Chpt 1: Start of a new journey

Blogger's notes: As a refresher, our lead is Joey 'Joe' Kaine Tan. He is 18yrs old and is about to start National Service because, he cannot afford further studies. Rough description about him as he is before enlisting: 175cm tall. Messy and unkempt hair. Lean build, the kind that athletes have. He has sharp facial features with a scar running straight from his right eyebrow that ends just above his eye. In short, Appearance: Enough to attract girls. Physical abilities: Excellent. Special traits: Constantly bandages his right hand. That's all for now, read on for more.

"Hey Kaine! You stink! Big Time!" shouted an eight yr old fat kid whilst throwing mud together with a group of kids at a extremely small boy at a playground. The kid named Kaine just huddled there, silently crying to himself when suddenly.....

"You big fat bully!! Stop picking on my big brother!" squeaked a little girl, no more than 5 yrs old, running in front of the group to shield her brother.

"Oh lookie here! Kaine is such a pussy, he needs his little baby sister to protect him!" Sneered the fat boy. The group of bullies roared with laughter.

"Yeah? At least he is not a big fat scaredy cat who needs so many people to pick on someone smaller than him!" the little girls retorted.

"What did you say huh? I dare you to call me a scaredy cat again!" the fat boy loomed towards the little girl angrily.

"Okay, I will! Scaredy Scaredy Pussy Cat!" the girl squeaked defiantly even though she was trembling.

"I'll show you scaredy cat!" the fat boy pushed the little girl into a puddle of mud, completely ruining her lovely white dress.

Roaring with laughter, the fat boy turn his back to return to the group when he was hit right smack on the back of the head with a ball of mud. Whirling around he saw the little girl with another ball of mud and quickly ducked as she threw it at him. Utterly furious now, he stormed towards her and the little girl cowered in fear when suddenly.....

The fat boy was pushed to the ground by Kaine. Stunned, the fat boy looked into the eyes of an extremely angry boy. Raining punches on the bully, Kaine screamed:

"I don't care if you bully me! But Don't You Dare Touch My Sister!!"

Struggling up, the bully and his gang fled in terror. Panting, Kaine stood up. Turning to his sister, he gave her a thumbs up.

"Are you okay Selene?" he asked. Selene nodded.

"I knew you would protect me big brother! Let's go home now, Mommy is making Shepard's Pie tonight!" She said.

Holding hands, the siblings went home. A few days later, they migrated to the lion city, Singapore.

~10 yrs later~

"Yo, Joe! Wait up dude!" shouted a student from the back of a crowd.

Joey 'Joe' Kaine Tan, 17 yrs old turned and waved at his best friend from primary school.

"Hey Charles!" he replied.

Catching up, Charles paused to catch his breath.

"Phew, hey, heard you aced P.E. again. Creamed the entire 5/4 class huh?" he said,

"Yeah, well, they were just all talk, nothing a actual game of basketball couldn't fix." Joe replied.

"Hah, its the last day of school and they still want to get whipped by the strongest person in sports. Hey, I am enlisting soon, in about a month, what about you?" Charles asked.

"I don't know, still haven't received the letter yet." Joe replied.

"Huh, looks like i am going to slave for my country soon. Then have you gone for the medical yet? If you haven't, i heard that even if you haven't received the letter u can still apply for medical first." Charles asked.

"I haven't gone for the medical yet..." Joe replied.

"Then you wanna come with me? I am heading there now." Charles asked.

"Fine, why not?" Joe said.

Later...

At the medical centre, it was filled with guys waiting their turn. As a procedure, they were all dressed in shorts. Joe and Charles were awaiting their turn when Charles asked:

"You know, I meant to ask a long time ago...how the hell did you get all those scars on your body? And why do you keep your right hand bandaged like that?"

"These scars?" Joe asked, pointing to the numerous scars on his body. Charles nodded.

"Simple, that old fucker i called my dad did this to me. He abused my mom, sister and me because he can't handle the stress of holding jobs." Joe replied plaintively.

"As for my right hand? You don't wanna know and i don't wanna tell." Joe carried on.

