TO HOLD A STILL BEATING HEART

Human emotions are fickle, I’ve known that for a long time. Growing up in the slums of Edgemaw, I’ve seen the bad, the worse and the worst of human nature. Everyone, however much they claim to be just and righteous, can be swayed with a push of a button – you just have to find the button. Hearts mingle with fears, insecurities and dreams with every morning, and it takes far more than a steeled will to persevere through life.

As I walk toward the woman I should be calling my mother, I’m beginning to realize that even I can’t stay indifferent. Her pleading expression, watery eyes, trembling body… whether they truly are a reflection of her inner heart, or just a facade to throw me of – it doesn’t matter. Whichever it is, it is finding its way down to my very core. Even though I had already steeled my resolve to kill her, I waver.

I even pause for a moment, my steps uncertain. Why am I killing her, I wonder again? Security? My plan? Or just because? I’ve already killed plenty, yet, she’s still different after all. For all she’s done, she is my mother, after all, however thinly that line veils around us. Her eyes are staring deeply into mine, begging, while her voices quivers like wind as her words reach my mind. She’s asking why, she’s asking how, she’s begging me to stop… far too many times, people on the opposite side have no chance to do this.

Their lives are cut short before they even have a chance to beg, chance to plead for their lives. It’s different, plunging yourself into heart of a battle and mowing down countless lives you can’t possibly remember, and standing there, before a single person, as she’s begging you with her wholesome. That’s the insecurity I’ve felt since the day I was born, one that lives in the depths of my heart.

I wonder… what does it take to come up to someone you’re supposed to love, stab a knife through their heart, and feel nothing? To be void of any sentiment? To have a heart as cold as winter’s ice? Is it something you simply have to be born with, or is it something you accumulate through experience? As of now, I’m neither. I’m supposed to hate this person with every fiber of my being, but I can’t. That thin thread connecting us is currently resonating far stronger than any resentment I’m feeling towards her.

“Lynne, please, let’s-- let’s just talk, okay?” her voice was soft, almost angelic, as was her current disposition. “M-mom knows she was wrong, okay? I was misled! My heart was wrongly swayed! Hey, do you hear me? S-so stop, okay? Let’s just talk. We don’t have to fight, okay? You’re my blood after all. I could never truly hate you. Rather, I want to spend the rest of my life making up to you for all the mistakes I’ve ever made.” her words are like a sweet-sounding poem, something every motherless, abandoned child wants to hear once. Human emotions truly are fickle…

Even though my dad told me that my mom died during childbirth, I always had this strange yearning to meet her. To meet a woman who pushed me out into this world, to fall into her embrace and feel the mother’s warmth. I don’t know when… but, at one point in my life, I had stopped wishing that. It must have been around the time I realized how much was dad sacrificing for me. He was both a father and a mother, a sister and a brother, and a friend one can only dream of, but never have.

I realized that I didn’t need a mother’s embrace to feel the life’s solace. Along the way, I realized that I didn’t need father’s either. That dependence is sort of like a shell that everyone eventually needs to break out of and live on their own, where warmth begins coming from within rather than outside.

“Why are you begging me?” I asked, crouching down in front of her while she was crawling backward on the sheet-white floor, her face distorted through tears. “You know that it won’t change anything.”

“…”

“… is life really that precious to you?”

“O-of course not!” she exclaimed. “I-I just want my child to go through horrors of killing his own mother… e-even if you hate me, that’s something that stays with you.”

“Ah, I wouldn’t worry.” I smiled lightly. “I’ve already got enough things that stayed with me to last me ten thousand lifetimes. Whether I kill you or not won’t change much in that department. Ah, even though I can’t tell this to anyone outside, I may as well confide in you before you die,” my voice grew lower. “I’m afraid, mom. Very, very afraid. Every day I wake up and look back at the choices I’ve made in my life. Were they the right ones? Could I have chosen better? How do I make sure I choose correctly from now on? But, I don’t think I’m alone in this. I think that, one way or another, we’re all afraid. Right now, you’re afraid I’ll kill you. But, yesterday, you were afraid you wouldn’t get a chance to kill me.”

“T-that’s not--”

“It’s fine,” I interrupted her. “I don’t even blame you, really. You have your own heart to maintain, just as I have mine. You see, I’ve always been good with words,” I continued lightly. “I had to be, you know? As a kid, I was never strong. Even mentally or emotionally, however much of a front I put up, beneath I was oftentimes dying. I’d look around and I’d see people with dreams, happily chasing after their stars. I’d see people fighting for what they believe in. And then there was me. From embrace to embrace, longing for something far beyond my reach. To pull through, I had to learn the way of the words. To battle the stronger, to confuse the wiser, to outwit the older. In the end, the person I fabricated in front of others… became the real me. Somehow, I stopped being an insecure boy, because I believed that, no matter the circumstances, I’d be able to sway the hearts of others with my words.”

