"So, we need to instill more radical feminism. While we're at it, let's cut down on food rations! And hang all the men and women who oppose us!"
A hunting dog is only useful when it is good at hunting.
A hunting dog that is overweight and has lost all its teeth is useless.
I just stare at Lee Yeon-jeong, who is chattering excitedly.
What a fucking bitch.
I did a little well in the beginning, but now it's crawling up.
"Sister, if we hang them all, execute them, and bury them, who will be left to do the work? Are you going to get your hands dirty yourself?"
“No, that’s not it, but….”
"That's all for now. Distribution is on schedule, and Sister."
I gesture to the other Valkyrie.
“Please call the teacher. I have something to tell you.”
Lee Yeon-jeong glares at me as if she is displeased, but soon lowers the corners of her eyes.
What should I do? I'm a singularity.
I couldn't find it.
Feminists who were swarming the group chat, sisters who hated society just like me.
Even though they are all gathered together and enjoying the so-called power to their heart's content.
Couldn't find it.
still.
####
“Teacher, I clearly told you to eat on time.”
Acting out the speech is so frustrating.
I wish I could speak naturally for a few hours a day.
Oh, come to think of it. Even when I was in society, I didn't have many friends to talk to.
That was a useless thought.
“Are you eating your meals on time?”
“Teacher, I know everything that happens in paradise.”
“….”
“For the past two days, you’ve been sneaking out with a plate during lunch… Isn’t that right?”
“I’m feeding some stray cats.”
"lie."
“That power, can you read minds too?”
“Don’t change the subject… Who on earth are you sneaking food to?”
This guy is weird.
It doesn't have any power. It doesn't have an ego, and it certainly isn't a singularity.
I wasn't a former soldier or police officer.
He's just a guy who used to work part-time at a convenience store.
But, something is different.
I can tell.
People who are always talked about behind their backs, people who are ostracized, people who have no friends, people who are ugly, people who are eliminated, people who are crushed, people who are distorted, people who are twisted, people who are lied to, people who are abandoned, people who are marginalized, people who are pushed into a corner, people who are left alone, people who have no rest.
And lonely people.
The honest currents of human nature that only such a person can perceive. I can see that.
This man is different.
Feminist sisters who wag their tails at me, survivors who look out for each other to survive.
There's something different about those humans.
What is that?
That's my biggest concern these days.
The man touches his armband.
“Follow me.”
####
“Brother, eat meat!”
“I don’t like meat. You eat it.”
"Really! You're a liar! When you were with Dad, you always ate nothing but meat!"
A camp built by refugees in a corner of paradise. It's called a camp, but it's more like a shack.
Two children, very young brother and sister.
The two children are happily sharing a bowl of curry.
"Lunch today was curry. The Valkyries must have been gorging themselves on sausages, but for the refugees, this porridge-like curry was all they had."
The children look towards the teacher.
“Sir! Sir… huh?”
Look at me.
The children's expressions change.
The expression on your face when you look at the teacher, and the expression on your face when you look at me.
An expression of pure emotions of children who are still young and have not yet learned the social hierarchy.
Disgust, fear, and confusion.
"Did you give your share of the meal to these children? But you instructed them to give the children their own meals, too?"
At least I didn't order the children to starve.
"Captain, this isn't a public institution or a company. Those things have already been destroyed. This place is just... just..."
The teacher seems to be thinking of words.
"It's just a facility run by people. And, inevitably, in these situations, they're going to be marginalized."
“What are you talking about?”
"Children who have no one to care for them—in other words, those who cannot raise their voices in this collapsing, apocalyptic situation—are being marginalized. Children."
The little girl hides behind her brother.
On his dirty face from not being able to wash, there is a little bit of eye boogers.
“And especially children without parents end up starving. That’s not a very interesting story, is it?”
“You know so well.”
“It’s a privilege that only those who have eaten plain rice with soy sauce when their parents were not around when they were young can understand.”
“Because it’s the devil’s fault, we have to educate those children in new ideas….”
“It’s not the devil’s fault, Captain.”
The teacher pats the little boy.
