After they returned on the train to the apartment, Chung-Cha settled Min into her bed on the sofa. Min studied her quietly. “Did I say something to make you sad, Chung-Cha?”
“You did nothing wrong. The wrong is all within me. Go to sleep.”
Chung-Cha went to her room, undressed, and climbed into bed. She lay there staring at the ceiling.
And on that ceiling there appeared images she had forced from her mind seemingly forever.
The guards had come for her that day. General Pak had told her that she could be free. Then Pak had left. And the woman had taken Chung-Cha aside and told her what she must do to earn her freedom.
“Your mother and father are enemies of our country. Your brother’s and sister’s minds have been poisoned as well, Chung-Cha. You understand this, do you not?”
Chung-Cha had slowly nodded. She could not remember loving her parents. They regularly beat her, even when not instructed to by the guards. They snitched on her. Her brother and sister were competitors of hers for food, clothing. They too snitched on her. They too beat her. She did not love them. They were evil. She assumed they had always been evil. She was here because of her family. She had done nothing wrong. It was they who had committed the wrongs.
“Then you must act, Chung-Cha. You must rid your country of its enemies. Then you will be free.”
“But how do I do this?” she had asked.
“I will show you. You must do it now.”
She had been taken to a room underneath the prison. It was in the same area where she had lived for a while because of something her father had done while there. It was far worse than living in the hut. She had not believed that anything could be worse than that, but it was. During that time she had not seen the sun for what seemed like years. All of her work was done underground, digging with a pickax, hauling rock, working her fingers down to the bone.
Inside this room were four people. They were tied to posts. Their heads were covered with hoods. Their mouths must have been gagged underneath, because all Chung-Cha could hear were grunts and moans.
There were two guards on either side of the four people.
The woman had taken a knife from her bag. It was long and curved and had a serrated edge. She handed it to Chung-Cha.
“Do you see the red circle drawn on their fronts?”
Chung-Cha looked over and indeed saw a red circle on the chest of each of the four people.
“You will stick this knife inside the red circle. You will then pull it out and stick it back in. This is for each of the people, do you understand?”
Chung-Cha said, “Is this my family?”
The woman said, “Do you want to be free of this place?”
Chung-Cha nodded vigorously.
“Then you do not question. You follow orders. This is your order. Do it now, or you will die here as an old woman.”
Chung-Cha gripped the knife and walked hesitantly toward the bound figure on the far left, the one she assumed must be her father.
He was struggling against his binding, perhaps knowing what was coming. She heard his grunts increase in volume. He thrashed, but he could not really move because of the bindings and the stoutness of the wooden post.
Chung-Cha raised the knife as high as she could, over her head. She drew it back. The grunts increased. But for the gag her father would be screaming.
She screwed up her eyes until she could barely see out of them. Then she lunged forward and plunged the knife into the circle. His body went rigid and then he thrashed madly, nearly dislodging the knife from her grasp.
“Once more!” screamed the woman.
Chung-Cha withdrew the knife and stuck it in him again. Then he stopped moving as the blood poured down his front. A guard stepped forward and removed the hood. It was her father. His face hung down, the gag balled in his mouth. His eyes were open, lifeless. He seemed to be staring down at her.
“The next one, Chung-Cha. Do it or you are lost,” screamed the woman.
Chung-Cha automatically turned to the next person and stabbed twice.
It was her sister.
“Do it now, Chung-Cha. Now. Or you are lost forever!”
The next. It was her brother.
The woman screamed the threat again and again. “Do it now, Chung-Cha. Now! Or you are lost forever.”
The last two strikes. Metal thudded into flesh.
Chung-Cha no longer had any idea what she was doing. Her hand was moving of its own accord. She could have been stabbing a dead hog.
When the hood was taken off her dead mother looked down at her.
Chung-Cha dropped the knife, took a step back, and fell to the floor, crying, her body covered with the blood of her family. Then she picked up the knife and tried to kill herself with it, but the guards were too fast. They took it from her.
The woman pulled her up. “You have done well. Now you can leave here and serve your country. Forever. You have done well, Chung-Cha. You should be so proud.”
Chung-Cha looked at the woman. She was smiling down at the little girl who had just slaughtered her family.
Chung-Cha did not know that she was crying in her bed now.
But she did know that Min had climbed in with her, wrapped her little body around her, and was hugging her tightly.
Chung-Cha could not hug her back. Not now.
On the ceiling was the image of her family.
Dead by her hand.
All dead.
The price of her freedom?
Chung-Cha’s soul.