"Who are we?" One of the men who dressed like gangsters spoke with a rough voice. His tone amused and mocking. "That's not important. What you should care about isn't our identity, but whether you can survive tonight."
Geo's heart tightened at the words.
An alarm went off inside his brain, alerting him of a high level of danger that he was all too aware of being real.
How had he offended these people? Geo observed the faces of the men before him and didn't remember meeting any of them before.
None of the strong men had their faces covered, as if they weren't afraid at all that they might be reported by Geo later and arrested.
Like one of them said, Geo might be a dead man by the end of the night.
Geo felt cold all over. This time, not because of the wind and the rain, but because of his impending death.
Geo knew he had no chance. In his vague memories of childhood, he remembered that at first, his family did have a little money and his mother had sent him to a martial arts hall to train his self-defense skills. But after his mother fell ill and became a medicine bottle, he stopped his classes. After so many years, Geo has long forgotten those martial arts techniques and his skills have gotten rusty.
His body was not trained to go against so many people. He would've maybe had a chance if there was only one or two people, but more than ten? And all muscular and able adults too.
Geo slowly stood up from the ground full of running water. His shoes made splashes as he moved around. His blood churned in reaction to his dire circumstance.
Even though Geo knows he will lose in the end, disappearing like the last light before dusk, he doesn't plan on going down without a fight.
"Oh ho~ Little kid wants to make his last struggle. Men, what do you think?" The man who spoke before laughed with a cocked eyebrow. In the dim lighting, a strange tattoo poked out from his sleeves from time to time because of his movements. The two intertwined snakes, one black and one white, on his forearm seemed to come alive with his movements, slithering on his arm.
The other gangsters jeered and made fun of Geo's efforts.
"Still wet behind the ears, he dares to fight back? He really doesn't want to live anymore."
"If he obediently lets us beat him up, maybe we can consider letting him go. But look at his stubborn temper."
"Tsk tsk. What letting him go? We have orders, he can't live past tonight. But you're right, brother. Rebellious teens like him should be taught a lesson."
"Hahaha! Let's have fun with him before we end his pitiful existence."
"I heard that he offended our superiors by messing with Hospital A. It's our turf after all, whoever has the guts to touch what is our organization's property should be prepared to be gutted!"
"Okay, okay. Settle down, men. After we finish dealing with this little puppy, we still have to make a special trip to Hospital C to find the puppy's dam." The man who first spoke spoke again at this junction, interrupting the jokes of his men. They were running on a tight schedule after all. Both Geo and his mother needed to be taught a lesson they will never wake up from before dawn breaks tomorrow.
Geo growled. They actually had plans for his mother as well. He would not let them touch his mother. Only he could protect his mother now; he had no one else in his family. No father, no grandpa or grandma, not even distant relatives. He was all alone.
Boundless courage began to replace the dread Geo felt. Like a warrior bravely facing his impending doom without hesitation, not because he felt no fear, but because he had something he wanted to protect, Geo rushed at the strangers first.
A brawl started in the depths of an empty alleyway exposed to the ongoing rainstorm.
Punches and kicks were exchanged. Blow after blow fell on Geo's young and immature body.
A 17-year-old boy fought fearlessly against a bunch of men in their late twenties and thirties.
Geo could not gain an upper hand in the fight. Far too outnumbered and inexperienced, Geo took a beating more times than beating the others up.
"Ouch!" One of the gangsters got punched by Geo in the eye. Tomorrow, he will have a black eye thanks to Geo.
Angered and with great strength, the man who got punched in the eye punched Geo in the nose.
Geo heard a faint crack. Hot red blood that instantly cooled in the cold, moist weather dripped onto Geo and the watery ground.
The blood was quickly washed away by the tides of rainwater. New red stains appeared and were washed away again. Geo didn't have the leisure to stop his nosebleed or dwell on the pain he felt from having his nose broken.
By this point, Geo felt aches coming from all parts of his body. Bruises were forming underneath his clothing. He could feel that some of his bones had been broken by their heavy hands.
Geo's breathing was labored. His lungs inhaled and exhaled yet he felt a faint suffocation in his chest, as though he was breathing out carbon dioxide and breathing in carbon dioxide.
As time passed, oxygen seemed to escape his grasp. Geo's eyes rolled, his gaze scattered and then was straightened with all his willpower. Geo could feel his consciousness slipping away. Exhaustion and pain pulled down his spirits and the thought of his inevitable defeat made him sleepy.
'I can't go on anymore.' Geo thought weakly with his remaining consciousness. His fists flailed around as his eyesight dimmed again and again, blurred again and again in the onslaught of the rain.
