Fiction: Group 3
took time to adjust to the unusually bright setting I was in. I looked around the room to see other boys who
seemed to be just about my age. There was a man standing in front of me with a knife, who cut out my
blindfold and gag, I suppose.
“Get up. You don’t want to be late for your new job.”
What new job? Where are my juice cartons and yogurt? I decided to keep these questions to
myself. While walking up the gangplank, I realized I was in Guangzhou. My aunt did not send me to
school, but she was humane enough to let me use my laptop. I found it fun to look up crimes in China and
my research has shown that Guangzhou is a criminal paradise. After a five minute walk through the desolate
port, me and all the boys were led to the back of a cargo truck and shoved in. The entire place was in
darkness after the doors were shut. All the boys broke out in panic. I decided to stay quiet the whole time.
About fifteen minutes later, we were escorted to a building that I soon realized was a factory. We
were taken to a large clearing by some trigger happy men. Each time those men fired a shot into the air; I
would immediately clamp my hands above my head, just in case those rifles pointed to my head. A person
with a gun started yelling out orders. After about ten minutes of blurred Chinese, a man came along handing
us a shovel. We walked to a place where we were greeted by a blast of hot air. What lay in front of me were
piles of rock and huge furnaces. It took me less than a minute to realize that we were kidnapped for forced
labour. An uncomfortable feeling wrapped me when I thought that I could be stuck here for the rest of my
life. I was standing facing the pile of iron ores, when a person shot another bullet into the sky. I quickly
snapped out of my thoughts and started working.
Daylight lasted for a long time. While I was working, an overseer flogged a child who seemed to
be much younger than me. The overseer came with a metal chain and picked him as a target. The child fell
to the floor and wept for an excruciatingly long period of time. I heard a faint murmur as the overseer left.
“Have fun.”
Soon, I heard the engines of a truck faintly rumbling in a distance. A man came around giving us
loaves of whole grain bread. The man was talking as he handed out the bread.
“This’ll get you through a day. Eat sparingly.”
Some of the men seemed to be unusually kind for the shady job they were involved in. I made up
my mind to talk to this person after dinner.
My limbs had never done this kind of strenuous job before. I would wait for the overseer to stop
looking at me and I would slow down my work. At sundown, we were put into groups of twenty. An
armed man took us into the factory. The factory scorched my skin even though the furnaces were shut
down. We were led to a flight of stairs that led us to a hall of underground room. The room was where we
were supposed to sleep. The man locked all twenty of us in the room and left. I determined I was not
spending a night in this hellhole.
Sudden silence fell upon the room when some footsteps were heard. The man who gave us the
food had an announcement to make.
“Anybody needs to go to the bathroom needs to come along with me now.”
I took the chance and said that I needed to go. No one else wanted to leave the room. While
following the man to the bathroom, I tried to engage him in a conversation.
“What’s your name?”
“Lee.”
