Part 9: Heavenly Father's Guidance

_{content warning: human trafficking, descriptions of severe injury, depersonalization, police brutality}

[BGM: No Escape from Here]


Heavenly Father's Guidance

My name is Alicia. I'm 18 years old.
I was born and raised in Mexico.
I have a little brother named Carlos, who is 9 years younger than me.

He is the only family I have left.
We're both orphans.

The orphanage was so poor that they couldn't afford to send us to school.
I had to come out and make some money so that I could keep my brother in school.
If I could make enough money, I thought that maybe we could eventually move out of the orphanage and start a new life, just the two of us.

I heard that America was a place full of chances for everyone.
That was where I should go.



A 'travel agency' inside Mexico City had told me that crossing the desert, stowing away on a train, or getting across the Río Bravo, were all very risky and dangerous.
Therefore, they had established a route via the ocean. Even though it would be slightly more expensive, it was guaranteed to be safe. And everyone who had taken this route had got into America.

I spent the money I had saved for months and bought myself a ship ticket.

There were several other young girls with me on the ship.
We were locked inside a small room and were not allowed to go out.
At first, we thought that it was just so that people wouldn't find us being smuggled across the border.
But it had taken so long, we must have arrived by now...

Half a month had passed and we were still at sea. We were finally certain that we had been conned.



After about a month the ship finally arrived at a port.
We were then moved to a building near the port where guards watched us.

Where were we now? Which country was this?
Were we going to be sold?
As slaves?
Or... prostitutes?

I crouched in the corner with my mind running wild.

Every once in a while a guard would come in and take a sobbing girl out.
There were fewer and fewer people left in the room.

Finally, there was only me and another girl named Julie left.



Julie suddenly stood up and tried to hit the guard at the door facing us.
She was holding a rock in her hand.

But she didn't succeed.
The rock fell to the ground, and her arm was grabbed so tightly by the guard that it looked like it was about to snap.
She looked at me with a pleading look in her eyes.

I really wanted to help her.
I didn't want to be sold either.

I was too scared...
The guard had a gun. Everyone outside had a gun.

Julie lowered her head. When she lifted it back up the guard was screaming like a pig being slaughtered.
Half of his missing ear was in Julie's mouth.

Then I heard a few gunshots, along with loud cursing. Julie fell down and stopped moving.
Her eyes were open so wide, as if she had just come out of a nightmare.



The injured guard slammed the door angrily, with one hand covering his ear. Soon, another person came in.
This one seemed to be nicer. He had half a bottle of beer with him.
He sat down at the door, looked at me and then looked at Julie who was lying in her own blood.
He didn't seem to care about what had happened at all.

An hour later his bottle was empty, and he had fallen asleep in the chair.
It was pretty late. Maybe I wouldn't be taken away until tomorrow.

I looked at Julie again, and remembered what she had told me there, on the ocean.

“I want to become a singer in America! I want to be a star!”
She wasn't bragging. She had a really beautiful voice.

She had also said, “I know if I do my best, my dream will come true!”
I would never forget the look on her face when she said it.
Her eyes had been filled with hope and anticipation for the future.

I was very jealous of how lively and full of joy Julie was.



The guard turned a little in the chair and his gun dropped from his waist, sliding towards my feet.
Was it... a hint from the Lord?

I reached out for the gun, but I jerked my hand back like I had been shocked when I touched it.
No! No! I couldn't!
What if I ended up like Julie...

I held the cross tight in front of my chest.
And started praying.

Oh Heavenly Father. Jesus said, “Ask and you shall receive.”
We trust that You know what our true needs are. You recognize what our true feelings are. You understand what situations we are in.
Now, we shall ask for what our heart truly desires...
O God, give heed to my prayer, show us Your mercy. Amen.

Five minutes passed.
Ten minutes passed.
Thirty minutes passed.

The guard began snoring.
The gun was right next to my hand.



Maybe this really had been a hint from the Lord?
I finally picked up the gun in hesitation. It felt so heavy in my hand.

