White Killer1

CHAPTER 1: The Children Abandoned by God

Human beings only realize the magnitude of their freedom after it has been stripped away. They only then understand how the small, mundane daily life they once breathed in so naturally was, in fact, a magnificent sanctuary. But if the price of that realization is an abyss deeper than death, what on earth must we kneel for before a heartless God?

To me, Seung-hwa, the sky was not a dwelling place for a merciful God, but a massive block of lead that choked my very breath. Whenever a prayer laced with screams scattered into the empty air, the only thing that returned was a freezing silence. It was not God's warm hand that pulled me out of the abyss. It was the vicious, razor-sharp claw of a devil that sliced through the stillness of the night.

1. The Spring of Shattered Glass

In a certain rural village, the spring of 1985 began not with the scent of flowers, but with the damp, stagnant smell of water stains in a fishy-smelling kitchen sink. The hands of ten-year-old Yeong-ae were always swollen from the freezing water, so thin that her raw, red flesh nearly peeked through. Princesses in fairy tales are rescued by dazzling knights even when they fall into the mud, but the hell called reality is never that soft or kind.

Crash!

A plate slippery with grease struck the cement floor, exploding and scattering shards in every direction. The razor-sharp fragments flew outward, threatening the child’s bare feet. In that split second, what flashed in Yeong-ae’s eyes was not simple self-reproach for a mistake. It was a primal, raw terror, like a prey being hunted by a starving beast. It wasn't just the plate that shattered. The jagged shards of glass cut deep into the child’s fragile soul first. No prince was coming. There was only a wolf-like reality growling outside the door, reeking of alcohol.

2. Prayers Trampled by Heavy Boots

The humid, stifling heat of the summer of 1987 mingled with the sickening stench of alcohol exhaled by my stepfather, suffocating me to my very core. The crisp, stiff police uniform he wore was not a symbol of protection, but a free pass that justified absolute, unchecked violence. At fifteen, I curled my body into a tight ball like a soccer ball on the dusty ground in the corner of the yard, taking the merciless baptism of those heavy boots.

Every time my ribs creaked and screamed in agony, I cried out the name of God. I begged Him to please make this living hell stop. Yet, the heavens remained jarringly, terrifyingly silent. That heavy stillness soon turned into cold malice, flowing through my veins. As if mocking the boy’s desperate longing, the sky was relentlessly, beautifully blue. On that day, I made my decision: I would never again bow my head to a God who never answers.

3. Seoul Station: The Burial of Illusions

During the Chuseok holiday of 1987, Seoul Station looked like a brilliant exhibition called "Happiness." The pure, bright laughter of children dressed in colorful Hanbok filled the te

rminal. Amidst that dazzling scenery, I crawled between the shoes of the crowd like a plague-carrying rat.

My cheeks were deeply hollowed out, as if I hadn't even given a drop of gruel in days, and a bizarre madness born of sheer survival flashed in my eyes. What touched my begging hand was not warm sympathy, but a freezing, razor-sharp contempt and a disgust reserved for a contagious patient.

I had thought that once I came to Seoul, everyone became rich. I truly believed that the promise—to become wealthy and come back for my little sister, Yeong-ae, whom I had left behind in our hometown—would turn into reality in no time.

But Seoul was a massive concrete tomb that wouldn't grant me even a single star. As the night deepened, only my dry, hollow voice drifted low into the pitch-black darkness:

"I thought that simply making it to Seoul would make everyone rich. It didn't take long to realize that this very illusion was the noose tightening around my own neck."

4. A Hand Extended in the Darkness

In the winter of 1987, when I was seventeen, the falling blizzard was not a blessing, but a blade that sliced through the skin. At the edge of an alleyway piled high with stinking garbage, I growled like a feral beast, holding onto my very last piece of bread. Just as my entire body was being torn apart by the relentless beating of local thugs, a pair of boots gleaming with a sharp luster appeared through the darkness.

It was Bullsae (Phoenix) and Yubin.

Out of the pitch-black void, only a dark shadow extended a hand toward me. It was not salvation; it was a contract. A viscous, chilling deal to sell pieces of my soul just to keep holding onto a desperate lifeline. Without a moment's hesitation, I took that hand. Because the only thing that welcomed me, whom even God had discarded, was that absolute, pitch-black darkness.

 

5. The Stigma of Waiting

Around that time, a frail, ghost-thin Yeong-ae stood on the platform of our hometown train station. Every time a train rolled in with a screeching metallic wail, the child stretched her neck, looking into the crowd. And every time the night deepened and the lights along the tracks faded, her shadow crumbled powerlessly onto the cold ground.

"You said you'd become rich and come back for me..."

The sorrowful lyrics of the childhood song became an invisible noose choking Yeong-ae’s neck. Over the freezing tracks where her brother never returned, the sky only dropped endless sleet that felt like cold tears. The promise had become an untouchable legend, and the waiting became a burning stigma, searing itself deep into the child’s chest.