New Order: Prologue
Title: New Order
Author: Pinkframe
Rating: R
Warnings: Language, Sex, Violence, Death
Main Pairing: Shim Changmin/Hwang Tiffany
Other in Chapter Pairings: None
Genre: Drama, Angst, Romance
Concrit: Yeppers
Summary: After over ten years of war and destruction, a new order is put into place. In a world with no hope, eighteen year old Tiffany has found herself in charge of her orphaned cousins, twelve year old Jessica and five year old Taemin. A powerful general from the war, Lee Soo Man, has founded a new regime with his five most trusted soldiers, Yunho, Jaejoong, Yuchun, Junsu and Changmin, at his side. But power and corruption run deep and secrets even deeper.
2010 was the year I was born to a small family in the Midwest of the former United States. I was three years old when the war started.
I was too young to remember much of the start of the war, and as I grew older I only heard little snippets of propaganda filled stories of how it started. My earliest memory of the war was my father donning the proud uniform of an air force officer and marching out the front door, never to be seen again. That memory was definitely not the last.
As I grew older the war continued.
When I was five the rationing began. The intensity of the rationing that would continue until the fall of the modern world was greater even than that which happened in even the hardest hit countries of the Second World War. My mother went countless nights without eating, just to ensure I got what I needed.
My mother received a letter from the military informing her of my father’s death when I was seven. I mourned for a few weeks. She mourned for the rest of her life. When I was just eight my mother killed herself, leaving me in the care of my aunt, Dana.
Slowly school became less about literature and history and more about math and science. Technology was the key to the future. No one even considered the importance of learning where we came from. History was destined to repeat itself.
It was the year I turned eleven that we were evacuated. My family was one of the chosen few given the opportunity to leave. My uncle, Heechul, was a general in the army. If I said he pulled a few strings to get us out it would be the understatement of the century. My aunt, my cousin Jessica and I boarded a plane destined for South Korea and forever said good bye to our home.
South Korea was chosen as the safe haven in the war. For some reason the nation which had been the source of so much turmoil and violence over the years became a place of refuge for a few in the world. Its borders, protected by the world’s largest standing army and support troops from allied nations, seemed impenetrable to the outside world.
The next seven years of my life were spent helping the war effort in any way I could. I helped collect recyclables. I wrote letters of encouragement and thanks to troops. I helped Dana as she gave birth to and began to raise my little cousin Taemin. I was the oldest child, Jessica being six years younger than me, and had the greatest amount of responsibility.
Dana got sick when I turned thirteen. Sickness was more common than starvation. We buried her three days before my fourteenth birthday. Six months later the letter came informing us that uncle Heechul had been killed in action. I was left to care for eight year old Jessica and one year old Taemin.
I was eighteen when the war reached its climactic end. I remember it more vividly than anything else in my life. I sat in the basement of our rundown apartment building, cradling the terrified and screaming, four year old Taemin in my arms. Jessica sat next to me, her face void of any emotion, as we listened to the sounds of gun fire and bombs going off over head. Just a few days before the borders had been overtaken and the enemy had moved in on us.
There was an old man in the basement with us who we only knew by the name of Rain. He had a satellite radio turned to a news station that was pouring information from the war front in the States. He sat the radio in the middle of the room as he crawled against the wall and cuddled with his wife, Hyori. The man narrating what was happening seemed to be watching it through a window. I tried covering Taemin’s ears and I tried to find solace in the fact that he probably didn’t know what they were saying.
For hours and hours on end we listened. My heart skipped a beat every time nuclear weapons were mentioned. All my life I had lived in fear of the weapons that could destroy us. That night, sitting in that basement, the fear was more real than anything I had ever known in my life. Over and over that man on the radio mentioned nuclear weapons and over and over my heart seemed to stop.
And then the radio fell silent.
Everyone in the room looked at each other as Rain reached for it and began to turn dials. He informed us that he hadn’t lost the signal, it wasn’t transmitting anymore. After minutes that felt more like hours Rain connected with a signal in Australia. And the cycle of fear began again.
This new accented announcer told us just what had happened: the United States was a giant pile of rubble, decimated by an enemy daring enough to begin an endless onslaught of death and destruction. But before my homeland was destroyed it managed to fire back on its attackers. Within minutes the two major forces in the war were completely gone, and close to a billion people were dead.
It wasn’t too long before the radio fell silent again. This time Rain was too tired and broken to search for a new signal. We all knew what the silence meant and we didn’t want to listen as we came closer and closer to our own demise.
