on his flopping member with the hand not clutching his plastic cup. He tugged so hard that a scream roared out of the tiger. “Are you holding back to piss me off?” Another jerk forced MinHo to smash his teeth together to withhold any other sounds of agony.
What… Was he doing?
His fingers were squeezing so hard… This was worse than a leech sucking out his blood. This was a super leech – cape and all – doused in radioactive crap suckling off his life force. Soon it would be feasting off more than blood as it was approaching the flesh and cell part of his area.
So… Painful…
The tiger had had enough. With an all mighty bellow of a roar it went to lash out, but unfortunately his body was suffering from maltreatment and had a different way of expressing what his mind wished for. His hips gave an involuntary jerk as he released the very liquid they’d been trying to pry from him. Mouth agape, MinHo watch as the leech trapped his fluids in the tiny cup and popped a lid over the top. Ready to be express shipped to the labs and processed until it was ready for his carrier. Of course, only at the small fee of strength, hope and dignity.
The worker’s partner took over from this point on, making sure he caught the broken tiger before its beautiful pelt could get dirtied and bruised by the floor.
“Bring him to the examination room… His gunk is a weird colour,” the leech ordered.
And even though MinHo was barely able to keep his legs from buckling he marched on with the worker. That damn worker who knew that the only thing he had to fight with now was his tongue since they’d stripped him of everything else he had once held with pride. His only super power was his empty words that struck at ice barriers thicker than the icebergs in the Polar Regions. Nothing was left to maintain his status as manmade superhero.
Even his mind was beginning to slip away from him…
Another harsh stab was directed into the back of MinHo’s shin, signalling that he best pick up the pace lest he wish to return from his checkup with more injuries than he came in with. He would have no more time to daydream about a better life beyond anymore.
His chamber door creaked open, freeing the exit so then men could walk through with their funny coloured semen and play toy. Their path was barred, however, by another trio of boys moving slowly but with purpose down the same hallway. In MinHo’s eyes it resembled more two men dragging a gray mannequin (or maybe a large rag doll) whose limbs were barely attached by thin silicone fibres.
He was entranced from the moment he cast eyes on the boy. Was he a carrier? A donor? Why was he purpler than he? It was almost as if they had beaten him…
But why?
The boy’s face stayed a mystery to MinHo until the worker gripping his right arm gave a yank that caused his head to loll backwards. It was beautiful in that kind of deeply depressing way that made you wonder what future the person could have had if their life had been taken down a different path. Plump lips chapped and swollen from being dehydrated and stressed; big, brown eyes that stared into an invisible distance and sunken into his head. And that hair… It looked mousy from the lack of attention it’d been receiving (he probably hadn’t been allowed to visit the showers recently) but it must have been radiant at one time. Somehow he knew that it his hair once had been a beautiful and luscious frame to his angelically innocent face…
“Hey! Why did you bring a carrier into this wing?” the worker with the cup hollered, enraged by the disruption to his procedure.
“Dr. Park blocked the other hallway and we had to bring this worthless crap to the showers since he pissed off the boss and shit all over himself,” the other answered, hostility not afraid to burn in his voice.
He was a carrier…
Whose carrier? Who did he belong to? What was his number? Did his carrier look just as bad? Had he ever looked as bad? Or could this boy – the one whose head was growing smaller and smaller as he retreated into the hallway – be his? The chances of that were slim, but not impossible.
That boy that he’d saved all those years ago… Why was he thinking of that right now? Why…?
Because they’d looked the same when he’d seen them for the first time… When he had pulled that brute off the boy he’d seen sunken eyes and puffy lips that filled the space between his cheek bones perfectly… But why was he thinking of that…?
Why…?
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Little news for you guys, as this is also doubling as my original novel (I simply changed the character names to suit this fanfic), I have news regarding it. I am being featured in a radio show/podcast because I shared the first chapter of this story (THE BABY MILL) on a writing website.
If you guys are interested in hearing it I'll try to get the details and I'll keep you up to date with what is happening with regards to this! ^^
Thanks fo rall the support!