#android daybreak | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

wulfgaang · 2 months ago

Text

bluebird.

genre: action / angst / sci-fi / fantasy

rating: T (depictions of violence)

synopsis: Torn from him as a child, she returns as the enemy he must destroy.

In a world where memory is a weapon and love is a liability, Hongjoong fights for the sister who no longer remembers his name.

But can a caged bird still sing when it's had a taste of the open sky?

dystopian big brother!hongjoong x brainwashed!little sister MC ft. ATEEZ (probably no romance, but hey, you never know how the brain worms!)

word count: 2.5k

warnings: MC is named, depictions of violence, blood mention, minor character death implied

a/n: so... I might have wrote this in a fever dream, but I've had this idea rolling around in my head for a long, LONGGGG time: p much since I first became an atiny after seeing the halazia video a year and a half ago! this is the first story I have outlined ever here on tumblr and I feel good about where it might be going! Let's hope other chapters come as easily as the prologue: I wrote this in 3 hours non-stop! not edited. If you enjoy, please comment and I'll add you to the taglist! Thank you kindly x - Marlie

----

Prologue: Like Glue

At first, there was light. Then silence. Then screams. Then red.

Paradigm was falling. Flames ripped through the thatched walls of the homes surrounding his own and made no attempt at stopping. The night fell thick, but the smoke fell thicker while Hongjoong pulled his shirt to cover his nose. He rushed through his house at breakneck speed. Birdy. He had to get to Birdy.

He was under strict orders. His father had already gone ahead with the other members of the Security Force to hold back the Android Guardians from pushing forward into the thier town.

“Hongjoong, get Birdy,” his mother had spoken sharply, wrapping a scarf around her head to keep her long hair from her face. “Head for the Old Wood, to your hideout. Find the boys, keep her safe, do you understand? Swear to me.” He nodded, eyes wide and his breaths coming in gasps. He was awoken from a peaceful sleep by her hands shaking his shoulders just as she was now: it still had to be a dream. “Swear it!” His sweet mother was too sharp, too metallic. Like blood on his lips when he bit them too much in nervousness.

“I s-swear, Mama, I swear.” In the breath of a second, she bent down to kiss his forehead like usual, gave her brightest smile and padded her fingers over his cheeks reverently. He wasn't convinced.

“I love you, baby. I love you both. I always will. Stick like glue.” She spun on her heel and didn’t look back, a satchel of herbs and bandages strapped to her shoulder, her skirts already muddied by the evening’s rain.

“Birdy?” His voice sounded detached and grainy, as if it wasn’t even coming from his throat. The heat made him nauseous as he climbed to the top of the loft where he was sure his younger sister was sleeping. Sweat was already beading on his brow and soaking through his shirt at the chest. “Bird? Birdy! Eunha, where are you?!”

A whimper from the corner of bunched, heavy fabric revealed his sister: small, tired, and clutching her stuffed doll to her chest with the widest eyes he had ever seen from her. “J-Joongie where-”

“There’s no time, we gotta go. Come on, kiddo, I’ll explain when we find Hwa and the others.”

He reached out from atop the ladder and Eunha reached her grubby hand back to him, holding onto his neck like a lifeline. Dolly hung faithfully over his shoulder.

His baby sister, Eunha, was nicknamed Birdy from the day she was born. She had arrived not making a sound under the first blue moon of the year. Yet, the first noise she made was a coo as the jays began to sing at daybreak, much to Hongjoong’s parent’s shock. “You sound just like the birds, little one,” his father had said while he rocked her. “Are you a little Bluebird too, my Eunha?”

Hongjoong noticed she was an odd babe. She was very focused as a toddler, fixating heavily on whatever task she was tried with whether it was using a spoon or trying to read the alphabet. As she aged, she never lost her curiosity but developed an extreme determination to do anything she put her mind to, including learning to fly like the birds she was nicknamed for. After she had leapt from one of the many great oaks around Paradigm and fractured her arm (much to Wooyoung’s laughter and Mingi’s disbelief someone so observant could be so dumb), her brother was glad she quickly realized humans were made for the ground.

—

Hongjoong darted through the back alleys of thicket houses, doing his best to dodge falling tree limbs and thatch from flaming roofs aiming for The Horizon, the secluded hideout he shared with his friends. The screams of townsfolk fighting or running grew quieter as he crossed over to the curled roots of the Old Wood where a natural cave was dug into the side of the stone craigs along its perimeter.

He and his friends had covered it with hanging ivy and found the roots made natural benches along the walls of stone. This past year, they had just finished using Big Oak, a gargantuan fallen monster of a log, to make the Crow’s Nest: a treehouse (or treecastle, as young Jongho had dubbed it), slightly higher than the craigs to oversee the town and watch the sun disappear over the zenith at suppertime. It wasn’t much, but it was something. A safe haven away from the responsibilities of chores and rules: it was where he and the rest of his friends could just be kids.

