Marked for Revenge

It had come from the sea, his mother once said. The demons that roamed their world in the quiet hours of the night, prowling like cats in the perches of high-reaching trees. She’d often sit with In-Su at their dining table and sway to the beat of a song that In-Su was far too young to understand, and she would talk about the monsters that existed within their world. The beings with two faces. He would smile at her as he colored in his coloring book, because what monster could wear two faces and walk amongst people?

Except for one day, the winds over their tiny cottage deep in the American countryside grew cold, and the lights had dimmed. His mother smiled at him as he sat in front of the TV watching a kid’s show that was teaching him parts of the English language he didn’t know. His father had been a natural-born American and had taught him two languages since he could crawl. They’d immigrated to America after his 9th birthday to allow his father to be closer to the Church and the Priests who’d taught him the ways of exorcisms. Demons didn’t exist because then that would mean Santa Claus was real, and the kids at school would stop laughing at him for still believing in him. It was nice to think that there was some jolly old man who slid down their chimney with gifts when the snow was deep, and the temperatures below freezing. His father believed in those monsters though, just the same as his mom.

In-Su had heard the loud, flashing car toy that his sister had received for her birthday from his grandmother across the seas. She zoomed past him from the hallway, tripping over one of her build blocks that she’d strewn across the floor before narrowly running into his mother who stood at the stove, cooking supper. In-Su glanced towards the clock, pointing as he watched the secondhand tick.

“Is dad coming home?” In-Su asked as he glanced toward his mother.

She smiled at him, but sometimes that smile didn’t reach her eyes. He got up and hugged her tightly at the stove where she ruffled his hair in amusement. “You silly little boy. Your dad might be late tonight.”

“Oh.”

His dad wasn’t around much, back then. He’d often be out for late evenings and early mornings, rarely coming home when In-Su was in school. Probably for the better because in recent months, they’d struggled to get along. The boy listened to the steady hum of the television and the catchy tune that had started to play. He jumped up, dancing on the ball of his heel to a song about worms and how they would wiggle except that meant he’d stepped into his sister’s way who sat down and smacked her little toy car against the floor in protest.

“Mom!” She groaned as she tried to kick In-Su away. “He’s doing it again!”

“Mom, Hye-Jin is hitting me again,” he said before he pushed her down, and she started to cry boy fat, crocodile tears.

“In-Su,” his mother sighed as he scooped Hye-Jin up and set her in her chair. She slapped her hands against the table noisily before reaching for some of her utensils, which she couldn’t stop herself from tapping against the tabletop beside her empty. In-Su groaned as he plopped down in his seat, kicking his legs petulantly as he glanced over to his mother.

“What are you making?” He asked.

“Your dad got his new job,” she said as she turned around to him, putting her hands on her hip. “And with everything going so well, I got some beef to make Bulgogi. Your dad loves it. Can you get the rice out of the cooker?”

He huffed as he drug himself out of the chair to grab a bowl from the dish rack and stomp over towards the cooker. He flipped the lid open with a whoosh, but his mom wasn’t looking so he huffed louder and started to scoop some of the rice out with one of their wooden spoons.

“Are we having more than bulgogi?” In-Su asked as he glanced over at her.

She smiled. “Kimchi. Hmm, your favorite fried zucchini.” She poked him in the sides as she swooped the bowl out of his hands before setting it on the table alongside the plate with the beef. He eyed the Kimchi distrustfully because the last time had been spicy and he’d gotten so used to American food that he’d almost forgotten about his mother’s cooking. She set some lettuce down as well before stepping back over towards the stove to grab some tuna pancakes.

“Sit down In-Su,” his mother said as she whirled around him, poking him in the sides with a giggle once more before she slid into the seat across from the boy and passed out utensils. He snatched his chopsticks from her before she could even hand them over and he made a big, giggly show of tapping them together.

“Look, Mom! I can play the guitar!” He hugged the chopsticks to his side and started to strum at them like an instrument.

“In-Su,” she said with a shake of her head before she rose out of her chair once more to grab something from the cupboard. From the rattle of the two pill bottles, In-Su knew what they were without having to guess too much. His shoulders sunk as tapped his fingers against the dining table as she came around his chair with a glass of water. “Make sure to take your pills.”