To this day I don’t know how much time passed. Taemin’s screams and tears put him to sleep after a long while. He slept in my lap and I ran my hands comfortingly through his hair. Jessica fell asleep as well, falling on my shoulder for support. I couldn’t sleep.
I could only think about how it was all going to end. I could only wonder if we were going to make it out alive, and what we would find if we made it. I could only focus my mind on how scarred my two cousins would be from the life they had lived and how scarred I knew I was. I could only imagine what life would be like without war. I could only hope that the Earth wouldn’t be so devastated by what we had done that it couldn’t support us anymore.
At some point the noise of gun fire and bombs ceased above us. Every once in a while someone would look around the room in hopes that another person would suggest we investigate what was happening. No one was ever brave enough. The small stores of supplies we had haphazardly thrown in the basement before locking ourselves in began to dwindle. I was almost certain that if we weren’t going to be killed by an enemy soldier or one of those dreaded nuclear bombs, we would die of starvation.
Hope and a future came through the door in the form of a sergeant named Choi Siwon.
He told us it was over. Everyone in the room sat there silently, slightly blinded by the sun that was streaming through the door from the entrance just up the stairs. Rain was the first to speak, asking if he was serious. The joyful smile he wore and the tears running down his face told us that it was the truth. I hugged little Taemin so close to me in that moment that I was worried I would pop his head right off.
The group that had come together in that basement slowly began to stand. I carried Taemin in my arms up the stairs and into the world. The sun was more than my eyes could take. I didn’t see right for close to half an hour.
Death filled the streets. The war was won, in some miraculous turn of events, on the streets of Seoul. That was the final battle ground; almost everywhere else had been turned into piles of rubble. Any people left alive were most likely either dying of radiation poisoning or unreachable. We were the last ones left and the remaining few million people scattered around the country needed to be counted and organized.
Weeks followed filled with lines and men in uniforms and filling out forms and barely eating anything. I lost count of how many times I told them my name was Hwang Tiffany. I claimed Taemin as my son. I was terrified that if I claimed him as anything less they would take him from me. Despite the fact that I would have had to have been fourteen when he was born, no one protested. Jessica was declared as my sister, and I was given custody of her as well.
After a while I was assigned a small, one bed room apartment to move in to. We continued to receive small amounts of rations. I ate only every few nights. Life had come full circle, I was doing for Jessica and Taemin what my mother had done for me. I was tired and I felt old. For the first time I understood why she took her own life.
A small, civil war broke out only a few months in to our time of peace. It was over the struggle for power. Taemin, just days after turning five, asked me if the fighting was ever going to stop. I just told him not to worry about it, kissed him on the forehead and tucked him in to bed.
On one side was Park Jin Young. He was fighting for democracy to reign in the new world order. I sat in my apartment and prayed for his victory every night. My prayers went unheard.
It was Lee Soo Man and his men who won the week and a half long struggle. He claimed that it was democracy that ruined us. His words were heard and absorbed by a generation, my generation, that had never been taught about the thousands of years of injustice that monarchies and empires had brought. Democracy was lost in classrooms worldwide that were only focused on training scientists and soldiers.
I left Taemin in the care of my neighbor Yeeun and her husband Taecyeon so that I could watch the society I was about to spend the rest of my life in coronate a man who would probably bring the end of human kind.
“My good people,” were the first words that Lee Soo Man uttered to us, “I humbly accept this honor you have bestowed upon me.” I could tell I was not the only one in the crowd who was disgusted by his attempt to make it look like we wanted him to lead us.
“These past years have been trying times, but there is hope for the future. I see a time of rebirth and prosperity. I will learn from the mistakes of those who led us in the past. I will create a brighter future for us all. Have no fear.
“This is the beginning of a new age, an age of peace and prosperity and happiness. You no longer have to fear for the lives of your children. Schools will open back up. Jobs will be created. In a few years time you will think yourselves better off than you ever were.
“Do not fear mourning and sadness. We have just left the darkest hour in human history. But as you remember what you have lost, look to what you will gain. There is hope in this new regime. I will make sure that the sick are healed and that the starving are fed. I will provide you with everything you need. But I will not do this alone.
Soo Man turned and signaled to five men standing stoically behind him, “These men you see before you are the heroes of the war that has just ended. Though they are young, they took the lead and single handedly brought us to victory. It is they who will help me to prosper our new nation.
