LY HUYEN (new killer OC) / Vietnam war story / drawing + story by me

• Name: Lý Huyên
• Age: 13 (born in 1956)
• Status: ???
• Investigation status: never investigated.
• Location: Trà Bồng, Western Quảng Ngãi, vietnam.
• MODUS OPERANDI: none.
• Bodies: 2

background:

chapter 1

Someone’s homework

*There is a paper written in vietnamese, you tried to translate the words, it looks like an elementary school assignment.

"Poem about the most important person for me:

03/12/1964

The most important person for me it’s my sister huyên, she always make me happy and teach me new things, we live in a big house that was of my grandparents, we even have our own big field were we grow rice, my sister teached me how to grow the areca nut, when she takes care of it the taste is warmer and less dry, I wonder how, she is a really good farmer and take care of our plants, my mother teached her years ago but now she does everything all on her own.

Sometimes me and huyên play together in the garden, our parents say its too dangerous to go to the woods because of the snakes and also wolves my sister says, so to train me for the future huyên do the wolf and i do the human if she catch me i lose and she have to eat me, i lose always because she is running on all fours and is too fast and when she catches me she tickles me so much that i make strange sounds.

Yesterday huyên showed me a new wolf mask she made, she always made cool stuff with clay and things, they always break so she is alwas making something new, sometimes she gives things to me and we play together as animals, i do the snake and crawl around the house wile she is my wolf guard, looking if our parents are near, they dont like when i crawl, the snake view of the world is really cool though, everything is big and i can see all the insects and things under the fornitures, i would like to be a snake.

My sister is important for me because she is fun to play with and really smart, she already talks like a techer sometimes, one day i hope to become smart and fast like her."

chapter 2

Someone’s letter

*There is a letter written in Vietnamese; you tried to translate the words.

"I’m getting worried about our future. I am writing this so that if anything happens to us, someone can remember it. We live in Sơn Mỹ, a small village. I personally wrote this letter. We are educated and work in our own field, growing mostly rice. But since recent times, things have changed. The presence of military troops of the Republic and the Americans is increasing. The heavy sounds are increasing. That orange smoke… I know it will one day hurt our fields, which are our only means of survival. Their weapons are nothing like the Republic of Vietnam has ever had: huge flying machines, some faster than I could explain. I used to play in these fields. I used to be many things here, but now near these metal machines I only feel weak. I can’t understand why they need such measures. We only want to survive. My mother is getting sick, and I don’t know if my father could keep with all the work if something happens to her… I am a 13 year old girl, and my little brother is only 11. I am tired of seeing soldiers full of expensive weapons passing by every day, and no one ever trying to help us. I don’t know if I should even trust them at this point… My father says they are here to help us. He usually talks to the soldiers when they need to operate near our field. He says that the hamlet program is for our own good, that they’ll give us freedom. I don’t understand how they are doing it now, but I hope one day we will be free to play like we used to."

March 16, 1968.

The rice was almost ready to harvest. Women packed vegetables into baskets to sell at the market. It was the kind of ordinary morning that would be unrecognizable by afternoon. The area had been marked as a Viet Cong stronghold. Charlie Company, 11th Light Infantry Brigade, had been told to expect the 48th Local Force Battalion. Soldiers left the briefing believing the order was to kill every person in the village.

When helicopters landed and the soldiers moved in, they found no enemy fighters. No Viet Cong. No gunfire. What they found was a village of women, children, and old men.

Some soldiers refused to participate. Others followed orders. The killing went on for hours.

Huyên was outdoors with her brother. Her father was at home protecting her mother. Huyên knew he would never abandon her. When she saw the house burning and the bullets coming down like rain, she took her brother's hand and ran through the woods as fast as she could. They ran through the bodies and blood of people they once knew. The more they distanced themselves from the village, the more the sound seemed to grow nearer in their skulls. They ran for hours. The smoke was still filling the sky kilometres away. The atrocious act continued for four hours. More than 500 people were killed that day, including Huyên's parents, teachers, and friends.

The children ran towards the mountains of western Quảng Ngãi for hours, with blood and tears on their bodies. The path disappeared. Their breath came in ragged gasps, then sobs, then nothing. They collapsed in the middle of the trail, tangled together.

chapter 3

Someone’s Crimes

Both children woke up in a hospital in Trà Bồng, the heart of Western Quảng Ngãi, Viet Cong territory. They had been found by a cadre of the 339th Battalion and were given food and medicine, but their minds had been shattered by the event. No medicine would ever bring them back to their old selves.