Mom, Dad, please bless me.
Carlos, please bless me.
Heavenly Father... please bless me.

I pushed the door open. There was no one in the hallway outside.
It was so quiet. The only thing I could hear was my own heart beating wildly in my chest.

The building had only one floor. After taking one turn I could see the main gate.
There were several guards at the gate too. All of them had guns.
There was a black man and two Asians. The rest of them all had pale skin.

How could I get out? With just one handgun?
I checked the gun in my hand once again.



There were no bullets in the gun.

There were no bullets?
I collapsed on the floor. I was not feeling afraid any more. I just felt utter desperation.

Soon, the guards noticed me and dragged me back into the room.
This time, they cuffed up my feet so that I wouldn't be able to escape again.

Julie's body was still lying there. Flies began hovering around her face.
But they didn't seem to have any intention to clean up the scene.



Would I end up like Julie?
Was this my final destiny?

Heavenly Father... please answer me...

Alicia



[BGM: The Darkness]


Bastards

My name is Kang Baek-Ya. I'm a cop.
I had been doing this for 7 years. Or is it 8? I can't really remember.

Today, the old man assigned another newbie to my unit.
He had always wanted my unit to become as big as Unit 1.
Why did I need so many people? Detective work wasn't like street fighting.
I had a headache whenever I pictured the image of so many people in the unit, passing their lunches over their heads during lunch break.

And this newbie today was full of that kind of “fighting for JUSTICE” crap.
Lunatic.

Well, screw it. Whatever.
I was just going to wait for a few days. Then I would find an excuse to send him over to Unit 1. Everybody would be happy then.



We were always very busy; the files for the open cases had been stacking up on desks, starting to resemble small hills.
Among all the police precincts in the entire Republic of Korea, Busan might be one of the top 5 busiest precincts thanks to the violent gangs in the area.

The Musung Gang, and the Bungmun Gang.
These two gangs never made our lives easy.

Recently, the old boss of the Musun Gang had been severely ill. His underlings were all itching to become the successor. There were at least a dozen people killed in the infighting every day.
If I kept saving up my vacation days like this I would probably have enough time to plan for my next trip to be to the moon.

The case today was an annoying one, too.
It was a hostage case, but the kidnapper and the hostages belonged to the same gang. It was a so-called “family matter”.
What was worse was that the kidnapper was someone quite important in the Musun Gang.
The old man always told us to keep things easy so as to avoid a direct confrontation with the gangs.
He had told me again today, multiple times, to bring the kidnapper in without hurting anyone.



Without hurting anyone?
Pfft. If he had really wanted that, he would not have assigned the case to me...

I was crawling in a narrow air duct.
I could hear breathing sounds all around me, both loud and quiet, as well as the sound of the fans.

The air smelled disgusting.
I loosened my collar a little.
Fuck this. I'd rather climb up from the outside of the building with my bare hands than suffocate inside this goddamned tube.
Why couldn't I just walk in from the door and pop two shots into his head?

I had finally arrived at the top of the room.
The voices coming from below sounded very weird through the vent.

“You, you s-s-stay t-t-th-there... and don't- don't- fucking move! All of you! Don't- move!”
The target was sitting on a couch at the other end of the room. He kept waving the gun in his hand around, and pointed it at the other ones' heads every once in a while.
Those poor bastards were all his underlings. None of them even dared to look up.



I had seen lots of junkies that would get so high that they wouldn't recognize their own mother.
Still, the scene right below me was so unusually funny that I almost chuckled.

The area below the vent was right in the view of the bay window. Anyone could easily see inside the room from across the street through that window.
My task today was to lure him over.

I got closer to the vent, trying to observe the situation more closely.
“Clang!” A loud noise came from somewhere. “Don't- don't move!” I heard a man's voice.
A bullet flew out without me seeing it.

