A name for Heitsaku | Teen Ink

A name for Heitsaku

June 2, 2009
By Anonymous

Waves lapped up the shore as the sun beat down on the sandy beach. Heitsaku sat at the base of a palm tree and squinted out over the waves. He had long golden hair that he’d recently cut so that it was shorter and wouldn’t get in his eyes. However, after he cut it, it started sticking out in multiple directions so that it seemed as though his hair had never been straight like it had been. He had deep blue eyes that seemed to turn slightly green when he was deep in thought. He wore a flimsy white t-shirt and black sweatpants. He had a black headband torn around his head, and he wore a red sash across his waistline to mark his strength. He was thirteen, but he’d been training for at least a year since… the incident.

He remembered it perfectly, and it haunted his dreams sometimes at night. Around a year ago, he joined a newly formed group of scientists who created machinery meant to advance civilization. Ever since the Final Plague, dozens of similar organizations had sprung up in various locations. He had worked for its founder for a few years before it finally opened, and he could tell that his hard labor had paid off. The main laboratory of the scientists lay a mile south of the mountain where he had met Spentill, the man who founded the organization. They had come to officially name it The Organization, simply because that’s what everyone called it.

Wait… this story seems to be proceeding a bit too fast. Let’s rewind a bit and fill in the details.


Heitsaku Midridge was born on a tiny peninsula, abandoned by his parents and raised by the animals that lived there. The animals took turns taking care of him, first the bears, then the birds, then the tigers, and after he was a year old, every animal in the area had taken care of him and fed him at least once. When he turned three, the animals had to let him go, or he would remember them and tell their secrets to mankind. He began raising himself off of his natural instinct, and his constant hard work brought him to be amazingly strong by human standards. This was all before the Final Plague, and Heitsaku was lucky he was in a wild area of land when the disease spread.
The Final Plague was a disease that started in America when scientists had been working on the cure for utophion, a deadly disease that created acid build up in the victim’s lungs and dissolved their insides. They had scientifically added a dose of chemicals with the utophion disease that should’ve completely destroyed it. However, the dose was slightly too much, and instead of killing it, the chemicals made the utophion worse. Unfortunately, the machine that gave the test results had a glitch in it that didn’t alert them of the danger, but instead told them that the utophion was gone. The scientists shouted for joy, and they thought that utophion was cured. Immediately, the rushed to the closest hospital and told them that they had found a cure that would work. They showed the test results and were allowed to see one of the patients. They injected the patient, and he sat up right immediately. He suddenly felt a lot better. He told them that they were miracle workers, and they all cried tears of joy to have finally fixed utophion. Then, the boy disappeared. Literally. One second, there was a smiling boy, the next, thin air. Everyone suddenly screamed and ran out of the room, because one of the monitors in the room had picked up large quantities of utophion germs in the air. One scientist, who was too confused to move, caught the disease and crumpled to the ground, then disappeared.
Everytime the super-utophion, or as it became more commonly known as the Final Plague, killed a victim, the germs would multiply and spread. The new disease, however, not only killed living things, but also turned giant buildings to dust. It would create compacted amounts of acid and dissolve away at everything it touched. The disease spread rapidly and killed off almost all the population of Earth, and destroyed all of its buildings. Scientists had figured out a way to escape it, however. The utophion virus could not enter into highly forested areas, for the amount of oxygen produced by the trees and plants was enough to keep it at bay. However, the utophion had destroyed all of the radio signals, so they could not spread the word. Almost all of them died, but some managed to get to safety in the few rainforests left. Heitsaku happened to be in one of them.
Ten years after it started, and Heitsaku was eleven years old. The trees had pollinated and spread rapidly once humanity was no longer around to chop them down and burn them, and the Final Plague eventually disappeared, for it lacked victims. The world was peaceful again, and death was rare among the few who survived. Heitsaku continued to grow up in the wilderness, unaware of the disaster that had occurred in the outside world. He forged for berries and ate whatever he could find that was edible. However, he had ruled against eating animals for food. Animals were his friends, and he didn’t want to eat them. He wore thick wool clothes, which came from wool that the sheep had given him kindly. One day as he wandered through the woods, he came across a primitive tribe that had been living in the jungle for hundreds of years, but were unable to advance any further than their common knowledge. He approached them. “Hello,” he said happily to one man.
The man looked up, shocked, and starting screaming in the tribe’s native language. Another man came out of a large hut made of wood and gazed angrily at Heitsaku. The man was large, with muscles rippling out from under his bear skin. He was easily twice Heitsaku’s size, and he had animal blood painted under his eyes. He held a long spear in his right arm and a club in the other. He raised his spear up high and yelled something Heitsaku didn’t understand. Suddenly, all of the tribesmen picked up a spear from a nearby pile of spears and approached Heitsaku with bloodlust. Heitsaku was unaware that they meant harm until one threw a spear like a javelin and nailed a tree close to Heitsaku. He suddenly realized what was happening and ducked, just as another spear flew over the spot where his head used to be. He ran, dodging back and forth to avoid the spears. He lunged for the pile of spears and picked one up, holding it in an instinctive defensive position.
A loud yell came from behind the crowd of tribesmen and they parted, making a long aisle between Heitsaku and… the leader. The leader approached him, his large feet kicking up dirt where he walked. Eventually he stood two feet from Heitsaku and raised his spear, pointing it at the tiny boy. Heitsaku quickly flung his own spear up, catching the leader’s by the point with his own spear’s point. The leader growled and pushed harder, making Heitsaku’s muscles scream with pain. Eventually, both of their spears snapped, and no one took any notice when a strange man showed up and started watching. Heitsaku and the leader took a step back and drew up their fists. The leader swung his right arm at Heitsaku, and Heitsaku noticed that his enormous muscles made him slow. Taking the chance, Heitsaku quickly ducked under the leader and headbutted his gut. Heitsaku’s head hit it like a rock, however, and the leader didn’t even flinch. He instead sent his knee at Heitsaku’s ribs and sent him sprawling to the ground. Heitsaku decided he would outsmart the big leader and played dead. The leader grinned and approached Heitsaku’s body. He lifted it up and grabbed its head. Then, Heitsaku’s eyes popped open and he sent a knee at the leader’s jaw. The leader had no time to react and was caught with the full force of it, his jaw left broken. He howled in pain, which made it hurt worse, and made him howl more.
All of the tribesmen grew fear in their eyes and fled into the trees. The leader fell over, unconscious, and Heitsaku finally took notice of someone watching him from behind the trees. He faced a pair of eyes and said, “Hello?” A man in a white coat approached him and started clapping, a grin on his face.
“Well done! You showed them!” He held out a hand, gesturing for Heitsaku to shake it. Heitsaku grabbed it firmly and started shaking it up and down, his hand small compared to the other man’s. “My name’s Heitsaku,” he told him confidently. “What’s yours?”
“My name is Spentill. How about I just call you something shorter, say, Heit?” He grinned at Heitsaku, and Heitsaku grinned back. “Heit is just fine by me, sir.”

The author's comments:
I wrote this randomly and out of boredome.

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