Rush: Mach

Rush: Mach 6

Sounds of engines roaring was heard far away from him, cycling in pitch black, with no helmet and no headlights on his BMX. Tears welled up in the 12-year-old's eyes from anger, thinking about what his parents told him and his brothers last night.

"We'll be moving to the U.S. in a month," his father announced over dinner, causing uproar at the dinner table.

"Dad I just got nominated to be the president of the hockey club!"

"Dad you promised I could join my class on a proper school trip this time! And that's happening in exactly one month! So am I supposed to tell my friends I can't go now??"

He watched his upset brothers protest against his equally irritated parents from his corner of the table, wondering if anyone would even hear him if he said anything. 'I finally made a friend today,' he wanted to tell them, but he excused himself from the table instead, retreating to his room with his head hanging low.

He was angry; he was frustrated at his father constantly dragging his whole family around the globe because of his job as a scientist. Every time they moved, the boys have to say goodbye to those they have just gotten close to, and go through the hassle of revamping their social circles and make a whole new set of friends in a new, foreign land.

He never liked meeting strangers; they always find him weird: his demeanor, his personality, and his way of thinking. He'd always known that he's a little bit different in his mind, even his brothers find him strange sometimes, and he didn't mind that. It's just...it gets lonely being different. Which is why he was so excited to tell the family that he has finally made a new friend today, someone who like that he is a little unusual, a little quirky. But of course, something always has to happen whenever he's happy. He's learned to accept this fact all his life, except, this time he doesn't want to. He's had enough of moving. Enough of fighting with his brothers because they're stuck together all the damn time. Enough of this family. He turned his night lamp off, and snuggled into his bed.

When morning came, he went down for breakfast, and headed out with his bike as he usually does, except this time, he's not going to school. He's going somewhere far, far away from this town and this house, with a backpack filled with crackers, two shirts, some cash he'd been saving up for the new game console he's been eyeing, and a bottle of water. He cycled behind his brothers, and pretended that he needed to tie his shoelaces as the approached their school. His brothers didn't even look twice at him before parking their bikes and entered the school compound. As soon as they disappeared from his sight, he climbed back onto his bike and cycled off onto the open road.

He cycled through the day without stopping; sweat drenched the padding of his helmet and his shirt. A left turn, right turn, another right turn then a left, it didn’t matter which direction he took; he was escaping from this prison he called his home. For the first time in his life, he felt free. He felt excited. And he doesn't want to stop. He cycled till sunset before stopping at the bus stop to munch on a couple of those crackers he brought with him. Then back on the road, until he can cycle no more before he’ll call it a night. He took off his helmet and hung it on the handle, allowing both his hair and the helmet some time to dry off. He's been cycling for so long that the highways all looked the same to him. All long, straight, and quiet.

He approaches a section of the road with broken streetlamps, leaving the highway hidden in the darkness. Suddenly, fear creeps into his mind, and he cycles faster to get to the illuminated path at the end of the horizon. Loud engines are heard from from somewhere closer now, and it is almost as if his body was too slow to react to the impact when a car came out of nowhere and grazed the side of his bike, sending him flipping into the air before plummeting onto the dirt by the road, his face and limbs slammed hard on the surface, rendering him unconscious. He could feel liquid slithering out of his lips; he tastes metal on his tongue. The point of contact between his head and the ground feels cool on his scalp, almost wet, and he can't tell clearly any of the sensation he feeling throughout his body anymore, except numbness.

'Maybe, this is the price I have to pay for freedom,' he thinks, mildly regretting the choices he'd made. 'But it's worth a try,' he comforts himself, as his thought drifts off into the quiet night.

When he wakes up, all around him is white. It's all very bright, and blurry. He squints, trying to focus his vision. Then he hears a sound of a rhythmic beeping coming from one side, and his limbs ache terribly when he tries to move them. Giving up, he relaxes his body and lets himself to just lie on the soft, white bed. His vision was almost clear again when a door in front of him opens and in comes a woman in an off-shoulder sweater and jeans holding two green plastic bags.

"Oh! You're up! Oh thank God, we were worried that you'll slip into a coma," she says as she places the bags on a nightstand by his bed. He looks at her, eyebrows creasing, confused. She pulls a chair towards the bed and sits down by him. "Do you remember your name?"
'My....name?' he thinks to himself, the line between his eyes grew deeper. "I am.....I...am...," he says in a hoarse, weak voice, but his brain could not come up with the name that used to complete the sentence so naturally. His face wrinkles,"I am...."

"I.M?" the girl says, misunderstanding him. "Well, that's a very unusual name you've got there, kid," she adds, and smiles at him. "Do you remember how old you are then?"