“You made it, thank god!” Yunho rushed to Hongjoong, pulling him and Birdy into his arms. He may have been younger, but both Yunho and Mingi were nearly a full head taller than him at this point. Maybe he should have drank more milk as a child like his mother had suggested. “We’re still waiting on Sannie, Jongho and Wooyoung. Yeosang went to the Crow’s Nest to look into town and see if he could spot them.”

Seonghwa was perched on a root in the corner of the hideaway sharpening sticks pointy enough to hurt while Mingi was arranging stones in size order. His sling was hanging loosely, yet dutifully in his pocket while his tongue stuck out of the corner of his mouth. Neither boy said a word while focusing on their task, not even acknowledging his arrival

Hongjoong tried to let Birdy go, but she clung desperately to his neck, her legs quivering around his waist. “Don’t wanna get down,” she said, voice muffled in his shoulder. “Don’t wanna let go.”

“I’ll never let go,” Hongjoong soothed, rubbing a hand up and down her back. “I’ll always be here holding your hand, ok? Even if I'm not next to you, I've got your hand always. But for now, I gotta help find the others. Can you stay with Hwa, Yunho and Mingi for me?”

Eunha nodded her head as tiny as she could, a little pout on her lips - unsure, but trusting. Her big brother never lied to her before. Maybe to Mommy so that they could get a cookie for dessert sometimes, but never to her. She was fiddling with the gold of the locket Papa gave her for her birthday around her neck, the chain still a bit too long so it fell to the center of her sternum. “You’ll be back?”

“Of course I will. We stick together. Like glue, right? Promise.” He put his pinky out to his sister, who crossed her own over his in response. A pinkie promise. The most meaningful vow his twelve year old brain could give her.

“Like glue,” she whispered. Eunha let go of his hand, shuffling over to Seonghwa’s side with her dolly dragging in the dirt. Finally, the older boy looked up from his task and smiled, patting his lap to allow the child to sit between his crossed legs. “I’ve got Birdy, Joong,” Seonghwa said steadily, tucking her into his side. “I know you can’t sit still. San's gonna need your help getting through the woods from the back path.”

Hongjoong nodded and took off. He didn’t look back.

—

With his face covered to obscure his features and the Android Guardians closing in, Hongjoong wasn’t surprised to find a slightly panicked San holding hands with a teary eyed Wooyoung and a concerned Jongho scrambling under Paradigm’s high, barbed fence through their self made tunnel.

“They’re coming through the back!” San yelled as he nearly tripped over the gnarled roots at the beginning of the Old Wood. “We have to warn the others! They have to run, The Horizon isn’t safe!”

“But they won’t find it,” Wooyoung cried, nearly blubbering behind his friend. His exhaustion was palpable even from a distance. He must have been trying to help put out the fires judging by the soot on his hot, red hands. “They can’t find it! It’s too well hidden.”

“They have laser sights on their guns, hyung. You saw what happened to Taeho’s folks behind the crates. If it breathes, they’ll find it.” Jongho was gritting his teeth, the limp in his right knee from an accident a few years back not doing him any favors on the rough terrain. If what San said was true, they needed to move further into the Old Wood. The Horizon could be swarmed any second.

“Then there’s no time to lose, let’s go,” he said frankly, ripping the piece of fabric from around his mouth back down to his neck. “We have to go further or we’re toast.”

—

They smelled it before they heard it. The gunpowder. It didn’t take long for the crack of a rifle to echo through the air and a scream from the treetops to echo.

Yeosang.

Hongjoong’s heart thumped in his chest as he sprinted for the clearing. Three armed men, all dressed in white with Eden Authority’s taunting circle symbol embroidered on their shoulder were posted in front of the caves. The smallest one’s rifle was raised to his eye as he took aim at the trees, still tracking a scrambling Yeosang who bobbed and weaved under poorly batted flooring of the Crow’s Nest. His eyebrows were knit together with sweat as he tried to dance around the holes splintered into the ground beneath his feet. The foundation was teetering and creaking with every shift of weight.

“Leave him alone!”

Hongjoong couldn't help himself: he had to say something. Wooyoung gasped from behind a stone. He could imagine Jongho’s hand clapping itself over his lips to stop him from screaming. San’s jaw would be set, but he would remain hidden, ready to spring if need be, always ready for a scrap if it meant they could live another day. He couldn’t imagine what would await anyone if they were taken to Strictland by force based off the stories his father had told him.

Three masked faces all snapped in Hongjoong’s direction, the rifle lowering from the treetops to point at him. Yeosang took the opening to hastily to swing down from his rope ladder and book it for the top of the craig. Planks of Big Oak plummeted to the ground as Crow's Nest's flooring crumbled, unnoticed or uncared for by the Androids. Yeosang would be safe away from any more shots if he stayed behind the stone wall. His heart needed a moment to recover from his high stakes game of whack-a-mole.

“We have been ordered to gather. The children must be gathered. Education must be given as laws have been broken.” The words coming from the Guardian were robotic, transcribed in a script by their microchips. “Gather the children for enlightenment. Gather the children.”