"Fine, its hard to imagine what your pops did to you. Its no wonder you are so unhappy all the time. No offense you know." Charles quickly added.

"None taken. Oh, its your turn." Joe said.

After that, when it was Joe's turn, he was greeted by a strange doctor who asked many non-health related questions and was most curious with Joe's right hand. Although he finally gave up trying to get Joe to unbandage his arm, there was still a tinge of what felt like hunger as the doctor stared greedily at his hand as Joe quickly left the room.

"So? How did it go? You were in there quite long." Charles asked, already dressed.

"So so i guess. But that doctor was pretty freaky... Let's just get out of here asap once i finish dressing up." Joe hastily replied.

While they were walking home after taking a bus, Charles suddenly asked:

"Hey, it's your birthday next week! Wanna hang out that day?"

"No. I don't like birthdays and i never celebrate mine." Joe curtly replied.

"Why not? Everyone loves birthdays!" Charles asked, surprised.

"Well, I don't and don't ask me why!" Joe rebuked, storming off.

Charles sighed, knowing that when Joe gives that reaction, it better not to press the matter further. The truth is that Joe has a mark on his right hand which burns every time on his birthday, starting from 12 am of his birthday till 12am the next day. That is also why he constantly bandages his hand. Because, when he was younger, many teachers thought he sported a tattoo and it got him a lot of trouble.

How did he get this mark? Well, we need to go back 8 yrs. That time, Joe's father was struggling to keep his household together and was working at a construction site. One day, the family decide to visit the site and while they were talking, one of the ropes holding large metal pipes snapped, landing on top of Joe and his father. Strangely enough, the pipes suddenly burst into flames and although Joe's father was killed instantly, Joe was found with only medium injuries but he was not burned.

Staying in a coma for a week, he woke up screaming in pain, complaining that his right hand was being seared by a fire. The day he woke up, was on his birthday. After that day, Joe noticed his right palm had some marking on it though it was very light and hard to make out. Subsequently years, the same process repeated and each time the doctors could not find anything wrong with Joe but it was evident that the mark was slowly becoming clearer as years passed. It was as though, each year, it was burning itself onto Joe's hand.

Moving back to present time 1 week later, Joe locked himself in his room, his hand racked with pain. Each year, the pain increased and this time, Joe did not even have the strength to utter a sound. Finally, the ordeal was over and Joe finally fell asleep on his room floor, soaked with his sweat. even then peace did not last for him as his dreams were disturbed by memories of that incident and a giant bird-like entity made completely of fire.

Waking up the next day with a splitting headache, Joe washed up and headed to a nearby coffee shop to buy breakfast for his family. While crossing a traffic light, Joe suddenly felt weak and dizzy. Staggering to the other side of the road, he crossed another traffic light without waiting for the green man and a car sped to wards him.

Honking loudly, the stupid driver refused to slow down and just as he was about to bang into Joe, instinctively, Joe jumped, and to his surprised, he rised well above the car and landed gently on top of it. Shocked, the driver quickly stopped his car and tried to locate the lad he had supposedly runned over.

Staring wide-eyed at Joe who was on top his car, Joe quickly got off and fled the scene asap. What the fuck happened to me? he thought. Buying breakfast and reaching home, he opened the letter box and saw a letter posted to him. opening it soon after, the letter read: Dear Mr Tan, we would like to inform you that you are scheduled to be enlisted within 3 weeks. Please report at XXXXX at 8.30am sharp. Thank you.

Staring at the letter, Joe contemplated how to inform his mother about his sudden enlistment. Thinking so deeply, he did not notice someone creeping up behind him until the letter was snatched from his fingers. Turning around, he saw Selene reading intently at his letter. Before he could snatch it back, she shouted:

"Mom!! Bro is going to shave his hair soon!!"

"Selene! Zip it!" Joe shouted anxiously.

Their mother popping her head out of the door, she said:

"What's that? Joe, are you going for National Service already?"

"No, not yet. 3 more weeks." Joe replied.

"I see, I suppose this day had to come eventually, here, let me prepare some stuff for you." his mother said.

3 weeks later, Joe stood outside the gate of his camp to be. Taking a deep breath, he took his first step into a new journey.