He shakes his head, and she sighs, but immediately perks up, "Well, you don't seem to be any older than 14 to me. I'm...not so much older than you. So you can call me noona. I'm Bomi," she introduces herself, with a smile so bright it almost blends in with the room. "Okay, I.M. Apples, oranges, or grapes?" she asks as she reaches for the bags again. He thinks for a while, and utters,"Apples."
Bomi took him in when the doctor said that he's well enough to walk; there's nothing they can do except to wait for the amnesia to wear off, if it eventually does. He couldn't remember a single thing from his life, and how he ended up in the middle of nowhere, cycling in the dark by himself.

It was fortunate that Bomi was driving behind the car hit I.M; her dash-cam recorded everything, and she marched up to the police station immediately after sending the boy to the ER, surrendering the video recording so the cops can do their jobs and track down the perpetrator. The policemen had also stopped by the boy's ward to try to get information regarding the hit-and-run, and gather information that can help the boy regain his identity. They managed to incarcerate the culprit within days after the interrogation, but nothing could be done regarding I.M's identity.

As they step into her house, she swings around to face him, and smiles, "Just make yourself at home, okay?" and proceeds to show him around the place. He follows her around awkwardly, confused about all that is happening. In his mind he keeps thinking: Should he try to retrace his steps, should he go back to the place where he was hit by the car, to try to find his belongings? Nevertheless, he's quite certain that his bag wouldn't be there anymore, if he had one, considering the incident happened about a week and a half ago. Panicked at the bloody sight of the unconscious boy, Bomi scrambled around in the dark trying to gather his things that night, but there wasn't anything else besides some plastic wrappers for some crackers in the near vicinity. He can't even be sure if he was carrying a bag with him that night, not with the memory loss he's experiencing.

Bomi set up her living room and made the couch comfortable for I.M, as she did not have a guest room to accommodate her young guest, not that he minds it; he's just glad that amidst all the blurry fog that is his brain, Bomi is there to support and keep him safe, even though they're basically strangers. She makes sure he has enough to eat for dinner, and tucks him in before she turns off the lights. He falls asleep swiftly, breathing in the sweet vanilla scent from her candles, happy that he's finally out of the hospital.

The next day, he wakes up to sizzling sounds and the delicious smell of bacon coming from the kitchen, making his mouth water. He stirs and pushes himself up to a sitting position as she comes out of the kitchen with two plates in her hands. "Good morning! Come, breakfast time!" she says brightly, ushering him to join her at the dining table. He takes a seat right across from her and she urges him to take a bite of the sandwich she prepared for him. He bites into it; the half-boiled egg yolk bursts into his mouth, filling up every crevice as the crispy bacon strips crumbles upon every munch, the savoury taste of the barbeque sauce that coats the bacon disperses among the egg yolk and seeps into the soft bread, creating the perfect combination of flavours that just perks you up in the morning, one that convinces yourself that this will be an amazing day, because you've had an amazing breakfast. He chows down on the delicious sandwich like a hungry puppy, making her giggle, "Slow down! You're gonna choke!" He shakes his head, still munching on the bread in his mouth, "No I won't!"
Worried about him being all alone at home, she brings him to her work place, at a car workshop. She leads him to the office and introduces him to her colleagues, who are all very nice to the young boy. As he sits in her cubicle in a corner of the office, she grabs her tablet and heads out to the garage, with his eyes trailing after her through the windows by her desk.

He watches her work tirelessly, climbing into car engines like a child climbs onto a tunnel slide in the playground, enjoying every moment of it. He wonders if he has a sister back home who's as bright and chirpy as Bomi is.

Every day he follows her to work, and she teaches him about cars and the mechanics that goes into it. At the end of each day, they’d come home to have dinner, watch a little TV, and goes to bed, and with every passing day, he becomes more and more open and talkative with her, getting to know her better while they work together to try to trigger some of his older memories. "We need to talk more, and do more things; perhaps one of these things we talked about or places we went to will help you remember," she says to him. As he was getting familiarized with the area already, she’d even allowed him to explore the area by himself. So when Bomi needs to work at her desk, I.M would head out for a walk.

“Kid, do you miss your family? I know you don’t remember them, but do you have…like…some sense of longing from your past?” she asks him one afternoon during her lunch break.

The boy takes a mouthful of rice, and shakes his head. Now that he thinks about it, he realizes that he’s never felt worried or unsettled despite not knowing his past and where he came from. He could have been a son of a murderer, running away from being butchered by his deranged father for all he knows.

“You must be so brave and independent to be cycling all by yourself in the dark so late at night. Your parents must be so proud to have you as their son,” she says with her signature smile. He blushes and shifts his gaze to his container of fried rice.

She giggles, and ruffles his hair, “Don’t worry, we’ll find them soon and return you home.”

‘Maybe…I don’t want to go home,’ he thinks to himself as he shoves one more spoonful of rice into his mouth.

One day after his walk, she says to him, "The child protection services called earlier. It seems I don't have the legal rights to have custody over you," with sadness in her voice, "They said I have one week before I have to bring you in to their offices so they can take care of you until we can find your family." His heart stopped.