The boy quietly holds her finger.
Teacher, your hands look so cool.
“He was executed.”
"yes?"
"Because Lee Yeon-jeong executed these children's mother for skipping morning class. With their father killed by the devil, these siblings must have been looking only to their mother."
“….”
"Well, that's the law of paradise. There's nothing we can do about it, right?"
The teacher collects the curry bowls that the children have emptied.
“Sir, have you eaten?”
“Hey, I ate five times more than you guys?”
"pig!"
"Yeah, pigs are expensive animals. They don't even get attacked."
The girl giggles.
lie.
While starving.
I feel a strange feeling.
This is….
####
"Traitors are executed! Anyone but feminists is sentenced to death!"
Lee Yeon-jeong is excited and giving a speech in front of the Valkyries.
I take my mouth off of Aya.
Sister Aya, who had no strength to resist, lowered her head and cried.
This is my first kiss? How funny.
I can taste destruction and poison in my mouth.
Now I know for sure: the singularity is the power of imagination.
It is a power that only those who have a desire and can imagine it richly possess.
So I imagined yesterday.
I'm talking about the venom of this terrible disease.
“Sir… Don’t look… Sir….”
Oh, shit.
This girl likes the teacher.
“Teacher, I will give you a chance.”
I see a tied up teacher.
“Even now, let’s talk about the idea of feminism again….”
I see Park Aya.
It looks stinky, shabby, and disgustingly dirty.
And you're going to get that disease soon.
There's no way a man would take her in like that, right?
I know.
Those kids who bullied me also had other bullies above them.
Even the part-timers who gossiped about me eventually had superiors above them.
My father, who abandoned me, also ended up having another woman.
Humans are hierarchical, subservient to money and power. No human being escapes this.
Teacher, would you be any different?
“No, Captain… What are you talking about?”
“It’s noisy.”
I shut the pig year's mouth.
“So, sir, come this way.”
But, something completely different came out of the man's mouth.
“If you let me live now, you’ll regret it, right?”
“What did you say?”
“I won’t leave you alone later.”
A dying man embraces a dying woman.
Carry it.
I open my eyes wide and see it all.
My prediction was wrong.
The stripped armband fell fluttering down in front of me.
I noticed.
That one thing I don't have, that one thing I lack.
This guy has it.
####
"Captain, there's no supplies coming from Paradise at all. At this rate, we'll starve to death before we even get to fight!"
“Twin, aren’t there any other shops around here that I can rip off?”
“This area is completely emptied. Now even the water is running out.”
Two Valkyries are talking in front of me.
My head hurts.
To prepare for such a situation, Paradise was divided into several locations and operated.
I thought they would all betray me.
Well, I don't have any relationship with those girls. We just met through a feminist KakaoTalk message.
It's the same as a relationship formed through a misogynistic website. In the end, we're all the same.
Because we are humans like insects.
"colon!"
“Be quiet! I’m thinking!”
I nervously slam the makeshift table down.
“I’m going to freeze you all to death!”
I grin and stretch out my hand.
No matter how much power you have to freeze, burn, crush, and destroy, you can't create even a single drop of water.
Not a single wound can be healed.
What kind of power are you using? Fuck you… .
"uh?"
Valkyrie, open your eyes wide.
I, too, look ahead with trembling hands.
Nothing happened.
The ice spear of ice, the ripple of destruction.
Just a small hand reaching out.
“Captain… now?”
“Well… I’m tired today!”
My voice is shaking.
What is going on now?
“No, but it definitely… seemed like the singularity’s power wasn’t being exerted.”
“Go out. You’ll be alone today.”
“….”
“Can’t you hear me?”
I scream.
The Valkyries stood up awkwardly and walked out of the temporary command post.
“What is it… What is it… What is it?”
I try to support my trembling hands.
What? Since the day the apocalypse came, nothing like this has happened?
No. Let's try again. Come to your senses. Seocheonma.
If I lose this power now... I'm truly finished.
I reach out again, gather my thoughts, and imagine.
Ice that freezes everything, flames that shatter everything.