They began attending a local school to continue their education. The teacher, Minh, saw the letters in Huyên’s pocket. Recognizing her literary talent, he decided to take both of them into his family, giving them beds and food. Minh was an ex-soldier who cared deeply about the revolution. He often spoke to the children of how the bones of dead revolutionaries, when scraped together, made a strong fire due to their great determination. The school in Trà Bồng was not like the one they used to attend; Huyên learned more about the revolution and American interests. Slowly, from the pain she endured over her parents’ death, a rage began to grow.

Huyên stopped playing with her brother as she used to and started spending her free time learning about the war and American army strategies. She asked to join the Viet Cong revolutionary army. Her interest in the revolution was known to the troops, as she often spent time with them asking various questions. However, due to her age, sex, and skinny figure, she was denied. But her rage was not something easily stopped. She wanted revenge; the images of fire burned inside her. Huyên used to care for her parents, for the rice, for her little brother… but now only hate filled her desires. A reckless plan for revenge was made.

April 5, 1969, 8 PM.

Huyên left the house with a long kitchen knife she had sharpened the night before and a map leading to a small South Vietnamese compound. She had learned information about it while talking with various revolutionary units. She moved through the night like a wild animal. She didn't feel fear; somehow, she felt like the instinct had been building up inside of her for a long time. She moved through enemy troops and traps, all of which she had learned from her studying.

She reached the base at 11 PM. There were a couple of sentries outside. She saw a tiny hole she could barely fit in leading to the interior, calculated the time roughly, and then quickly headed in a fast, low, all-fours run. A sentry caught her in the corner of his eye, but due to her speed and tiny, low shape, he thought it was some kind of wild animal.

Huyên found herself inside a sleeping cabin. There were two men sleeping. She saw the flag and the white man's face it was the cabin of an isolated American advisor, and with him, a South Vietnamese Republic soldier was sleeping. Knowing she didn't have much time, she quickly stabbed the American advisor deep in the carotid artery. The man suddenly opened his eyes. Huyên moved away from the body. The man tried to scream, but nothing but blood could come out of his mouth. He started moving his hands and making sounds. Huyên was crouched in a corner, barely looking at the man's movements, but slowly, the movements stopped.

She gradually got up, looking at him from the side, the blood was still flowing, when suddenly, just past the man's body, she saw the Vietnamese man looking at her with wide-open eyes. The scene was silent. The man didn't move; he looked broken. He just looked at her. She grabbed the knife and pulled it out of the bleeding corpse's neck. Her hands were not trembling, but her face was terrorized. She approached the Vietnamese man holding the knife. The man didn't move, but he didn't bat an eye. Once she reached him, she whispered:

"Ông có ở đó... không?" (Were you there… or not?)

"Ông có ở trong... vụ thảm sát Sơn Mỹ không?" (Were you at... the Sơn Mỹ massacre?)

The man stood silent and still, looking at her like he was looking at divine punishment. She looked like his sins, the body he used, the bodies he saw being used, here to bring him to hell. She raised the knife and repeated the question a second time. The man stood as he was, and in a rage, her hands reached his chest, the knife deep in his heart. The man died in silence. Still.

She backed into a corner once again, calibrating her breath. The look of the Vietnamese man brought silent tears to her face. She took the bed sheets and covered him. Then she stood there, looking at the mess.

The cabin door opened slowly. It was time for the sentry switch. She stood still, looking at the bodies. The screams of the soldiers questioning and calling for backup contrasted with the silence of the room. The guns were pointing at her.

She kept looking down. Between the raucous screams, a whisper echoed through the room:

"Xương ông... cũng tạo ra lửa... à?" (Your bones... do they also make fire...?)

Silence filled the room once again, but near after, bullets reached the girl's young body, too young for the trigger, killing the 13-year-old Lý Huyên.

• Status: dead.

Her death was never announced or documented. She was considered a missing person. Her little brother wrote letters for her, desperately throwing them into rivers or leaving them in the woods. You try to translate some of them:

"Huyên, I am still here in Trà Bồng. We are waiting for you. Please come back, the kids need you. You know you were like a teacher for them. But I miss you the most. Let's move on together and escape this place. I'm going to buy tickets for a real airplane, and we are going to escape together. I promise you. Please come back."

"You don't need to do anything for our parents anymore. I know they would only wish for you to have a normal life. Minh was lying, revolutionary bones are not different… I tried at a burial site. They don't make fire. Huyên, we are all the same. Let's go away together and end this bloody mess."

"It's been so long since I last heard your voice. I miss you so much. I don't think you will ever read one of these letters, but I promise you, if I find out the Americans did anything to you, I would get one of their giant bazookas and kill as many as i can. Whoever did this to us, they will fucking explode. I promise you."