The nails fastening the vent register had been shattered by the bullet, and it bounced off a few meters away and into a corner.
After a tumble and a half I fell and smashed into the white carpet, along with the vent register.

Five meters away, the junkie was holding his gun with a shocked expression on his face, and smoke was still coming out of the dark, shaking barrel.
Near my shoulder, my shirt had turned from its original red to another kind of red. And the colored patch kept getting larger.



”You've let yourself get hurt again... Idiot.”

A voice that I couldn't be more familiar with appeared in my head once again, while also sounding like it was coming from out of this world.
Oh crap...



I had come back to this room again.
The room was extremely dark. There was no furniture inside except for a light bulb hanging from the center of the ceiling.
A slightly shorter person walked out from a dark corner reluctantly. His hair was all messed up, and his eyes didn't even look alive.
As soon as he pushed me away from underneath the light a mysterious force dragged me into the corner; I was swallowed by darkness.

Whenever I was in danger, this guy would come out against my will.
But at a moment like this? Well, shit... what a shitty day.



Whoever stood under the light would have control of the body.
From this moment on, I was no longer in command of my own body.

“I” managed to dodge all of the flying bullets coming toward me with extreme agility and inhuman postures.
When “I” got back on my feet, “I” somehow had a gun in “my” hand.

The thirteen 9mm bullets in the magazine were fired like a machine gun. Each one of them went through his head.
Broken eyeballs splashed all over the barely recognizable face of the junkie. Everything was a terrible mess.



The junkie had collapsed to the floor like a pile of mud. But now, the gun was aimed at his henchmen that were still all tied up.
Things were taking an ugly turn.

One bullet, one life, no waste.
But “I” hesitated when the gun pointed at a muscular guy with a tattooed head.

The muscular guy suddenly swept “me” at my ankle with his leg. “I” lost my balance, knocked my head on a short table, and passed out.

When I woke up, I was lying in the hospital, with tubes coming out all over my body.
Min-Jun was sitting next to me, sound asleep.



Eight deaths.
As per usual, I had to write one thousand words for each death in the report, which meant I needed to write eight thousand words.
Moreover, the target this time was not just a regular punk. His father was the leader of the Gangmun Group within the Musun Gang, Choi Yo-Han.
That would mean another four thousand words at least.
Gosh... my head hurt so bad...

Sweet Jesus... Give me a break, please...

Kang Baek-Ya



Wow... It was almost like I was watching an action movie.

If only I had some popcorn...

Don't ruin this solemn mood by suddenly thinking about popcorn!

Okay, sorry, there is no popcorn here, but we do have osmanthus cakes.

Oh, that's great too! I'm not very picky~

…

So, if I want to eat cakes while watching a movie... oh no, I mean, while working, is there any way I could do it hands-free? These letters are not like the regular letters that I can just read in front of me. I have to follow the thoughts of the writer by confirming it sentence by sentence.

Stupid, lazy girl...



So, there's only three pieces to shuffle around this time, and with it being between two letters that means there's only so many different ways this can shake out. Let's get started.



Obviously, this is probably going to be bad for Alicia, but we're starting with this to get 'no pieces on Kang's side' out of the way first- let's see what happens when nothing interferes with his infiltration.



There was nothing directly beneath the vent that I could use.
The only possible distraction was the three layers of water barrels stacked in one corner of the room.

I raised my handgun, with the silencer attached.
I aimed and pulled the trigger.

The bullet hit a barrel and red flames erupted from it.
A raging fire swept across the room.
It swallowed the junkie and his pathetic underlings.
Then it gushed into the air vent.

The fire swallowed me as well.

It wasn't water in those barrels.
I'd made a huge mistake. I should have thought about this and lured him over in another way.



[BGM: No Escape from Here]


A bullet that had come from the door hit me in the stomach.
I slowly collapsed to the ground, with my back against the wall. I could feel the warmth slowly leaving my body.

The last thing I saw was some people arguing at the door.
They were all strangers.
Tears rolled down my face.
It was true what they said. The people you wanted to see the most in your last moments... would be your own family...



