Neil is that type of guy that doesn’t fret too much on the surrounding things. He is more the caring and soft type of guy. A very hardworking yet chill guy.
This is no surprise when you know that Neil got orphaned at an early age and grew up with his grandparents. As the time fly by, he took jobs from left and right while keeping track of his studies to help his grandparents in what he presumes to be a return to their kindness.
As years, passed by, the situation got dire at their place. Being a neutral country that got involved between the war of two superpower countries is not a very accommodating situation for their economy and livelihood.
Announcement about the anticipated bombing from one of the enemies shaken the public, specifically the country he is living in. They will be the direct catcher of this strategic warning shot from the enemy.
In order to hastily evacuate everybody from their small country, they started gathering women, children, and elders first. The men will stay to defend what is left from their homeland and to secure a safe evacuation of everybody. Even the leaders of the country stayed with them.
Such timing can dub fate ridiculous.
Neil’s birthday is exactly the date that the bomb will fall, the evacuation team still hasn’t gone back yet, leaving all men simply accept their fate together with their fallen country.
How Neil accepts his death is by celebrating his birthday it alone in a room full of his unfinished hobbies.
ADHD is no joke in giving him so much unfinished tasked that he always swore to finish.
Well, now that everything will end, might as well finish something.
Neil enters his room with a gloomy expression. Assessing what he wants to do first, he spotted the cranes he has been folding everyday ever since he heard about the story of “Sadako and the Thousand Paper cranes”.
Amongst all the things he’d been doing, the cranes may help him this time to retract his attention from his impending doom.
1000 cranes aren’t much, right?
1000 cranes for a wish. Double up with my “blow the candle” wish.
I already have much. Is 945 much?
He sat down immediately and started folding more cranes without realizing that his birthday hat is still on top of his head.
The silence of the surrounding. All he can hear is the paper folding and his hands caressing every finished pieces.
958…
959…
960…
961…
962…
No cries of the neighbors can be heard.
Not a single soul is scattered and finding more chances of survival.
970…
971…
972…
973…
Flip… fold… flip... fold
980…
981…
982…
983…
The sirens of the bomb alarm rang throughout the place.
Everybody can feel the tension. This is a statement of another country’s power.
The only repercussion is this country’s disappearance with men in it.
990…
991…
992…
Neil can feel the shaking of the ground. The wind’s bustling separation from the core of the falling bomb’s gravity.
Whatever focused he might be, his folding is lacking due to his hands shaking.
He stopped.
His mind wondered.
Are his grandparents, okay?
Is the explosion will be painful?
Will his skin melt from the radiation?
Is there any chance of survival?
He looked behind him and scanned the paper birds filling up is small room.
What will be my wish? A chance of survival?
But, if I die, aren’t I going to see my deceased parents once again. In heaven.
Mom and dad?
Is that how I call when I was a child?
His vision got blurry. He can feel a hot and yet comforting sensation while being surrounded by hundreds of cranes.
Tears started flowing slowly at his unwavering eyes.
Not seeing properly from the stream of emotions that is seeping from his eyes, he still continued folding the papers to become a beautiful crane.
997…
998…
999…
1000…
A blinding bright light surrounded his cold crane filled room.
A million of degrees of temperature and earth-shattering earthquakes followed the fall of the bomb.
In a spectator’s view, it’s a big mushroom cloud that carries radioactive materials that scattered it doom in the wide area within seconds to minutes.
Neil did finish everything, but nobody heard his wish.
The explosion is too loud that even if angels do exist, they cannot even hear what he desired for his last day on earth.
Is it either a selfish or selfless request, nobody knows? What we only know is that the event left a mark on the history as one of the most devastating failures of mankind in bullying their neighboring country to flex wealth and power.
ns 15.158.61.23da2
