This story takes place in Gwangju, South Korea in 1980 during the Gwangju Uprisings, a mass uprising against President Chun Doohwan’s military government.

“Don’t you dare!” screams Umma, as she grabs me by the back of my sweatshirt. I tear myself from her grip and run away as fast as my worn out sneakers can take me. “How am I supposed to live if you die as well?” I crush my hands against my ears, trying to block out my mother’s voice. Trying to block out the guilt.
I run towards the place of protest and demonstration. The place where the voice of the people is demanding to be heard.
The place of my brother’s murder.
I’m sorry, Umma, I think. But I must do this. I must do this for him.
I arrive at the very place Kyungsoo had stood, just days ago, when he was still the bright-eyed, handsome college student he had always been before his life was taken from him.
It had only taken eight minutes to run here; it was close to my house. That’s why we were able to hear the gunshots as we waited for Kyungsoo to come home.
Tears threaten to fall as I think of him but I quickly wipe them away. I’m not here to bawl like a baby, I think, I’m here for a reason. I shakily rise to my feet and raise my face to the blinding sun, choking back the lump in my throat. It was such a beautiful day to be outside.
I walk forward and join the masses.
I scream with them.
I march with them.
We’re all here for the same thing: change.
The protest goes on for hours. I don’t realize that my stomach is growling until someone hands me a rice ball wrapped in plastic,
“Thank you,” I tell the lady as she hands more out to others.
She smiles. “Thank you for participating!” She looks me up and down. “You seem awfully young to be here though. Are you a high schooler?”
I nod.
“Are you here with a sibling?”
I nod again. It was partly true. Amidst the college students and other young people, I felt my brother there with me. It was as if he was at my side, proudly watching on.
She abruptly pulls me in a hug, knocking me out of breath. “Young ones like you are the ones that give me hope for this generation.” She steps back. “Bless yo-”
Bang! Bang! Bang!
She’s cut off as the sound of gunshots fill the air. We exchange glances and I see my expression of fear in the reflection of her dark brown eyes. People scream. Some flee while the majority marches forward. The lady and I are among the latter.
“Chun doo-hwan, you dictator! You murderer!” I repeatedly yell. My throat is hoarse but I continue on chanting.
More bullets zip around us as we advance. I clench my fists as a young man in front of us, so similar in appearance to my brother, collapses to the floor, screaming and clawing at the bullet wound on his shoulder.
March, march, march.
I’m trying so hard to be brave.
March, march, march.
I blindly stomp ahead until I hear someone scream my name. “Eungjung! Eunjung!” I whip around to see my mother, hobbling on her bad ankle.
A sense of dread and terror fill me. She must’ve come when she heard the gunshots.
“Umma? Why’d you come? It’s dangerous!” She opens her mouth to reply but fails as a bullet goes through her.
Her eyes roll to the back of her head a millisecond before she drops on the floor like a stone.
I run like a maniac, shoving my way through the crowds that try to push me back like a mighty tidal wave. When I get to her, I kneel, cradling her body in my arms. She feebly looks at me. “Kyungsoo?” Her voice trembles. “Is that you?”
“Yes,” I lie. “It’s me.”
A tear slides off the side of her face. “Uri aga, my baby. Eunjung and I waited so long for you to come home.” I wipe the tears off her face with the back of my hand as she continues, “When we saw your body in the hospital, your beautiful face covered in blood, I-”
My attention snaps towards the commotion around me as the screams rise in volume. Soldiers are now attacking on foot, batons in their hands.
When I turn back around, I see that she has lost consciousness. Frantically, I check her pulse. Thump, thump. It’s weak but it’s there.
I weep, relieved, clutching onto her in the midst of the violence and trampeding feet. “Umma, please wake up. Umma-”
I feel something strike my back and I collapse to the ground. “You Communist b****!” a soldier screams in my ear. He proceeds to kick my back as I curl into a ball. Despite the pain that shoots through my spine, my trembling hands manage to reach into my pocket and grasp onto the small metal object I had hid inside.
“Eunjung.”
I lift my head from my book. “Yes, oppa?”
Kyungsoo pulls out something from his pocket, a serious look on his face. “Things aren’t very safe these days. Keep this but only use it when you truly need it.”
I look at the small object that he has placed in my hand. “A folding knife?”
He nods. “Don’t tell Umma,” he says with a smile.
I flick the knife inside my pocket as discreetly as I can as I feel my ribs bruise from the kicking. It won’t be long until one of them break. I blink hard, trying to get rid of the black spots that dance around in my vision.
I must stay conscious.
I think about my brother Kyungsoo. I think about my mother. I think about the civilians that the government and Chun Doo-hwan had killed as if we were pesky insects. I think of the people of Gwangju.
Determined, I wildly grab the knee of the soldier, whose kick narrowly misses my temple and lands on my brow bone, causing the delicate skin covering it to rip and bleed. I look through the red sheen of blood in my eyes to his face, twisted in cruel pleasure as he kicks me again and again in attempt to shake me off his leg.
I raise my knife, the last gift my brother had given me, to his stomach, my wrist poised to stab.