He watched as she shook a couple of them out onto her palm before offering them to In-Su with a small, gentle smile. She ruffled his hair before she plopped down into her chair and started to fix up Hye-Jin’s bowl, who hadn’t been as cool as him to graduate from training chopsticks yet. She waved them in the air making huge, whooshing sound effects before diving them straight towards the bowl, narrowly spilling some of her food.

In-Su turned his attention back to the tiny pills in his hand and the heaviness of them. He shook them in his palm, feeling disheartened as remembered their bland taste, and large size. They smelled like chalk and he wrinkled his nose up at them, pushing them toward his own rice bowl.

“In-Su, your dad will be upset if you don’t take your pills,” his mother asked. “Don’t you want to get big and strong again?”

In-Su glanced down to his leg where one of the doctors with their big, mad scientist lab coats had attached a piece of metal to his shin and called it good. Yet, there was still an ache in his lower calf and along his knee from some birth defect in the womb. Some accident that his mother refused to tell him anything about, but now In-Su had to take big pills that made him choke and he wanted to cry. In-Su made a fist to crush them into fine dust before sweeping them to the floor, but his mother reached forward to use her palm to cover the pills.

“In-Su,” she said gently. “Please. For me. When your dad gets home, he’ll be upset.”

Dad! When dad gets home, he’ll see that In-Su took his big dumb pills and he’ll be so proud! Maybe In-Su will get his gaming counsel finally, his dad said he was going to think about getting it for him and his birthday was coming up! In-Su pushed his mom’s hand away and picked the pills up, swallowing them before taking a big sip of water to wash them down. He cringed as he felt them going down his throat, catching at the sides and tears started to well up in his eyes anyway.

“Good boy,” his mom said. “Your doctor would be proud.”

“And dad?”

His mother smiled nervously before she reached across the table to start filling In-Su’s bowl with some beef, lettuce, and a few pieces of fried zucchini. She topped it with a fried egg. “Eat.”

“Dad doesn’t even like you!” Hye-Jin said as she threw some of her rice at In-Su, lobbing it to the front of his forehead. In-Su groaned loudly as he tried to sweep some of the rice off.

“Mommmmmm,” In-Su enunciated.

“In-Suuuu,” his mother answered. “Hye-Jin, don’t throw your food.”

“He started it!”

“Did not, you ugly dog!”

“In-Su!”

Suddenly, the front door opened slowly, the hinge squeaking before it hit the wall. His father stepped in wearing a heavy, soaked jacket that he hung up on the wall before stomping his feet off the mat. His dad slammed the door shut behind him before crossing the living room towards the dining room, and all In-Su could notice was that his dad hadn’t taken his rain-soaked shoes off, and now he was stomping around their home in the debris and bacteria of the world outside. In-Su paused, chopsticks halfway from his bowl to his mouth with a juicy piece of bulgogi.

“You’re eating without me,” his father said, much less a question than a statement charged with electricity.

He watched his mother freeze before she turned her head slowly to smile. “Oh, welcome home!”

The man stomped across the kitchen before dragging his chair out roughly, scrapping the legs of the chair against the wood floor. It was painful to In-Su’s ears and he squeezed his eyes shut as he tried to look away. His mother gulped as she reached forward with shaky hands to start placing some of the meat onto his father’s rice bowl… but then In-Su saw a bruise around her wrist. He hadn’t seen that before. Had she gotten hurt earlier that day when they’d been out playing baseball after school? He was going to say something, but there was something tugging at his gut, telling him not to. In-Su usually didn’t listen to that inner voice that warned him not to do something, but this time he sat patiently and let the scene unfold. His mother would have told him if he’d hurt her, wouldn’t she? Surely she would have flinched at least if he’d thrown the ball too hard.

Suddenly, In-Su felt his appetite disappear and his head sink down. He laid his chopsticks down and folded his hands in his lap. He hadn’t meant to hurt his mom, and now all he could think about was his mom having to break up another fight like she did every time he got in trouble at school.

“Eat!” His father suddenly said, slamming his fist against the table hard enough to shake it. In-Su’s water glass that had been sitting too close to the edge had fallen over the edge and spilled all over In-Su’s lap and he couldn’t stop himself from jumping up.

“IN-SU!” His father hissed as he shot In-Su a glare that was enough to make him sink back down and lower his head. His dad wasn’t feeling well again. His mother said when he got like this, it was because the new job was stressful and his coworkers weren’t nice like the kids at In-Su’s school not being very nice to In-Su.