"But, noona... I feel perfectly safe with you. I don't need child protection services," he debates. She shakes her head, "It's out of my hands, kid." The two have grown close to each other from spending so much time together; he'd even developed a little crush on her. She's his only source of stability and comfort; losing her in his current state, he wouldn't know what to do with himself. That evening, the duo returned home quietly, each thinking about the day child protection services will come for the boy.

Their last weekend together comes, and she decided to take him to cycle in the park. "Maybe cycling will trigger something in your mind," she says to him as they approach the bicycle rental store. She pays for two bikes and they each gets on one, cycling off into the garden filled with colourful flowers. It's in the middle of spring, so the flowers are in full bloom, saturating the park with their fragrant scents and colourful hue. He cycles in front of her, and she would tell him to "Turn around!" and she would take snapshots of him when he does. The pictures turned out nicely on her phone's screen, vibrant flowers surrounding the smiling boy on a bike.

They cycle through every corner of the park, and eventually swerve out of the garden towards a cafeteria not too far away. It's a nice day to cycle, sunny but with the occasional cloud to shield them from the sun's warmth. Suddenly feeling playful, I.M speeds up ahead of Bomi, causing her to scream out to him, "Hey slow down!!" He turns back to her and teases, "Mmmeeeehhh-rong!" and pedals on. She giggles and cycles faster to catch up to the boy.

Pushing himself to cycle faster and maintain his lead in front of Bomi, sweat starts to break out from his skin, seeping into his clothes and his helmet. He pants, his thighs starts to burn from all that exertion. This all feels so familiar...the hot sun, the sweaty helmet...the straight road.

Suddenly, memories start to flood his head, and his body reacted by cycling even faster than before. 'I remember now. My parents, my brothers, running away...' he tells himself. Meanwhile, Bomi, still trying to catch up to the boy, screams at him, "I.M!! STOP!! YOU'RE GOING TOO FAST!!" but being engrossed in his thoughts, he didn't hear her. He speeds towards a zebra crossing, the red lights still flashing as a couple of pedestrians waits for the signal to cross the road. "I.M!!!! WAIIITTTTT!!! STOP!!!" Bomi continues to scream out at the boy. His bike flew onto the wide road, with a panicked Bomi trailing behind him.

'I made a friend in school, I'm finally not alone, but we're moving to the US. No. I don't like that. And my name is...Changkyun.' He turns back to her, smiling with the epiphany, "Noona! I remember my name now! It's..."

A loud crash filled up his ear, his eyes grew wide as her bicycle is flung towards the intersection from the impact with a truck, carrying her along. Her body slams on the road and skids a meter ahead before stopping; blood stained her path on the asphalt, her bike, her clothes, and her lifeless body. He scrambles down from his bike and rushes towards her, holding her body towards him, "Noona!! Noona wake up!!" tears welling up in his eyes again, a sensation he hasn't felt since about a month ago. "Somebody call the ambulance!!" he screams at the onlookers, a couple of them holding up their phones to dial the emergency number. He pulls her body towards his, holding it tight, as tears stream down from his eyes, blurring his vision. Silence ring in his ears as he held on to her tight, in the middle of the road. Kind samaritans help redirect and ushers on passing cars that slowed down to look at the commotion, and seeing the a blood-stained boy holding a lifeless body, crying. Soon after, two ambulances arrived at the scene, an officer pulled out a stretcher from the back of an ambulance as the paramedics bursts out of the other, rushing towards the helpless boy with their tools.

She was pronounced dead on site; the paramedics couldn't revive her. The impact was just too strong that it fractured her brain, her ribcage and her spine; her own blood choked and suffocated her to death.

He sits alone in the waiting area of the ER in his blood-soaked clothes, numb and emotionless, as the nurses wheeled Bomi away to the morgue. It feels like an eternity had passed, when he finally felt a touch on his knees. He shifts his gaze towards a woman, kneeling in front of him, tears glistening in her eyes. "Mom," he calls her, and springs into her arms, wailing. She hugs him tight, glad that she found her lost son, and heart aching for what happened to him and his unfortunate friend.

"M-m-mom...it's my f-faul-lt... it's me... I k-killed-d her," he sobs. She caresses his head, comforting him, "Shhh...Kyunnie, it was an accident..."

She is buried in a cemetery surrounded by the vibrant colours of spring, with butterflies small and big fluttering all around. The picture of her, smiling brightly, sends stones and arrows to his heart as he stand remorsefully in front of the headstone. Head hanging low, he walks to the taxi, and heads on to meet his family at the airport.

As the plane lifts off from the ground, one single, last tear streams down his cheek as he looks out of the window. 'Noona, I will come back to you soon. I promise,' he says in his head, his fingers tighten around a phone with a cracked screen.