The answer is “Kang shoots a video game exploding barrel and everyone dies”, it would turn out. So we obviously have to have something happen on his side, especially if we want to prevent Alicia from being murdered too.



Maybe we need to do the opposite. Have everything on Kang's side, leave Alicia with nothing that could alert the guards or prevent her from protecting herself?

[BGM: The Darkness]


The nails fastening the vent register had been shattered by the bullet, and it bounced off a few meters away and into a corner.
After a tumble and a half I fell and smashed into the white carpet, along with the vent register.

Five meters away, the junkie was holding his gun with a shocked expression on his face, and smoke was still coming out of the dark, shaking barrel.
Near my shoulder, my shirt had turned from its original red to another kind of red. And the colored patch kept getting larger.

”You've let yourself get hurt again... Idiot.”

A voice that I couldn't be more familiar with appeared in my head once again, while also sounding like it was coming from out of this world.
Oh crap...

I had come back to this room again.
The room was extremely dark. There was no furniture inside except for a light bulb hanging from the center of the ceiling.
A slightly shorter person walked out from a dark corner reluctantly. His hair was all messed up, and his eyes didn't even look alive.
As soon as he pushed me away from underneath the light a mysterious force dragged me into the corner; I was swallowed by darkness.

Whenever I was in danger, this guy would come out against my will.
But at a moment like this? Well, shit... what a shitty day.

Whoever stood under the light would have control of the body.
From this moment on, I was no longer in command of my own body.



“I” managed to dodge all of the flying bullets coming toward me with extreme agility and inhuman postures.
When “I” got back on my feet, “I” somehow had a gun in “my” hand.

“Click.”
The trigger kept clicking, but no bullets were fired.

I forgot to put the magazine back yesterday after doing some maintenance.
I had noticed that when I was still in the vent. But this idiot...

Although hand-to-hand combat would only mean one thing. My opponent was going to suffer even more.
I began to sympathize with the poor bastard.

As I had lost control of my body, and I had been so exhausted, the view before my eyes was starting to get shaky and blurry.
In my skipping vision I glanced Min-Jun waiting for a chance for his best shot from the roof of the building across the street.
He could see everything inside the room in his scope on the sniper rifle.



“I” punched the junkie on the nose.
His nose was broken into an asymmetric shape, and blood was coming out of both of his nostrils.
However, the junkie seemed to become more lucid after the punch. He looked outside the window following the direction of my eyes. He had noticed Min-Jun, too.

A clear view in front of the window. A perfect spot for a sniper.
However, “I” didn't know anything about today's plan.

The junkie saw an opening and suddenly grabbed “my” body. He then quickly turned around and forced “my” back towards the window.
The bullet shattered the window glass and, in the next instant, it pierced through “my” chest as well.

The strong force flipped “me” over and destroyed my lungs. “I” couldn't breathe anymore.
I stood helplessly in the corner of the dark room, and my sight was fading...
Eventually, I lost all connection to the world.



[BGM: No Escape from Here]


Now that I had made up my mind, I had to follow through.
The Lord would bless me.

I raised the gun and tried to shoot at one of the Asian men.
The trigger felt so heavy, and the recoil almost knocked the gun out of my hand.
Unfortunately, I didn't hit anyone. Instead, I had only succeeded in exposing myself.

I had to keep shooting.
But I used up the six bullets quickly. I still didn't hit anyone.

Their firepower was way stronger.
They aimed their shots at my feet. I had to keep crawling back.
How could I possibly win a shootout?



Well, that didn't do the trick either. At least this confirms that we need at least one piece on both side- good to know!



There's one more distinct outcome we haven't seen yet for Kang, and it's what we get if we leave just the 'no bullets' context on his side- Alicia just ends up with an outcome we've already seen.

[BGM: The Darkness]


Where were the bullets?
Wait, I had taken out the magazine yesterday while doing maintenance. I must have forgotten to bring it along earlier.