“It’s alright,” his mother said as she grabbed the towel from the sink and set to work cleaning away some of the water from the table and In-Su’s clothes. She ruffled his hair once more before she disappeared into the laundry room with the wet towel.

“I aced my English test today!” In-Su said as he grinned. “I got a home run when we played baseball.”

His father didn’t react as he sat back in his chair and dabbed at the beading of sweat around his neck. In-Su pursed his lip as he looked down. Sometimes, his dad got mad at him and he didn’t know why. He wanted to tell him about Henry who had invited him to the school dance, but the last time he’d said something, his dad hadn’t said anything nice about his friend. It had started a huge fight between his mom and dad, and eventually, In-Su had been sent to his room with a harshness he didn’t usually expect from his dad. He crossed his arms over his chest and huffed as he kicked his feet back and forth against the chair.

“Are you feeling alright?” His mother asked as she came back to the table and sank down into the seat, leaning away from his dad like she could get sick too. Suddenly, he was scared his father had picked up a cold that was making him grumpy, and when his dad was grumpy, so was his mother.

“It’s nothing,” his father snapped as he glared at her. “I’m perfectly fine. All you do is push and push and push. I am always fine, working my ass off to make sure there’s food on the table while you do what? Nothing! You’re a lazy piece of…”

“I keep this house clean, these kids in line,” his mother snapped suddenly as she placed her utensils down. “Dae-Sung, I don’t get why you think I do absolutely nothing around this place.”

“Because you don’t, these kids can take care of themselves. You use them as an excuse.”

In-So looked down at the table, at the wood patterns that sprawled across the surface. He huffed quietly as he clutched at his stomach when he felt the first wave of upset in the pit of his stomach. The pills hurt more than when they went down sometimes, but the doctor said it’d help his leg get better yet it hadn’t and his leg still hurt. He sniffled as he tried to sit as still as he could because when his dad was upset, he didn’t like it when people moved around too much. Like the pinpricks of needles in the back of his neck, In-Su kept his eyes down and his body stock still.

The man rolled his neck roughly before he squared on his mom, where there was a glimmer of something reddish in his eyes. Around his shoes was sand and In-Su couldn’t remember if he’d spilled some of the sand he’d gotten from the beach or not. Had he taken it out of his room again?

“In-Su, will you take your sister and go to your rooms?” His mother asked gently as she gave him a small, gentle smile that almost made everything feel warm again.

“But we haven’t got to eat yet!” In-Su protested. “I’ll bring you something later, alright In-Su?” His mother said. “I have to speak to your dad alone, alright?”

In-Su groaned as he got up from the table and helped his sister to the floor. Together, they hurried down the hall toward their respective rooms. He looked at Hye-Jin who plopped down on her floor to play with some of her toy horses beside her bed, and he smiled before he shut his door behind him and laid down on his bed. He knew he should have washed his face and gotten ready for bed, but suddenly In-Su felt exhausted like the weight of the world was dragging at him. He yawned as he counted the stars on the wall quietly to himself.

He zoned in and out of wakefulness later into the night, only for his door to open quietly and some of the hallway light to flood in. He pulled his superhero comforter down over his face as he sat up to watch his mother sneak in with a glass of water and a sandwich. She set it down on the table beside In-Su before sinking down onto the edge of his bed with a heavy sigh.

“I’m sorry In-Su,” she said gently as she reached forward to ruffle his hair once more. “You know how your dad gets when he’s having a bad day at work. He’ll be feeling better in the morning. Make sure you eat and get some rest.”

Then, she stood up and headed back towards the door, turning to look at him for a long, strained moment. He could hear something shatter outside his room, probably one of the bowls in the kitchen, then his father cursed loudly. Bellowing out words that In-Su would have gotten the soap for! His mother locked the door behind her before closing it with a quiet click.

Yet, In-Su eyed the sandwich on his nightstand, and in the dark with his space night light, it looked unappetizing. The bread was getting old with a stiffness to the crust, and he knew the lunchmeat his mother had prepared was due to go bad in a day. He’d run into the kitchen earlier that morning hungry because there’d been a big fight the night before, and he’d been sent to bed without supper. He sighed as he looked down at the sandwich, poking at it before he laid back down with his arms crossed over his chest and the blanket up to his neck. He chuckled quietly as he felt the rumble of hunger crawling its way through him, but there was no appetite. In-Su rolled onto his side as he looked down at some of his toys spread out across the floor. The medicine made him sick. It took his hunger away like the thieves on TV, and he would lose weight. His mother got in trouble every time he lost weight. She’d sit quietly outside his doctor’s appointments with her head in her hands and In-Su knew it was his fault.