“I have officially named the most decorated among them as my heir,” he said, as one of the most handsome men I had ever seen in my life stepped forward. He was tall, with a tiny, almost perfectly symmetrical face. “When his Special Forces commander was killed in action, he took the role of leader and led his team on to complete one of the most crucial assignments of the war. Jung Yunho will be at my right hand and his word can only be over ridden by myself.”
“Second will be Kim Jaejoong,” he continued as Yunho stepped back and another man stepped forward. He was more beautiful than I was, but his build was a contrasting strong. Even at a distance his charcoal eyes seemed to dig into me. “He took care of shipments in and out of Korea. His organization and cool head allowed us to get everything we needed in order to win the war. I will put him in charge of rations.”
As Jaejoong stepped back another man moved forward. He was taller than Jaejoong but shorter than Yunho. His frame was a little weaker than the other two, but his face and slightly tussled hair seemed to give him a kind of ruggedness. “This man, just barely out of medical school, was quickly left the most qualified doctor on his medical team. His quick thinking and skill saved the lives of hundreds of men and women. I will put Jaejoong in charge of the medical situation. Park Yuchun will head the medical system.”
“Next is Kim Junsu,” Soo Man informed us as the shortest of the group stepped forward. His face seemed so kind and soft, and yet the stare he was giving to the crowd was harsh. Though the smallest of the group, he almost seemed to attract the most attention. “He was the last remaining technician on his submarine. He single handedly kept it running until it reached our shores, just in time to inform us of our enemies plans. He will be in charge of technology management.”
“Lastly is our new manager of education.” The last man, the tallest but youngest looking of them all, took a few steps forward. His face was seemed a little lopsided. His almond shaped eyes starred off into nothing. Unlike the others he didn’t dare to look into the crowd. “Shim Changmin helped with training during the war and his parents were teachers. He is the most experienced in the classroom setting.”
“A new day has begun,” Soo Man shouted as Changmin returned to his place in line. “Prepare yourselves for a change unlike any other. Never lose hope.”
“Hail Soo Man!” Yunho shouted at the top of his lungs.
The crowd and the other men on stage echoed, “Hail Soo Man!”
“Hail Soo Man!” Yunho repeated.
“Hail Soo Man!” the crowd followed again and again.
Author: Pinkframe
Rating: R
Warnings: Language, Sex, Violence, Death
Main Pairing: Shim Changmin/Hwang Tiffany
Other in Chapter Pairings: None
Genre: Drama, Angst, Romance
Concrit: Yeppers
Summary: After over ten years of war and destruction, a new order is put into place. In a world with no hope, eighteen year old Tiffany has found herself in charge of her orphaned cousins, twelve year old Jessica and five year old Taemin. A powerful general from the war, Lee Soo Man, has founded a new regime with his five most trusted soldiers, Yunho, Jaejoong, Yuchun, Junsu and Changmin, at his side. But power and corruption run deep and secrets even deeper.
2010 was the year I was born to a small family in the Midwest of the former United States. I was three years old when the war started.
I was too young to remember much of the start of the war, and as I grew older I only heard little snippets of propaganda filled stories of how it started. My earliest memory of the war was my father donning the proud uniform of an air force officer and marching out the front door, never to be seen again. That memory was definitely not the last.
As I grew older the war continued.
When I was five the rationing began. The intensity of the rationing that would continue until the fall of the modern world was greater even than that which happened in even the hardest hit countries of the Second World War. My mother went countless nights without eating, just to ensure I got what I needed.
My mother received a letter from the military informing her of my father’s death when I was seven. I mourned for a few weeks. She mourned for the rest of her life. When I was just eight my mother killed herself, leaving me in the care of my aunt, Dana.
Slowly school became less about literature and history and more about math and science. Technology was the key to the future. No one even considered the importance of learning where we came from. History was destined to repeat itself.
It was the year I turned eleven that we were evacuated. My family was one of the chosen few given the opportunity to leave. My uncle, Heechul, was a general in the army. If I said he pulled a few strings to get us out it would be the understatement of the century. My aunt, my cousin Jessica and I boarded a plane destined for South Korea and forever said good bye to our home.
South Korea was chosen as the safe haven in the war. For some reason the nation which had been the source of so much turmoil and violence over the years became a place of refuge for a few in the world. Its borders, protected by the world’s largest standing army and support troops from allied nations, seemed impenetrable to the outside world.