Shit!
I must have been too tired recently. My memory was getting really bad.
Maybe in a couple of years I would have Alzheimer's disease.

I paged Min-Jun through radio that there was a change of plan, and we needed to fall back.
I heard a loud boom coming through the air duct behind me just as I climbed out of the vent.
Only later did I learn that the room with the target had an inexplicable explosion.

The investigation afterwards indicated that everyone in that room had been burnt to ashes. There were no survivors.
I never imagined that forgetting the magazine would turn out to have saved my life.

I supposed today wasn't such a shitty day after all.



It's still considered a Bad Ending, though, because Kang didn't accomplish anything.



That said, we've now seen all the noteworthy endings already, so here's the solution: the clanging noise will always cause Kang to fall out of the vent (as things adjust to explain the noise as the vent being shot), so we'll keep that on Alicia's side; we have to keep the unseen bullet on Kang's side to avoid Alicia being shot and killed instantly; and Alicia has to have bullets in her gun to protect herself, though not in terms of a shootout...

[BGM: No Escape from Here]


I accidentally knocked down a ladder that had been put against the wall.
The guard in the room woke up. He stumbled into the hallway, still quite sleepy.

I suddenly had an idea.

“Hands up. Don't make a sound, or I'll shoot.”

I pointed the gun at his head.
He held his hands up high and began sweating.

“Walk to the gate slowly. Do not speak to them. Do not lower your hands. Do... Do not turn around!”
I pressed the gun against the back of his head, and we walked slowly towards the gate.

My palms were completely wet with sweat.
Only I knew that I was more nervous than he.

BGM: Silence


When we were only a few hundred meters away from the port,
I smashed his head with the gun as hard as I could and knocked him out.
And then I ran away as fast as possible.
I didn't dare look back.

[BGM: A Mexican Girl]


There were still plenty of people on the street. Many stores were still open, even in the middle of the night.
People were shooting me strange looks when I ran past them. They all seemed to be Asians.
But I didn't dare stop and talk to them.

Julie had been right about one thing.
Dreams did come true when you did your best.

I didn't know how long I had run, but I couldn't take even one more step.
I collapsed into a bunch of paper boxes stacked at the corner of an alley.



[BGM: Evolving View]


The bullet hit the vent register.
Then it happened to deflect and hit my shoulder.

What a wonderful day for me...

Blood was streaming down my arm and dripping onto the vent.
Then it dropped onto the carpet of the room below.

“Wait... W-w-what is this?”
The target's steps were getting closer.

Then he stopped.
I didn't need to look.
The bastard must be standing right beneath the vent.
Soon he would lift his head, look up, and notice me...



There was the sound of the window glass shattering.
Then it was the sound of flesh being destroyed.

Mission complete.
Everything went as planned. Well, almost.

I stood next to the junkie's body, which was missing half of his head.
Oh shit...
He was supposed to just lose a leg or something.
This was a little different from what the old man had demanded.

Min-Jun had just rushed over from the building across the street. He dropped to his knees with a thud as soon as he saw me.
“I'm sorry Lieutenant. It was my mistake, I missed.”

It looked like he hadn't forgotten the last time when he did not follow the plan exactly and had to write a 200,000-word report.
Sigh. If apologizing was good enough, what would we need the cops for then?



I checked the junkie's pocket. There was only 50,000 Won and half a pack of Marlboros.
I stuffed the money into Min-Jun's pocket and lit a cigarette for myself.

Well, Choi Do-Sung, which was the name of the junkie, was just trash in this society, and he deserved to die.
After witnessing such a bloody ending, maybe his loser buddies would learn to behave a little too.
Yeah. Maybe it wasn't too bad after all.

I touched Min-Jun's head.
“Don't worry about it. Well done.”



…

[BGM: New Life]


You have solved Kang Baek-Ya's problem, but don't forget about Chang Gyeong-Min's letter from earlier.

Oh right! It almost slipped my mind...

…



***
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