He didn’t cry, because In-Su didn’t cry. He had to be strong for his mom, and remind her that no matter what happened, he would believe in her! That’s what she expected from him. In-Su didn’t sleep that night, either. Not when he could hear his mom and dad shouting across the walls, and the shatter of glass. He curled up beneath his blankets and he hoped as he heard the footsteps outside his door, and the hand giggling the knob, that his father wouldn’t be upset with him for hiding. Eventually, the exhaustion started to pull him deep beneath the waves of exhaustion and he leaned his head back and fell asleep.

Three AM. It was when the night was at its darkest when the screaming had finally gone quiet and In-Su got up out of bed, thirsty after having drunk the last of the water in his glass. The storm seemed to have intensified in the night, rumbling and harsh against the tin roof of their home. Thunder rumbled across the skies and every now and then, In-Su could see the bright flashes of lightning from behind his window curtains. He unlocked his door and stepped outside into the dark hallway. In-Su paused before he tucked his glass under his arm and reached back to grab his little flashlight. His father got upset, sometimes, when In-Su left the lights. He closed his bedroom door behind him quietly before he paused in front of Hye-Jin’s door, where reddish paint had been spilled across the hardwood. It’d dried by now, but there were long splotches stretching across towards his own door and Hye-Jin’s door was ajar. He could see some light streaming beneath the doorframe and a little poking out from the crack of the door and he paused. He reached forward to open it, but he remembered the glass in his hand and turned to make his way toward the kitchen.

That late at night, the living room was quiet. He could hear the ticking of the grandfather clock as it echoed across the house, and he could hear the quiet hum of the aquarium filter by the window. He passed the dining room towards the kitchen, where the lights were on. He could hear his mother scraping at something and when he appeared in the doorway, his mother was bent over the kitchen sink scraping at dishes. Her clothes were stained in that thick, red paint and there were wounds along her arms.

Something slammed into In-Su’s chest, creeping down his neck like cold skeletal fingers. He set his glass on the edge of the sink but his mother didn’t turn to look at him. That was odd. He should go grab the first-aid kit with an injury like that! He poked her shoulder and suddenly she whirled around, narrowly grabbing In-Su by his throat. The boy stumbled backward as a look of recognition crossed her face and that haggard, broken look started to bleed away.

“In-Su,” his mother whispered before she glanced towards the kitchen window where his father stood, peering out into the endless, rainy evening. He was still as he stood there, shoulders stiff and clothes covered in red. At his side was a knife clutched tightly in his red-stained fingers, the blade covered with the red hue.

“Mom?” He asked as he glanced back towards her. “Is dad… alright?”

“He’s not feeling well,” She sniffled as she brought her hand up to smother what sounded like a deep, throaty sob. Her eyes had become wet with tears and he could see open wounds around her neck like someone had tried choking her. “In-Su, go back to bed alright? Everything will be ok in the morning.”

In-Su looked down into the porcelain sink before he paused. He recognized those symbols, that language. It wasn’t Korean or English, but an older language that his mother spoke up with her family across the seas. However, his mother motioned for him to return to his room quickly, going as far as putting her hands on his shoulder and pushing him forward. In-Su paused as he entered the hallway, slippers tracking through the thick liquid dried across the hardwood. It smelled too much like copper to have been painted and he shined his flashlight on his sister’s room.

Maybe it was better that she spent the night with In-Su? He didn’t want to wake her if she’d finally settled down to sleep, but In-Su also felt… scared to sleep alone. The thunder was loud as it shook the house and each bolt of lightning struck the ground with malice. He didn’t enjoy thunderstorms.

In-Su pushed his sister’s door open quietly and shined his light across her toy bins and bookshelves, only to pause when he’d seen a red handprint among some of her favorite books. He paused as he glanced towards her bed where he saw a pile of blankets shoved beneath the bed, near the source of the red pool that had leaked out underneath her door and into the hallway. He kneeled down, knees popping as he started to pull at some of the blankets.