One of the men punched Geo in the jaw, jolting his face to the side.
His tongue was cut by his teeth and blood dripped out of a corner of Geo's mouth.
Suddenly, in the face of life and death, Geo found the life he lived so far laughable.
He laughed, without caring about his current predicament.
"Ha ha ha…"
His clear laughter in the stormy night with the gloomy sky, in this abandoned alley, made the men surrounding him feel creepy. They wondered if the kid had gone insane from fear.
Geo didn't care what his assailants were thinking. He was absorbed in his own thoughts. Even when blood dripped down from different parts of his body, it didn't bother him.
He recalled his childhood. He lived alone with his mother who was the only one working to make their family stay afloat. By the time he could understand things, he voluntarily took over the household chores so that his mother could have time to rest after coming home after a long day at work.
By six years of age, he cooked well enough to rival the chef of the restaurant near their rented apartment.
His mother was very proud of him but also distressed. She felt sorry for him having to help around the house at such a young age when he should be playing around with his friends. Geo never told her, though, that he had no friends at school. When his classmates found out that he didn't have a father, they all isolated him and excluded him from their games. They believed that he was abnormal, so they didn't want to associate with him.
Young Geo didn't want his mother to worry about him when there's already enough on her plate, so he didn't tell her. He kept everything to himself.
All the mockery.
Teasing.
Bullying.
Ostracization that stemmed from childish ignorance, he withstood them by himself.
However, one day, his mother found out about what was happening at his school and stormed there. She caused a huge ruckus, condemning the teachers for not looking after their students, actually allowing students to bully other students. She also criticized the children who bullied Geo and the children's parents. She made them so ashamed and regretful that they couldn't lift their heads.
At that moment, Geo thought that his mother was so cool and heroic. His very own hero.
It didn't matter that he didn't have a father unlike others, because his mother was cooler than other children's mothers by a hundred times over!
Little Geo's midnight blue eyes that he inherited from his mother sparkled like twinkling stars in the night sky.
Alas, sadness tends to follow after happiness. Geo's mother soon collapsed after her burst of anger, frightening the school staff and the children's parents. She was quickly sent to a hospital after a call to the ambulance.
The medical fees were paid for by the parents of the children who had made fun of Geo. It was both an apology to Geo as well as compensation for making his mother fall sick.
But Geo knew that this incident was only the last straw that broke the camel's back. Due to exhaustion from overworking and being overly worried, his mother's health had been failing over the years. This would have happened sooner or later—this incident only catalyzed it.
Thankfully, Geo's mother recovered soon and she returned to work. Before his mother recovered, they had to live off of their meager savings. They wished they could split one penny into two or three.
After the incident where his mother made a fuss at the school, his classmates no longer actively made fun of him, but they didn't include him or invite him to their activities either. Geo was fine with that. As long as they didn't interfere with each other, they could live in peace.
Time went by and life seemed to be getting better. He entered middle school and he got good grades. He started making friends who didn't care if he had a father or not. Life seemed brighter, but then his mother fell ill again. This time, it was more serious than the last. Her body was truly exhausted and could not bear hardships anymore. She needed to take a lot of expensive medicine, which emptied out their coffers. Their family became poorer and poorer.
Geo quit his only extracurricular activity: martial arts training. That's right, now that he thinks about it, he took up that class because his mother hoped that he could better protect himself. In the end, though, it seems he gained nothing.
His friends started leaving him one after another as he got busier and busier at his part-time jobs, working tirelessly to earn money in place of his sick mother.
One day, he and his mother decided that their current city's cost of living was too high for only a middle-schooler to afford. So they moved to another city, which was their current city. Although still somewhat high, Geo could barely afford it, especially after he entered S High School and got a generous sum every half a year as his scholarship. The only blemish in his otherwise optimistic life was Manl and his cohort of bullies.
Geo hadn't dared to offend them, because he had no support. He only had his mother and he didn't want her to worry about him. Knowing what was happening to him at school would only worsen her already declining health. Geo was afraid she would collapse again like that day at his elementary school.
He could afford being beaten up and played around with like a toy by those rich and spoiled brats, but he couldn't afford losing his only remaining family.
So Geo endured, like he always had growing up. He wanted to not be a burden to his mother.
He shrunk into his shell, thinking optimistically and believing blindly that one day he will escape out of this vicious cycle of getting mistreated. He even cheerfully fantasized that one day he will get revenge on all those who bullied him.
Geo held that naive hope in his heart.
That bubble called hope was popped by the needle formed by Ian's words that day as the battered Geo lay in a sorry heap on the school floor.
Geo heeded Ian's words and learned to fight back.