The next seven years of my life were spent helping the war effort in any way I could. I helped collect recyclables. I wrote letters of encouragement and thanks to troops. I helped Dana as she gave birth to and began to raise my little cousin Taemin. I was the oldest child, Jessica being six years younger than me, and had the greatest amount of responsibility.
Dana got sick when I turned thirteen. Sickness was more common than starvation. We buried her three days before my fourteenth birthday. Six months later the letter came informing us that uncle Heechul had been killed in action. I was left to care for eight year old Jessica and one year old Taemin.
I was eighteen when the war reached its climactic end. I remember it more vividly than anything else in my life. I sat in the basement of our rundown apartment building, cradling the terrified and screaming, four year old Taemin in my arms. Jessica sat next to me, her face void of any emotion, as we listened to the sounds of gun fire and bombs going off over head. Just a few days before the borders had been overtaken and the enemy had moved in on us.
There was an old man in the basement with us who we only knew by the name of Rain. He had a satellite radio turned to a news station that was pouring information from the war front in the States. He sat the radio in the middle of the room as he crawled against the wall and cuddled with his wife, Hyori. The man narrating what was happening seemed to be watching it through a window. I tried covering Taemin’s ears and I tried to find solace in the fact that he probably didn’t know what they were saying.
For hours and hours on end we listened. My heart skipped a beat every time nuclear weapons were mentioned. All my life I had lived in fear of the weapons that could destroy us. That night, sitting in that basement, the fear was more real than anything I had ever known in my life. Over and over that man on the radio mentioned nuclear weapons and over and over my heart seemed to stop.
And then the radio fell silent.
Everyone in the room looked at each other as Rain reached for it and began to turn dials. He informed us that he hadn’t lost the signal, it wasn’t transmitting anymore. After minutes that felt more like hours Rain connected with a signal in Australia. And the cycle of fear began again.
This new accented announcer told us just what had happened: the United States was a giant pile of rubble, decimated by an enemy daring enough to begin an endless onslaught of death and destruction. But before my homeland was destroyed it managed to fire back on its attackers. Within minutes the two major forces in the war were completely gone, and close to a billion people were dead.
It wasn’t too long before the radio fell silent again. This time Rain was too tired and broken to search for a new signal. We all knew what the silence meant and we didn’t want to listen as we came closer and closer to our own demise.
To this day I don’t know how much time passed. Taemin’s screams and tears put him to sleep after a long while. He slept in my lap and I ran my hands comfortingly through his hair. Jessica fell asleep as well, falling on my shoulder for support. I couldn’t sleep.
I could only think about how it was all going to end. I could only wonder if we were going to make it out alive, and what we would find if we made it. I could only focus my mind on how scarred my two cousins would be from the life they had lived and how scarred I knew I was. I could only imagine what life would be like without war. I could only hope that the Earth wouldn’t be so devastated by what we had done that it couldn’t support us anymore.
At some point the noise of gun fire and bombs ceased above us. Every once in a while someone would look around the room in hopes that another person would suggest we investigate what was happening. No one was ever brave enough. The small stores of supplies we had haphazardly thrown in the basement before locking ourselves in began to dwindle. I was almost certain that if we weren’t going to be killed by an enemy soldier or one of those dreaded nuclear bombs, we would die of starvation.
Hope and a future came through the door in the form of a sergeant named Choi Siwon.
He told us it was over. Everyone in the room sat there silently, slightly blinded by the sun that was streaming through the door from the entrance just up the stairs. Rain was the first to speak, asking if he was serious. The joyful smile he wore and the tears running down his face told us that it was the truth. I hugged little Taemin so close to me in that moment that I was worried I would pop his head right off.
The group that had come together in that basement slowly began to stand. I carried Taemin in my arms up the stairs and into the world. The sun was more than my eyes could take. I didn’t see right for close to half an hour.
Death filled the streets. The war was won, in some miraculous turn of events, on the streets of Seoul. That was the final battle ground; almost everywhere else had been turned into piles of rubble. Any people left alive were most likely either dying of radiation poisoning or unreachable. We were the last ones left and the remaining few million people scattered around the country needed to be counted and organized.
Weeks followed filled with lines and men in uniforms and filling out forms and barely eating anything. I lost count of how many times I told them my name was Hwang Tiffany. I claimed Taemin as my son. I was terrified that if I claimed him as anything less they would take him from me. Despite the fact that I would have had to have been fourteen when he was born, no one protested. Jessica was declared as my sister, and I was given custody of her as well.