“You’ll have to catch me first,” Hongjoong muttered, grounding his stance, his fists clenched. “I’m not going. My home is here. There’s nothing you can teach me.”

“You will be gathered.”

The largest Guardian charged. He was upon Hongjoong in barely a blink. He nearly didn’t make it, but was able to leap to the side into the bushes before the Android could wrap his metallic arms around his shoulders. The guardian careened forward, face planting into the side of the craig. Hongjoong swore he felt the Earth shake at its impact.

A stone whizzed out from behind him to hit the standing medium guardian who was reaching for his taser. A spark flew from where its ear should have been before its neck curved. The torso appeared to cave in on itself while it crumpled to the floor. Direct hit.

Mingi had one eye closed as he took a breath, lowering his sling shot as he slunk back into the bushes. He didn’t have enough stones for the large Guardian: he would need a boulder if he wanted to take that one out. “Nice shootin’,” Hongjoong whistled. “Now let’s beat it. Where’s Hwa and Birdy? Yunho?”

Both boys shot from their spots while the larger guardian righted himself, clearing the dust off of his vision sensor. Hongjoong could only hope his younger friends were already heading further into the forest as well after realizing the action had started.

“Already deeper in.” Mingi cruised behind him, taking one stride for every two of his. “They buzzed out with Bird as soon as Yeosang called out the bots. Stupid clunkers came from the back entrance of Paradigm when we were expecting it to be Sannie. He didn’t have enough time to get down. I never thought they’d see him up there, he’s always so quiet when he moves. I really thought they got him one time, but Big Oak must have taken the blow.”

Hongjoong clicked his teeth while the brambles became thicker. How the hell was he going to find them through all of this thicket? A shot whizzed past his shoulder just before another landed behind Mingi’s heels. His brain was ringing. They had to move faster, they had to move -

But Hongjoong froze in his tracks. Dolly was on the ground, completely dirtied in the mud of after rain and Seonghwa - Seonghwa was pinned with his knees to the marshy grime of the forset floor with a wound bleeding heavily from the side of his head. Two guardians held him by his back and pushed his face into the mud while he still meagerly struggled against their iron grips. One had a sizeable chunk torn from the side of its face, the circuitry exposed to the elements.

Yunho’s feet, one shoe gone, his body hidden behind a log. His arm held the still electrified half of the Guardian's face locked in fist. The boy didn’t move an inch.

And Birdy? Eunha?

She was crying in a mess of netting, trapped under the weight of sinkers around her little body. Every time she moved, she screamed, tiny shocks electrified her skin to a near singe. It was enough to scar. Enough to scare someone still.

“Joongie!” she cried, fat, hot tears rolling down her cheeks. “Joongie, b-brother, Joongie please!!”

He couldn’t breathe. They got her. The one thing he promised, he swore, had been to keep her safe. He thought they made it, that they were in the clear leaving those other three bozos behind, but this? He had to move he had -

A blearing dizziness bloomed from the side of his head as his world turned sideways. His shoulder hit the ground with a crunch, but he didn’t feel anything, didn’t hear anything other than ringing.

His eyes blinked in snapshots.

Mingi fired another stone at a Guardian holding Seonghwa while Yeosang had grabbed the other by the shoulder to take a sharpened stick to it's neck. A blink again showed Jongho and San wrestling the rifle from the smaller Guardian. Another showed San pulling the trigger point blank in it's face. Yet another showed the larger Guardian and Wooyoung - little Wooyoung no longer crying, but gritting his teeth and blocking the bot's way to Birdy. The next and Wooyoung was on the ground, a mangled heap on the floor.

Then Eunha screamed.

His world came flooding back to him.

Stumbling, he got to his knees, then his feet, his stomach lurching at the nausea of the Earth spinning too fast. Hongjoong heard his blood pulsing in his ears as he pushed forward. His adrenaline jumped, his heart lurched sourly and he was on the bot’s back. He bites and claws and scratches. He yells and he screams. “LET HER GO.”

His words were incoherent babbles other than one phrase.

“LET HER GO!”

It was the only thing he knew.

“LET. HER. GO!”

He wished he could wring this thing’s neck. All he saw was red, red, red. He pulled at thick branches as he passed, his fingers bleeding, hoping the strong wood would sever his circuits enough to release his hold on the netting of most precious cargo he carried to his chest.

All it took was a shake of the Android’s shoulders, no stronger than a gust of wind, to knock Hongjoong completely off kilter and send him plummeting back to the ground. Eunha screamed. Birds shouldn’t be screaming, they should be singing. She has a beautiful voice.

Her hands reached towards him as she was pulled from the netting and taken by the Guardian into the back of a black van. When did they get back to the outskirts of Paradigm? When did they get to a road? She screamed and screamed. For him. For Mommy. For Papa. Then her words didn’t make sense. It was just screeching, like the sounds of a car crash on repeat.

“Let… her…”

The van doors slammed closed.

All he saw was red.

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