I remember everything. I imagine everything. I pursue everything.
“….”
Nothing happened.
Like a little kid playing witch, my little hand is just outstretched.
Cold sweat runs down my back.
And then I see.
Beyond the tent, through the crack in the makeshift command post.
Two eyes are watching me.
Even in broad daylight.
Fear could exist.
####
“Captain, this is the last water.”
They all left.
The reason you didn't kill me was probably because of your sense of duty as a fellow feminist.
Or maybe it's just annoying.
Either way, it doesn't matter.
I was just staring blankly at that little water bottle.
“Why?”
"huh?"
“Why don’t you… leave?”
The last remaining ‘living Valkyrie.’
When I was in paradise, my older sister also participated in the rebellion.
She's an annoying woman who keeps spouting about how people shouldn't be executed or abused for every little thing.
But now, only she remains by my side.
“Do you know what it feels like to be punished?”
“Life itself is a punishment, life itself is hell.”
“Hmm, that’s true too.”
Valkyrie sits down casually on the chair in front of me.
"My boyfriend cheated on me with another woman. After that, I developed a hatred for men. I would go on feminist websites and Twitter all the time and badmouth men."
What do you know, it's a cheap story.
"But, I realized it a while ago. Right before the world got to this point."
Have you noticed that the man has many children?
“That man was sick.”
“….”
"I told you, you're such a fool. If you were terminally ill, you wouldn't have told me. Then I would've stayed by your side like a devoted wife until the very end. I would've even dressed you in mourning clothes. I would've even peeled plenty of apples for you in the hospital room. What are you trying to show off? What! Do you think I'd be happy, strutting around with another man? Are you saying you're going to shoulder all the pain alone? What the hell are you talking about?"
Valkyrie is talking like she's possessed.
From those weakened eyes, small tears well up.
So that's why you participated in the rebellion.
“But, I already installed the Paradise app, and the world was destroyed.”
“That kind of cheap appreciation….”
“Captain, it wasn’t different or fixed.”
“What are you talking about?”
“I was wrong.”
Valkyrie gets up from her chair.
"What we hated, what we pursued: feminism. That very thing…."
I want to cover my ears, but I don't have the strength to do so.
“I was wrong.”
####
Life is fun.
I am dying, tied to the cross.
The feminists who followed me and the countless people who feared me are no longer there.
I am here alone.
I'm thinking about two things.
One is, I think it's okay for me to be treated like this.
It's a silly idea, like a cheap confession.
Another one.
This suits me.
I was originally alone.
Even when my father abused me when I was crawling.
Even when I was bullied by girls at school.
Even when I was mocked by male part-time workers for not having breasts.
Originally, I was always alone.
So, this is a very fitting ending for me.
I swallow dryly and look at the cube floating next to me.
I can't help but laugh. No, I'm just laughing inside because I don't have the energy.
The power that destroys everything cannot save anyone.
It's interesting.
Ah… now just a little. Just.
If I were dead.
I see a mirage.
They say that people see what they want to see the most at the end.
Am I finally going to die?
What was the last thing I wanted to see?
“…Drink slowly. You might get diarrhea.”
Something cold and refreshing goes down my throat.
I swallow it not by my own will, but by an animal-like instinct.
Really, it's just a reflexive, survival instinct.
Drink water.
As the water came in, I felt alive, as if my heart was beating again.
I see that person.
The mirage I most wanted to see before I died.
"teacher…?"
"I don't think you can be forgiven. Forgiveness isn't something you can just give up. It's just…"
He is a teacher.
The man with the armband. The man who goes around helping others for no reason. The man who's been eliminated. The armband. The man.
teacher.
“Just because I am also someone who needs to be forgiven.”
The bonds are broken. The body becomes loose. The blood flows.
“So, I forgive you too.”
A feeling that my heart was about to burst gripped me.
The bondage released from the cross is already warming my blood with another bondage.
I finally figured it out.
The only feeling I don't have.
That which I do not have.
Actually, I knew it all along, but I kept ignoring it and it trapped me.
That's right.
“Are you okay? I’ll carry you.”
It's love.