A small, cold little hand flopped down near his knees and In-Su paused. Is she asleep? He pulled the last of the blankets out before tossing them up onto her bed. She smelled weird, that was his first thought as he reached out to touch her. Usually, she smelled like the strawberry hair shampoo that his mother often used, but now there was something that he couldn’t quite put his nose to.

“Hye-Jin?” He said as he shook her cold, stiff hand quietly. “I know you’re tired, but why don’t you come with me to sleep?”

She didn’t stir and at first, he thought she must’ve fallen sick, or was far too deep into sleep to notice that he was there. He scooted back, pajamas soaking with red water as he pulled her arm forward. His mom would yell at him when she found out what he was doing, he knew he’d be in trouble. Don’t pull your sister around like she’s a toy! He covered her head as the girl passed beneath the metal frame of her bed and that’s when he realized that she was lying face down against the floor. Weird.

He rolled her over only to see a very stiff face with wide, open eyes. Her mouth was parted and her eyes glassy. She didn’t move, she didn’t breathe and something heavy slammed in In-Su’s chest. Suddenly, he was looking at the door through her eyes. Watching as that door swung open and their father stepped inside wielding his knife.

“I’m so tired of listening to you cry!” He hissed as he rushed to the bed, but the girl had fallen out beneath her sheets, diving for the underside of her bed. The man grabbed her by the legs, pulling her out in a flurry of limbs and screaming.

“Leave her alone!” His mother cried as she grabbed at his arms and tried to pull him backward. “This isn’t you!”

The first stab went in like butter, straight through the girl’s chest towards the center of her lungs. She gasped, screaming as she tried to crawl back underneath the bed, toward safety. She sobbed as she tried to kick the hand away from her ankle, but the man only yanked her further out into the open. She held onto the bed leg as if her life depended on it, tightening her hands when the next blade stabbed her in the shoulder, in the back just beside her spine. There was nothing but an explosion of pain driving her to tears as she screamed bloody murder to get back underneath.

Finally, his mother had managed to wrench the man off of his sister and pull him out of the door. They fought viciously in the hallway, slamming the door behind him but the door didn’t latch. Hye-Jin crawled back under the bed, covering the front with her blankets as she lay there becoming weak. Her vision started to fade and she was bobbing her head slowly, trying to keep her mouth covered as each round of sobs overcame her. Then, she looked straight towards In-Su like two times were connecting at once, and the other boy could see the agony on her face. The cold fear washed over her.

Then, In-Su was kneeling right where he’d been left with the girl’s hand in his own and her body stiff and cold. In-Su’s eyes beaded up with tears as he fell backward, sloshing in more blood. In-Su stood stiffly as he left, hoping to go to his own room and hide beneath the bed. Or in the closet, because his dad had found Hye-Jin under his bed… In-Su paused as he stepped out into the hall.

Something clicked against the floor, echoing down the short hallway and In-Su turned his head and shined his flashlight into the darkness. His father stood there, face twisted as he shuffled forward with his head twisted to the side. His lips moved, but In-Su couldn’t hear what he was saying. With each step he took, the shuddering in his chest seemed to get stronger. In-Su grabbed for the doorknob only to feel the man grab him and throw him across the house.

In-Su hit the ground hard, sliding as he bumped into the couch in the living room. In-Su stumbled to his feet weakly right as the man kicked him in the gut, knocking him back down. In-Su sobbed as the mad stomped on the boy’s bad leg over and over again until the boy felt like he was going to pass out from the pain. His vision got white and fuzzy, and his grip weak. He tried to curl in on himself only for someone to slam into the man from the other side.

“Leave him alone!” His mother snapped as she positioned herself in front of them. “I-I won’t let you kill him.”

Kill him. His dad wanted to kill him. His dad killed Hye-Jin. In-Su started to sob harder as he curled up beside the couch, trying to make himself appear smaller. He could hear his parents fighting over him, feet getting too close to him for comfort. Thunder rumbled and he could see the flashes of lightning. In-Su had to call the police.

He got up, crawling between their legs as he raced for the landline! “In-Su don’t!” His mother shouted as she reached her hand out to stop him. “Your dad’s been possessed by a demon! It’s not him.”

He stopped, shaking as he watched his father pummel the soft flesh of his mom. He choked on his own sobs as he looked towards the phone. “H-He killed Hye-Jin!”