But did he really change? He often questioned himself. Did he really change or was he only fooling himself? He thought he could be strong, but he habitually shrunk back in the face of challenges, believing that only enduring was the answer.
He refuted his own accusations. He didn't think he was shrinking, he just didn't want to be the perpetrator of random acts of violence. He shouldn't go crazy at the drop of a bat. He wanted to fight back to protect himself, not to become someone who abuses violence in order to get his way.
He wanted reason, he wanted peace. Not nameless violence.
But was that also just an excuse to shy away from fighting back?
Geo was confused.
But right now, in this wet, sticky, bloody, and life-threatening situation, he found his own past confusion to be laughable.
So what if he gets violent at the slightest aggression from others? Aren't they the ones who wanted to provoke him first? Why should he act like the nice guy when the other party had no intentions of backing down no matter what he says?
He was a coward. A weakling. He made excuses for his own weakness and lack of resolve.
In the present, in the face of his own death, he found the courage and resolve he was lacking all along.
He laughed again. He found himself so amusing, so hateful, so laughable. No wonder those bullies targeted him. They instinctively sensed the weakness in him as a natural predator.
His life flashed through his eyes.
He only had two regrets.
His mother and Ian.
He wondered and worried if his mother would be safe after his death.
He felt guilty for the kindness he received from Ian that he had not had a chance to repay.
If only he could survive, he would definitely find a way to repay him…
A punch sent the lost in thought Geo tumbling to the hard and wet ground. His fall made a big splash, which seemed ironic considering that his life meant little to the world.
The rain had lightened up at an unknown time.
'Was my life so pathetic that even the clouds won't cry for me in my last moments?' Geo wondered uncontrollably as his brain function slowed down and lagged. A heavy drowsiness tore through him, rendering him motionless, his limbs heavy as though they were filled with iron lead.
'That's fine. If I were a cloud, I wouldn't cry for someone pathetic like me either.' Geo smiled mockingly at himself as he lay with his back to the ground and his face to the cloudy sky. His eyes reflected nothing but the clouds floating past his view. 'If… If I were to be reborn, I wish that I would be daring, decisive, and powerful. That I could still be my mother's child… That I could… meet Ian again and thank… him… If only I was… brave enough…'
In the midst of his fading consciousness, a commotion suddenly sprang to life around him. But his head felt too heavy to move or register much of what was happening. All he knew and remembered before he blacked out were the hot splashes of something fishy spraying onto his face and his body that was gradually becoming cold, as well as curses and screams of terror.
Then he knew nothing.
***
In the bloodied alleyway, the group of gangsters were thrown down onto the ground that pooled with water from the rainstorm that ended.
Those gangsters, whose injuries caused by Geo varied in amount and severity, were all tied up and brought to their knees as the professional bodyguards moved to welcome their boss.
Mr. Fablas stepped out of his expensive car. His shiny leather shoes carelessly stepped into puddle after puddle as he moved with an urgency that was visible to the eyes. His eyes took in the bloodied floors of the alleyway as well as the injured gangsters forced to kneel on the wet ground.
Finally, his eyes landed on the injured Geo who breathed out more than in.
Mr. Fablas's heart nearly stopped at the sight of his battered and bruised son. Blood seeped out of the teenager's lips and nose. His usually bright and optimistic midnight blue eyes were shut tight, not knowing when or if they will ever open again.
Mr. Fablas's hands shook uncontrollably.
His precious son. His one and only son he had finally found after many trials and tribulations laid there on the ground, seemingly dead.
If it wasn't for his strong psychology, Mr. Fablas would have fainted.
"My son…" Mr. Fablas's voice was dry and cracked as he stumbled to Geo's side. He knelt on the ground with a thud and a splash. His fingers trembled as they brushed away the fresh blood still flowing from the corner of his son's pale lips.
Mr. Fablas closed his eyes and breathed as if suppressing something.
"Doctor… call a doctor right now! Take my son to the car… be careful with him!" Mr. Fablas roared as he got up and ordered his subordinates to get moving. His subordinates began to transport his son to the car.
With a heaving chest that was about to explode with fury and wrath, Mr. Fablas whipped his head to face the gangsters who did this to his son. His sharp and cold eyes were menacing. His aura intimidating and commanding because of his long time in a high position.
"If anything happens to him… you all can go accompany him!"
The gangsters lowered their heads in fright, knowing that the handsome-looking middle-aged man with a fierce momentum in front of them was not someone they can afford to offend.
However, they had already offended him.
They were just minions carrying out the orders of their superiors in the organization. The information only said that Geo had a mother, not a father.
Who knew that the little puppy was actually the son of a tiger!
They cried without tears, having kicked an iron plate.
"Take them away!"