“But, here we are,” I chuckled. “Words matter little to the likes of me and you and those above us. Now, without them, I feel myself becoming who I desperately tried not to be: a coward. Even now, my hands are shaking. When I think about killing you, I waver. When I think about going outside, holding your heart and boldly proclaiming that I killed my own mother, I’m afraid of how the others will see me. I hate this feeling, very much. Outside, there are thousands of people standing strong behind me, ready to answer any of my calls, and here I am, shaking. Is that how a King is supposed be? Unlikely.”

“… y-you are a coward,” she muttered, as if she surrendered to her fate. “Using these underhanded methods to fight, provoking us like a child, making up excuses to avoid responsibility for your actions… every part of you reeks of a coward. It’s a good thing I never came back for you. You would have only shamed our Blood.”

“… ‘s that so?” thinking about it, she’s perhaps right. Were I a bold, strong man, I’d have thrown myself into the fire and let it burn me down to ashes. But, the moment I felt the heat boil my skin, I doused my self in security of cold water. Cowardly? Resourceful? Who can really say? “In the end, it doesn’t matter. Once I leave this place, I’ll have no time to be afraid and to wonder. This is who I am, mom,” I tilted my head, smiling weakly. “Afraid little boy. But,” I clenched my hand into a fist, looking deeply at her. “I’m not alone. Within everyone lies a child afraid. What makes a difference is when we’re pushed against the wall.” I extended my hand slowly toward her chest. “And, when I’m pushed against it, I won’t cower. Ever again. Even if I have to batter my bones to dust, I’ll never quiver down and surrender like you have.”

“You!!”

“You know what? I’m glad you never came back for me either,” my hand found its way toward the left part of her chest, and I could feel her heartbeat resonate throughout my palm and arm. “Had you, I’d perhaps have grown to be someone much, much different than who I am today. Maybe it would have been for better, maybe it would have been for worse. But, truth be told, I love who I am today. I have friends who are supporting me, a love who’s willing to throw herself into whatever hell I foolishly choose, and a mass of people that trust my judgment, however questionable it is. I have a father who loves me unconditionally, sister who I met just recently yet is still willing to let the fate of her entire reason for living rest in my hands, and I’ll no doubt meet many, many more people with whom I’ll be able to share my heart.” my fingers pierced into her skin, causing blood to trickle out as she groaned lowly, gritting her teeth, as if trying to defy me at her last breath.

“I’m afraid, insecure, sometimes even terrified of what the future holds,” my fingers reached her ribcage, and the strength of her bones surprised me slightly. “I doubt others more than I doubt myself, I do some terrible things out of pure selfishness, and even right now, I’m doing something even the devils beneath the earth would condemn. I am not kind, warm or especially trustworthy, but, by god, I so don’t give a shit anymore.” I feel it; beating as softly as quiet drums, her heart is pulsating against the tip of my fingers. “This is the last time I’ll ever show this ugly face to anyone else,” I felt my cheeks begin to burn as my eyes grew heavier, but I pushed it all back down. “So, mom, I guess I should thank you, for letting me be who I truly am for one last time. Rest knowing that you at least did one motherly thing before dying, if it’s of any help.” I saw her eyes soften somewhat, and beneath that sky-high pride, steeled defiance and strong arrogance, I saw flash of warmth, love and tranquility. Ah, I realize it now; that’s the part dad fell in love with it. Part that she buried so deep, she almost forgot it ever existed.

“T-tell him…” she muttered as I ripped her chest open, destroying her lungs, bones and skin in the process, holding her heart in my hand. “That summer,” her voice grew silent as her body turned limp. “H-he loved the real Yunchi Hyorn, and she l-loved the real Median Iylo—x…” her breathing stopped and she forced her eyes shut as her body toppled over. Yunchi Hyorn died, yet her heart still remained beating inside my hand.

What does it feel like to hold a still beating heart in my hand? It’s very wet, very warm, and very unsettling. I can feel blood trickling down my fingertips, knuckles and even my forearm. I look at it; up and down, beat by beat, in rhythm that far surpasses the knowledge we posses. The rhythm of life, the source of it, and I’m holding it. It’s slippery, yet I grip it firmly, causing even more blood to burst out of the severed veins. It’s very wet, very warm, and every unsettling… yet also strangely captivating.

“I will,” I muttered, glancing at my mother’s corpse for one last time as I got up onto my feet. “Rest in peace…”