The man looked straight at him with a smoldering gaze and deep red eyes. In-Su could feel something pushing and tugging at his own mind, twisting it like the claws of a vicious monster tearing at it. He stumbled back as his father approached, bloody knife pointed straight at the center of In-Su’s eye.

“Don’t look into his eyes!” In-Su’s mother screamed as she tried to get up, but the other man had stabbed her straight through the thigh and she couldn’t muster the energy to get up. “Please, honey. Please, it’s your son!”

“You are no son of mine,” the man spoke, but his voice was thick and layered like there were others speaking over him. He lurched forward, sand spilling out from the leg of his pants and he sneered at In-Su with a darkened, hellish look.

In-Su reached for the phone only for the man to grab him by the back of the neck and throw him to the ground. In-Su saw stars, eyes wet as he tried to fight against the man holding him down. There were hands around his throat, the knife falling beside him. In-Su kicked at him, trying to buck him off but against his dad who was fairly decent in size, it was no use. In-Su managed to free one of his hands and he grabbed the knife, driving it straight into his father’s chest. Right into his heart.

He could hear his mother screaming at him, sobbing, but all In-Su could feel was his sister’s cold fear washing over him. She struggled to get underneath that bed and hide and yet he’d grabbed her ankle and drug her out to die. Hye-Jin had died, alone, underneath her own bed as she bled out while his mother had been sitting there doing absolutely nothing to stop his dad. Why? Why? In-Su screamed as he pushed the man up, off of him. He was covered in thick sand as it fell from the man’s shirt, his pants and he sat up suddenly with a stiff back. Black smoke spewed towards the ceiling, exploding and spreading outwards.

His mother pulled his father off of him and she pressed her hands against the bleeding open wound of his chest. His dad was saying something in the splutters of blood staining his teeth, and his mother was sobbing as she told him to hold on. In-Su drug himself to his feet shakily, pain exploding along his bad leg up into his hip. He stumbled, falling to his knees as he leaned over. The black smoke thickened before it turned into a long funnel, channeling straight toward In-Su. He’d equate the feeling of sand burning past his tongue and throat to something similar to hell. He choked trying to fight it, but the smoke seemed to only thicken and suffocate him right where he stood.

“In-Su!” His mother screamed but the boy didn’t respond.

Not when he saw everything, death. The destruction, fields of fire stretching out before him. He could hear something whispering in his ear, curling around his shoulders as it pushed him forward. Pick it up! Pick it up! She would rather protect the man who killed your sister than protect you! In-Su stumbled as he saw the shiny reflection of the knife not too far away from him, within reaching distance. His mother was watching him with wide, horrified eyes as she pressed down against his dad’s chest. His dad killed Hye-Jin, and she was protecting him.

In-Su stumbled. He was on top of a forever churning mountain of sand, sinking down beneath the waves. They killed her. They killed her and they wanted to kill him next. In-Su didn’t want to die. He didn’t want to. He glanced towards the knife once more, feeling the itch of something hot at the nape of his neck. He hacked up wet globs of sand and when he reached his hand up to wipe at his nose, his knuckles were covered in blood. His heart seized. Had he been stabbed? Had his father stabbed him like he’d stabbed Hye-Jin? He stepped forward to grab the knife from where it’d fallen, stained in thick, red blood. He could see the piles of corpses lying before him, mixing in with the image of his father. Had his dad killed all those people? Was his dad a monster?

“In-Su, drop the knife! It wasn’t your dad’s fault! It was a demon!”

Demons… demons don’t exist. They can’t. His sister was dead and his mother was trying to protect the murderer because she still loved him. Didn’t she love In-Su? She didn’t love him, she wouldn’t protect his dad if she loved him. Suddenly, his mother was stained with the same blood as his sister. She would let In-Su kill him if she loved In-Su.

“It’s not his fault!” His mother shouted again as she tried to cover his father with her own body. In-Su felt empowered like someone else had been guiding his hand as he raced forward to destroy the man who’d murdered his sister. Someone was cackling, maybe him. Maybe the monster inside him that had awoken that night.

The last thing In-Su remembered was waking up in a pool of blood staining him with the sins of what he’d done. His mother had died holding his wrist, stab wounds covering her from head to toe. His dad lay in a pool of his own blood, mid-scream. The police came for In-Su and they hauled him away in cuffs and chains, talking about how a young kid had murdered his entire family.

In-Su sobbed as he was thrown into the back of a police car and hauled off with the branding of a murderer.