After a while I was assigned a small, one bed room apartment to move in to. We continued to receive small amounts of rations. I ate only every few nights. Life had come full circle, I was doing for Jessica and Taemin what my mother had done for me. I was tired and I felt old. For the first time I understood why she took her own life.
A small, civil war broke out only a few months in to our time of peace. It was over the struggle for power. Taemin, just days after turning five, asked me if the fighting was ever going to stop. I just told him not to worry about it, kissed him on the forehead and tucked him in to bed.
On one side was Park Jin Young. He was fighting for democracy to reign in the new world order. I sat in my apartment and prayed for his victory every night. My prayers went unheard.
It was Lee Soo Man and his men who won the week and a half long struggle. He claimed that it was democracy that ruined us. His words were heard and absorbed by a generation, my generation, that had never been taught about the thousands of years of injustice that monarchies and empires had brought. Democracy was lost in classrooms worldwide that were only focused on training scientists and soldiers.
I left Taemin in the care of my neighbor Yeeun and her husband Taecyeon so that I could watch the society I was about to spend the rest of my life in coronate a man who would probably bring the end of human kind.
“My good people,” were the first words that Lee Soo Man uttered to us, “I humbly accept this honor you have bestowed upon me.” I could tell I was not the only one in the crowd who was disgusted by his attempt to make it look like we wanted him to lead us.
“These past years have been trying times, but there is hope for the future. I see a time of rebirth and prosperity. I will learn from the mistakes of those who led us in the past. I will create a brighter future for us all. Have no fear.
“This is the beginning of a new age, an age of peace and prosperity and happiness. You no longer have to fear for the lives of your children. Schools will open back up. Jobs will be created. In a few years time you will think yourselves better off than you ever were.
“Do not fear mourning and sadness. We have just left the darkest hour in human history. But as you remember what you have lost, look to what you will gain. There is hope in this new regime. I will make sure that the sick are healed and that the starving are fed. I will provide you with everything you need. But I will not do this alone.
Soo Man turned and signaled to five men standing stoically behind him, “These men you see before you are the heroes of the war that has just ended. Though they are young, they took the lead and single handedly brought us to victory. It is they who will help me to prosper our new nation.
“I have officially named the most decorated among them as my heir,” he said, as one of the most handsome men I had ever seen in my life stepped forward. He was tall, with a tiny, almost perfectly symmetrical face. “When his Special Forces commander was killed in action, he took the role of leader and led his team on to complete one of the most crucial assignments of the war. Jung Yunho will be at my right hand and his word can only be over ridden by myself.”
“Second will be Kim Jaejoong,” he continued as Yunho stepped back and another man stepped forward. He was more beautiful than I was, but his build was a contrasting strong. Even at a distance his charcoal eyes seemed to dig into me. “He took care of shipments in and out of Korea. His organization and cool head allowed us to get everything we needed in order to win the war. I will put him in charge of rations.”
As Jaejoong stepped back another man moved forward. He was taller than Jaejoong but shorter than Yunho. His frame was a little weaker than the other two, but his face and slightly tussled hair seemed to give him a kind of ruggedness. “This man, just barely out of medical school, was quickly left the most qualified doctor on his medical team. His quick thinking and skill saved the lives of hundreds of men and women. I will put Jaejoong in charge of the medical situation. Park Yuchun will head the medical system.”
“Next is Kim Junsu,” Soo Man informed us as the shortest of the group stepped forward. His face seemed so kind and soft, and yet the stare he was giving to the crowd was harsh. Though the smallest of the group, he almost seemed to attract the most attention. “He was the last remaining technician on his submarine. He single handedly kept it running until it reached our shores, just in time to inform us of our enemies plans. He will be in charge of technology management.”
“Lastly is our new manager of education.” The last man, the tallest but youngest looking of them all, took a few steps forward. His face was seemed a little lopsided. His almond shaped eyes starred off into nothing. Unlike the others he didn’t dare to look into the crowd. “Shim Changmin helped with training during the war and his parents were teachers. He is the most experienced in the classroom setting.”
“A new day has begun,” Soo Man shouted as Changmin returned to his place in line. “Prepare yourselves for a change unlike any other. Never lose hope.”
“Hail Soo Man!” Yunho shouted at the top of his lungs.
The crowd and the other men on stage echoed, “Hail Soo Man!”
“Hail Soo Man!” Yunho repeated.
“Hail Soo Man!” the crowd followed again and again.